A New Kind of Christian: The Emergent Church: Part IV

    Continuing with our review of The New Christians:  Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier (TNC)* by emergent (EC) author, Tony Jones, we'll note briefly an idea that comes up more than once in TNC, the idea that being EC is decidedly humble in nature.

Chapter three entitled "Who Are The Emergent Christians?" and chapter four, "It's The Theology, Stupid" sandwiches between them a "Dispatch" about a truck driver named Frank (pp. 86-92; In fact, various "dispatches" separate each chapter in Jones' book).  This particular story captures a key attribute about which EC boasts.  For them, humility characterizes the ethos of EC.

Trucker Frank is a Bible College graduate, following which three short-lived pastorates ended his life in formal ministry when his marriage broke up.  It was then that Frank became a truck driver.

Jones tells of Frank and him meeting for a beer one night while his truck was being unloaded.  Frank told him his story, a gripping tale of one rejection after another with Frank finally being accepted by Solomon's Porch, an Emergent Church in Minneapolis--which, by the way, is Jones' church.  Frank's immediate love for this new place is captured by his emboldened line: 

"When they said that the sermon that's done on Sunday night is put together on Tuesday by the group--that they come up with the sermon collectively--I thought, this is perfect" (p.90).

Humility, therefore, characterizes the community.  A sort of open-endedness prevails.  Here, it is captured by being "open" toward the collective interpretation of the congregation at large with which, of course, nothing seems to be inherently misguided about such an approach.  It must be used cautiously, however. 

But that's just it.  For EC, caution is the very vice which cannot be tolerated.  Allow Jones to summarize: 

"Most churches--I daresay, 99 percent of churches in America--don't allow just anyone to speak at any time, especially not members with checkered pasts.  But because anyone, including Trucker Frank, can speak freely in this emergent church, my seminary-trained eyes were opened to find a truth in the Bible that had previously eluded me" (p.92).

It seems for EC--at least according to Jones--allowing "anyone to speak at anytime" demonstrates a humble environment.  From my side of the street, it could also demonstrate a foolish environment. 

For the record, the new truth that Jones said had eluded his "seminary-trained eyes" concerned Jesus' words in Matthew 18: 15-17 about brother sinning against brother, especially verse 17:  "If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector."

The new perspective is, since it was the Pharisees who banned publicans and heathens not Jesus, it is wrong to see this passages as a way to discipline unrepentant church members.  Rather, as Jones says:

"Frank was right!  This saying of Jesus doesn't call for excommunication at all but rather for opening the church doors wide, welcoming even those who've committed sins against people inside the church" (p.91).

Interesting. 

This principle again is teased out in chapter four:  "Emergents believe that awareness of our relative position--to God, to one another, and to history--breeds biblical humility, not relativistic apathy" (p.115).  EC desires to project itself as both confident and humble (open).  They outright reject approaches to truth about God and His Kingdom that "pin it down",  or put it "in a nutshell", or, "sum it up" or "boil it down" (p.114).  Instead they desire "biblical humility". 

Or put another way, it's what Jones refers to as "epistemic humility", a common trait among EC.  He writes:  "Humility about what people can know, about the limits of human knowledge and our ability to accurately articulate that knowledge" (p. 140).

One easily visible pattern in Jones' book is, while he goes on and on about being humble toward other people's views, and that EC is known for its open-ended, non-conclusive disposition as we observed above, at the same time, he takes a pretty, hard-nosed attitude toward those with whom he contends.  Note the following scattered throughout TNC:

