Cantrell is worried that the emerging church conversation is trying to do away with truth and has a low view of Scripture. Perhaps he has neglected to read "An Emergent Response to Critics" published over 2 years ago. Here is a section from the response which talks about how those in Emergent Village approach truth (with their views on Scripture tossed in):

"Sixth, we would like to clarify, contrary to statements and inferences made by some, that yes, we truly believe there is such a thing as truth and truth matters - if we did not believe this, we would have no good reason to write or speak; no, we are not moral or epistemological relativists any more than anyone or any community is who takes hermeneutical positions - we believe that radical relativism is absurd and dangerous, as is arrogant absolutism; yes, we affirm the historic Trinitarian Christian faith and the ancient creeds, and seek to learn from all of church history - and we honor the church's great teachers and leaders from East and West, North and South; yes, we believe that Jesus is the crucified and risen Savior of the cosmos and no one comes to the Father except through Jesus; no, we do not pit reason against experience but seek to use all our God-given faculties to love and serve God and our neighbors; no, we do not endorse false dichotomies - and we regret any false dichotomies unintentionally made by or about us (even in this paragraph!); and yes, we affirm that we love, have confidence in, seek to obey, and strive accurately to teach the sacred Scriptures, because our greatest desire is to be followers and servants of the Word of God, Jesus Christ. We regret that we have either been unclear or misinterpreted in these and other areas.

But we also acknowledge that we each find great joy and promise in dialogue and conversation, even about the items noted in the previous paragraph. Throughout the history of the church, followers of Jesus have come to know what they believe and how they believe it by being open to the honest critique and varied perspectives of others. We are radically open to the possibility that our hermeneutic stance will be greatly enriched in conversation with others. In other words, we value dialogue very highly, and we are convinced that open and generous dialogue - rather than chilling criticism and censorship - offers the greatest hope for the future of the church in the world.

We regret that some of our critics have made hasty generalizations and drawn erroneous conclusions based on limited and selective data. We would welcome future critics to converse with us directly and to visit our churches as part of their research. Of course, they would find weaknesses among us, as they would among any group of Christians, including their own. But we believe that they would also find much to celebrate and find many of their suspicions relieved when they see our high regard for the Scriptures, for truth, for worship, for evangelism, for spiritual formation, and for our fellow Christians - including our critics themselves."

Cantrell should note that the accusation against those in the emerging church conversation not believing in truth is not a new one. Chuck Colson made this accusation back in 2003. Brian McLaren responded with an open letter reply, notably these paragraphs (Cantrell is on record saying he is no expert on postmodernism - it would seem he has the same view of it that Colson does in his above-linked article):

What you describe as postmodernism - a claim that "there is no such thing as truth,” a rejection of all moral values, or their reduction to mere preferences - may have been purported by a few crazed graduate students for a few minutes at a late-night drinking party. But to paint the whole movement with that brush is inaccurate.

...

Postmodern people like me - you can call us post-postmoderns if you want to continue asserting postmodernity is dead, but please don't call us truth-denying relativists, because we're not, even though we don't like your unreflective use of words like "absolute truth” - people like me want neither the self-indulgent narcissism of the one nor the unreflective absolutism of the other.

...

My desire to be faithful to reality/truth (an indispensable facet of my desire to be faithful to the true and living God) requires me to face the complexities of how people in reality use the word truth in these differing ways. If that's not complex enough, then people start adding modifiers like "absolute” and "objective” and "subjective” and "relative” - and they seldom realize the even greater complexity and unspoken philosophical freight that goes along with these terms. I'm afraid your column reinforces the most simplistic (mis)understandings of these issues.

Don Carson chimed in in 2004 by saying the emerging truth didn't believe in truth or moral absolutes. The tallskinnykiwi said his remarks were not true and it was wrong to say so. He writes,

Regarding the [implied] accusation that emerging church people do not believe in truth or moral absolutes and that they tolerate everything, my response is this . . .
1. That is not true.
2. That is not right.
3. I will not tolerate it.
4. Because of answers 1-3, either Carson's description of someone in the emerging church is not correct, or I am not a part of the emerging church.

He also clarifies some thoughts around the word "postmodern" and affirms the bigger picture:

Much of the criticism has revolved around the word "postmodern". It was a word we brought up in the mid nineties to show that the changes facing ministry in the current age were more than generational, and actually involved a significant worldview shift. The word came back to bite us in the backside, and in some cases we stopped using it. In other cases, we still refer to it, since there is much more to be learned from postmodernism and it may be too early to abandon everything connected to it. Although we simply have to use words that create understanding and not words that erect blockades. The shift in terminology has gone from youth Church to GenX to Postmodern to Emergent, and even the word emergent is getting a spanking amidst talk of "post-emergent". Its a good thing we are not locked into concepts or words, all of which are temporal.

Lets stay locked onto Jesus and keep building His church. If we get spanked for doing a bad job in describing what God is doing through us, then lets learn to listen, loosen our grip on what doesn't translate, and find something that does. Loosen our grip, i say, but not abandon in haste.

Perhaps this "definition" of postmodernism will help Cantrell more:

Take everything you have read about the emerging culture being materialist, nihilistic, relativistic, consumeristic, individualistic, and of having no ethical code or moral standard. Now, invert it. Because the opposite is much closer to the truth. You are now looking at a culture with a deeper code of ethics, greater capacity for spirituality, a desire for less rather than more, a holistic view of following Jesus and a stronger relational commitment to community. That is a real challenge for the church and requires a whole new level of faith, godliness, prayerful reliance on God and an honesty that has been previously absent."

This is the culture into which the emerging church is incarnating.

-------------------------------x----------------------------------------

Isn't it interesting that the emerging church isn't the only part of the body of Christ that is accused of postmodern relativism? Baptist missionaries who refused to sign the Baptist Faith and Message were given the same spanking: (via tallskinnykiwi):

"(Rankin) accuses those who reject the 2000 BF&M of postmodern theology which he seems to define as rejection of absolute truth as revealed in Jesus Christ and recorded in scripture," said Parks. "Let it be understood that liberal, postmodern theology was never accepted among staff or missionaries of the Foreign Mission Board (now the IMB)." Keith Parks in Baptists Today.

And what does one of the leaders in the emerging church conversation say to that?

I agree with Parks. The missionaries (like many of us in the emerging church) have not necessarilly changed their view on Scripture. But they are more aware (suspicious) of the abuse of texts by powerful people. To be forced to sign a 1963 document written by men, even if they agree with it, is credalism and in conflict with their beliefs. In this sense, the emerging church finds itself in a large community of misunderstood believers.

Tony Jones posted an emotional entry almost 3 years ago on what the emerging church is about (keep in mind he's writing to an American audience...and note to Steven Lottering - this is why I don't consider your church "emerging"!):

In the last week, I have read or heard these statements:

"What emergent is discovering is stuff Lutherans have known for 500 years."

"Anabaptists don't have to become postmodern because we were never modern."

"Emergent is trying to marry liturgical tradition to evangelical impulse, and Episcopalians have been doing that for centuries."

"Baptists have always been anti-institutional."

"I was emergent when I planted a church in the early 1970's."

"Emergent leaders need to adopt the posture of humble learners at the feet of those who were the emerging church leaders of their day."

No, no, no, no, no!

Emergent is trying to do something else, something new. We are not trying to get back to what Luther and Calvin were doing. We are not attempting to recover primitivist views of scripture, like the Anabaptists. We are not trying to plant churches that are relevant to GenXers and GenYers. Why are we trying to do something new?

Because your denominations, though formed to provide safety and security for ordained persons to follow God's call with integrity, are now controlled by principalities and powers that demand ordination candidates to ignore the revolutionary aspects of the Bible in order to pass examinations. (Similarly, the electoral college system was developed with good reason; it now serves merely to devalue the votes of those in the minority in the "uncontested states.")

Because the tenure process at your theological insitutions, though developed to demand the same level of scholarship that is required at secular insitutions based on the German university model, is now demonic; it requires scholars to write not for the church but for the academy, and to in other (but related) ways ignore the revolutionary call of the gospel.

More and more of us are now convinced that something new cannot happen within the existing organizations and institutions. They are irredeemably reified into patterns of institutional conservatism and survival; they are irredeemably sold out to market forces and have thus commodified the radical, liberating message of the gospel.