• "the [contemporary] theologian and biblical scholar have lost all touch with reality" (XIX)
• "In the twenty-first century, it's not God who's dead.  It's the church." (p.4)
• "they've both [mainline left and evangelical right] got irresolvable problems, from an emergent perspective" (p.7)
• "Evangelicals read the Bible like a science book...mainliners...read the Bible with a healthy dose of skepticism...But I had started to think that either of these approaches is a misappropriation of the Bible (p.45)
• "Nor is there any such thing as a "sacred-secular" divide" (p.75)
• "I'm not sure it's even possible to be an orthodox Christian if you're not living a life of reconciliation" (p. 78)
• "Emergents don't have a problem with Lockean individual rights per se; their problem is with the fact that unalienable, individual rights is not a biblical-theological virtue" (p.81)
• "Here's the major theological flaw...a similar defect afflicts the so-called dispensational view of the end-time...These propose the dubious theology...the problem with these theologies ultimately make God sub-subservient to human beings...That's why it's so farfetched to manufacture a God who's handcuffed...[these theologies] dream up a contingent God" (p.99)
• "[Pertaining to Campus Crusade] the cancer was the theology that they held"(p.102)
• "...it's a flawed system of belief that begets such ruinous ways of being Christian (and human)" (p.102)
• "What I now know is the left and right camps of Christians were locked in an epic struggle for the heart of the faith, but they were both founded on the fallacious system called foundationalism..." (p.103)
• "Too much bad theology has engendered too many unhealthy churches and too many people who don't quite get the whole "following Christ" way of life" (p.104)
• "We're all relativists" (p.117)
• "If one has rock-solid certainty, it's only natural to suppose that all other viewpoints are wrong and therefore impose one's certainty on others" (p.141)
• "Emergents find this kind of of moralization of scripture almost as distasteful as they find the story of Jephthah...This type of moralization belittles scripture, turning the confounding and often frightening Bible into a pleasant bedtime story for children.  I submit there is no moral in Jephthah's story" (p.146, italics original)
• "emergents think objectivity is as real as a unicorn" (p.152)
• "In the aftermath of the myth of objectivity, of fideisms and airtight systems, we're left to embrace subjectivity, to revel in it..." (p.155)

There are others i could assemble if I had time.  My point is simply this:  While Jones asserts that EC is, at its core, "open" and "humble" and "accepting" and "nonjudgmental" and "flexible" and "teachable" and "non-conclusionary" the chorus above reveals that Jones appears to hold his view just as decidedly vigorous as those he chastises. 

In addition, for Jones to come to his fixed conclusions that the twenty-first century church is dead; that evangelicals possess "irresolvable problems"; that individual rights is not a biblical-theological virtue; that there is no "sacred-secular" divide; that Campus Crusade's theology is a "cancer" and consequently "flawed"; that dispensationalism is "dubious theology"; that while objectivity is as mythical as a unicorn, we are left to revel in our subjectivism--for Jones to conclude such, not only undermines his bold insistence that EC is "humble" and "open" and "non-conclusionary" but also magnificently disassembles the platform upon which Emergent is constructed--anti-Enlightenment. 

In other words, the only apparent way that Jones could confidently make his conclusions, which the list I compiled above obviously demonstrates, is through the twin lens which, according to Jones himself, stem from the Enlightenment--reason and empirical evidence.  After all, it takes empirical data to conclude the American church is dead and it takes a certain amount of rational argument to sustain the judgment that dispensationalism is dubious theology.  Yet, the Enlightenment is the very perp Emergent seeks to indict.

I suppose in the end, however, that's no real barrier.  Jones can always say, "Of course!  That's the paradox of adventure Emergent keeps talking about!."

With that, I am...

Peter

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V

*If you are planning on purchasing this book, please note the book-bar to your right.  Jones' book is there.  Click on the picture and it will route you directly to the proper Amazon.com page.

Comments

[volfan007]

Peter,

I'll tell you what these EC guys sound like. They sound confused, very confused.

David

[Strider]

I am still withholding judgment Peter. I appreciate what you are saying here but I keep seeing Jesus preaching love and acceptance and then yelling at the pharisees. He was able to be humble and approachable while still condemning that which must be condemned. I am in agreement on many of the things the EC sees as the problems (including dispensationalism)but I have not been convinced yet that they are providing the solution God is calling us to.

[peter lumpkins]

Srider,

Thanks. I am unsure if you mean, from the critique I offered, that I may be suggesting that Jesus did not preach love to outsiders and "yell" at the Pharisees. Though I would not put it in those terms, perhaps the effect works out to the same. Thus I do not disagree with what you are saying.

My contention with Jones and Trucker Frank is the obvious innovative yet thoroughly misguided use of Jesus' words in MT 18. To suggest that Jesus is not speaking of disciplinary measures in the verses turns the entire passage upside down. Of course, for ECs like Jones, that is precisely what they are driving at concerning "traditional" Christianity. For them, every interpretation of every verse is up for grabs. And the lens through which they view the verses is the postmodern spectacles.

Nor do I consider myself dispensational per se. However, I have a profound respect for their hermeneutic and would never castigate it as "dubious" theology which "manufactures" a "subservient" God. That is entirely unfair, a bogus caricature, and frankly goes squarely against the "humble" and/or "generous" orthodoxy that EC attempts to portray concerning themselves.

Here is the truth as I see it with ECs like Jones: they appear to be extremely open to radical leftist agendas, practicing homosexuals, and people in other religions. They are hard-nosed and radically critical of evangelicalism, especially fundamentalists. Incidentally, many of these EC folk seem to have come out of a legalistic fundamentalist background.

Later, Strider. With that, I am...

Peter