Thus I am becoming more convinced that the emerging church movement has more in common with liberationist thought than it does with the Reformation. That is, we are on a quest to unmask how the gospel has been used to serve the (often oppressive) interests of those who are already in charge. Comments from those in comfortable positions of power, like those above, are to be expected, for they show the subtle ways in which we will be marginalized. But we will not allow ourselves to be marginalized, to be labeled as "left," "right," "angry," or "immature." No, we have been disenfranchized. We have taken the blue pill, and there's no going back.

We must now work at the next level, building a web of support for those few women and men who are courageous enough to stand up at a presbytery meeting and walk out...and not look back.

Conclusion? To suggest that the emerging church doesn't care about truth, is throwing out Scripture, are relativists who don't believe in moral absolutes, is quite simply, incorrect.

Technorati Tags: emerging church, Tim Cantrell, Chuck Colson, tallskinnykiwi, criticism, Brian McLaren, Tony J

 --x--

This post is a part of a series of responses to an article in the August 2007 edition of Today Magazine written by Tim Cantrell (available online). The full series is:
Emergent or Divergent?
Part 2: When is misquoting someone and ignoring context ok?
Part 3: Tea break (and why I won't throw vegetables at Tim)
Part 4: Truth, Scripture and Clarity
Part 5: Rob Bell and denying the Virgin Birth
Part 6: Emergent, Emergent Village and the emerging church conversation
Part 7: Clarity vs Mystery

well done!

reply to this comment

Posted by: Makeesha Fisher 20 Aug, 2007 - 06:42:48

"we affirm that we love, have confidence in, seek to obey, and strive accurately to teach the sacred Scriptures, because our greatest desire is to be followers and servants of the Word of God, Jesus Christ."

- this statement still leaves open quite a lot of room for differing approaches to Scripture. A person can 'not throw out scriputre' but yet at the same time move the goal posts to the point that it becomes dangerous. So for example, the EV statement says that they strive to 'accurately teach the sacred scriptures' yet at the same time McLaren says that determing the meaning of the text is possibly not the most important thing rather the text should capture our immagination and curiosity ("Adventures in Missing the Point" p.84). Now in the rest of that chapter McLaren seems to uphold a fairly orthodox view of Scripture (and as per usual he reacts against American 'evangelical' views of scripture) which leaves me to think that if he does believe the Bible is God's Word - which I think he does - then he's depreciating the notion of determining what God HAS said. Instead we just revel in the mystery.

I don't get that - I don't get how that's helpful, how it honours God or how it helps our fellow brothers and sisters. So we all have bible study together and we go home, utterly perplexed by the passage we've studied but we're all stoked because we've 'experienced' the mystery of the Bible!?

I just don't think thats what the early church were doing in Acts 2 when they applied themselves to the apostles teaching (bearing in mind that I think McLaren believes that the apostles teaching is part of the Bible in the form of the epistles).

Now I don't deny that there are difficulties in scripture and that we are to approach them with humility - and SOMETIMES - we have to say we just don't know - but surely the rest of the time we should be concerned with meaning - and hold to a view of Scripture that calls us to seek out that meaning because God wants us to seek out and understand that meaning? Or am I just too modernist?

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Posted by: Stephen Murray 20 Aug, 2007 - 09:44:58

Yes, that's a good point Stephen. I would think Brian would be quite careful to *not* say, "Go ahead and read Scripture, embrace the mystery, and don't bother about what it actually means." This is why so many in the EC like N.T. Wright - precisely *because* he has specific meanings and arguments about Jesus/ecclesiology/eschatology. My favourite N.T. Wright quote right now is, "If we are to have a mission-shaped church, then we need an eschatalogically-shaped mission."

For the record, Brian has said, "I do *not* reject the authority of Scripture." I don't think he - or anyone else - is advocating a fuzzy approach either. Where some of this comes from is reacting against using Scripture in a violent way by banging other people over the head while saying, "THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS! BELIEVE IT!" and then losing much of the other riches within the text.

I was in a lecture at the Grahamstown festival given by the head of Hebrew studies at UCT, and she says she reads the Bible like she reads Shakespeare - like literature. This sort of approach can easily be lost if we *only* ask, "What does this mean? What does this mean?"

So I see this partly as a reaction against a head-based, intellectual reading. Interesting, other traditions will sing Scripture during their public worship - a sense of soaking in the text, in the narrative - where the primary intention isn't, "What does this mean?" but rather experiential. I hope that's what McLaren is getting towards when he's advocating reveling in the mystery of Scripture.

Personally, I stopped reading the Bible for many years because each time I did, instead of coming to the text as it was, all I could hear was the layers of meaning given to me, the many sermons preached on a particular passage, people telling me what it meant. For me, those layers got in between the text and me, and the only way I could figure out how to come to the text as it was, was to stop reading the Bible. Maybe that was a wrong thing to do - although it has worked - so any other suggestions (different translation/studying Greek or Hebrew/reading it in a different language?) are welcome! What do you do when you've lost the Bible?

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Posted by: Roger Saner 20 Aug, 2007 - 11:08:26

I think that emerging church people want to make a very clear distinction between God, and his Word. One is worthy of worship; worshipping the other would make it into an idol (and *then* what do you do?!).

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Posted by: Roger Saner 20 Aug, 2007 - 11:10:52

First let me mention something about my experience in the Reformed tradition. As I see it I've been part of two similar yet distinct reformed traditions in this country. I was converted and grew up in the reformed baptist tradition. I've since moved to the Church of England (CESA) in which I believe exists a younger more 'New School' if you like Reformed tradition. In CESA, from what I can see, the 'old school' is very similar to the Reformed baptists (they even conference together).

In this newer younger expression of the reformed tradition I was always taught to read the bible as literature (like the UCT prof mentioned) with careful attention to literary genre, position in redemptive history and secualr history - all those things. And it is through reading the bible this way that I come to meaning - and not only that but I can have a fair level of confidence about the meaning and what God is trying to convey. The purpose of the Word is relationship and for that to effectively take place I need to know, with some level of certainty what God is saying otherwise the relationship breaks down - because I'm not actually listening to him I'm listening to myself instead.

That's how I read my bible - I read it that I might have relationship with God - I want to know what he's like and I want to know what an appropriate repsonse is. Worshipping the bible is biliolotary - it is an offense against God - I don't want that - I want to worship God alone - but it seems to me that he has designated a way through which that relationship is to be understood and I cannot remove the Bible from that process because it is intimately part of that relationship.

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Posted by: Stephen Murray 20 Aug, 2007 - 11:54:49

Thanks Stephen, that's helpful :)

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Posted by: Roger Saner 20 Aug, 2007 - 12:40:51

Hey Roger,

Great post. Re: when you've lost the Bible ... I've found it extremely helpful to enter the narrative of the Bible in the presence of people that are different from me. Especially my poor friends in Diepsloot ...

reply to this comment

Posted by: Tom Smith 21 Aug, 2007 - 14:37:09

For me, postmodernity is simply the quality of the water in which this world of ours swims. Is just is. How we respond to it is what is important.

Some reject it, but this is like saying "2007 is evil, what you need is to be living in 1985." We don't have a choice, the world, in which G-d has called us to live, is a postmodern world.

I personally celebrate much of what constitutes pomo. I see it as a blessing, an enablement to do things in G-d we havent been able to before.

And Roger, check out my now complete AVJ setup, as an example of what I am saying.

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Posted by: nic paton 21 Aug, 2007 - 16:37:57

For me, postmodernity is simply the quality of the water in which this world of ours swims. Is just is. How we respond to it is what is important.

Some reject it, but this is like saying "2007 is evil, what you need is to be living in 1985." We don't have a choice, the world, in which G-d has called us to live, is a postmodern world.

I personally celebrate much of what constitutes pomo. I see it as a blessing, an enablement to do things in G-d we havent been able to before.

And Roger, check out my now complete AVJ setup, as an example of what I am saying.

reply to this comment

Posted by: nic paton 21 Aug, 2007 - 16:38:02

Sorry to jump in late on this thread. This comment is directed at Stephen Murray's comment on 20 August, 09:44 (the second in the list above).

You quote from Adventures in Missing the Point. Seriously, Stephen. After reading that chapter on the Bible, is that what you took away? Why didn't you get this:

"We must learn by doing, intertwining theory with practice. This more ancient (and contemporary) approach to learning means that we won't expect to understand much more of the Bible until we start doing what we already know. This pushes us toward more missional readings of the Bible: What am I - and what are we - supposed to be doing in this world these days, to fit in with God's creative and ongoing mission? (as opposed to propositional or doctrinal readings). That is the urgent contemporary question. Sure, that requires careful thinking, careful analysis, careful scholarship ... but these intellectual pursuits are always in service of the missional calling."

I don't know of anyone in the emerging church movement who would say that they are not concerned with meaning. What would be the point of that?

What they are saying is that we have to be careful to think that we have everything sorted out. We have to be careful to think that we have all the answers (or even all the questions). That doesn't mean we give up the search for these. On the contrary, it spurs us on to further study, and more in depth analysis.

Your last post above, Stephen (20 Aug, 11:54), represents a position very close to many EC preachers and teachers. Rob Bell is a genius, for example, in understanding the original context and cultural milieu in which Biblical passages were written, and are rooted. I think people have a problem with EC because the intepretations reached after these studies are different from traditional Christian intepretations. EC Christians seem more comfortable with this than Reformed Christians, who think that everyone who ever studies a verse must always get to the same interpretative conclusion. This ignores the impact of the reader's own culture on the reading itself. Postmodernism was, at least in part, simply trying to be honest about the interpretitive lens the reader brings to the reading.

But, please, if you quote McLaren, please at least do him the justice of quoting him contextually and not implying he is saying the opposite of what he is actually saying.

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Posted by: Graeme 02 Sep, 2007 - 20:43:29

I agree with your observation and that's why I tried to stress in my original post that in the rest of the chapter McLaren upholds a fairly orthodox view of Scripture. The reason I picked out that section is because in the number of sermons of McLaren that I've downloaded off the web I often (not always) find him seeming to revel in this mystery instead and using that as the application of a particular text rather than attempting to determine the meaning. But that's just my impression, I could be wrong and so I take your point and certainly don't want to paint my first comment as the be all and end all of McLaren's views on the Bible.

Moving to the second part of your comment, you said, 'EC Christians seem more comfortable with this than Reformed Christians, who think that everyone who ever studies a verse must always get to the same interpretative conclusion.'

I'm not sure this is entirely fair on all of the Reformed tradition. Just as the EC is diverse so is the Reformed tradition. Historically the Reformed tradition has always placed a high premium in understanding the various contexts, and whilst I would argue that certain streams of the Reformed tradition have lost that (and in some ways replaced it with a Reformed systematic theology grid through which they process their Bible interpretation), I would also argue that many Reformed theologians are at the cutting edge of hermeneutics today and are not afraid to appeal to fresh readings of the text that even challenge and impact those systematic grids. Some examples:

Every emerging person's favourite theologian, Don Carson, has actually challenged the Reformed community on a number of issues (and this has often brought him criticism within his own ranks) - he's challenged the traditional view of the relationship between law and gospel. He's challenged them on the issue of gender-inclusive langauge (he is largely in favour of the more gender-inclusive bibles as opposed to the rest of the Reformed community). He's challenged the traditional systematic approach to apologetics arguing rather for the bible as story and that apologetics should be done accordingly - telling the whole story rather than isolated propositional truths. He even wrote a book, 'Exegetical Fallacies' which is a wholesale critique of evangelical exegesis. Carson might have got his critique of the EC wrong, but the one thing he isn't is a closed minded fundamentalist.

There are other examples: David Peterson, former principal of Oak Hill, a Reformed Anglican college in London, wrote a book in which he challenged the Reformed understanding and use of the word 'Sanctification' and demonstrated that by and large the term was being used inconsistently with its meaning in Scripture.

There are others like Kevin Vanhoozer, Craig Blomberg, Graeme Goldsworthy, Douglas Moo...I could go on.

The point I want to make is this. The Reformed tradition is not a frozen entity that is still sitting with Calvin's institutes and refusing to budge from them in any way. I know this isn't a picture of all in the Reformed tradition but it is a picture of some. So as I will try to be fair to McLaren and the EC in my comments I expect the same from all in the EC towards the Reformed tradition and evangelicalism.

BTW The comment system won't let me use my full name- huh?

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Posted by: Stephen 03 Sep, 2007 - 08:48:26

Ja, silly commenting system... Doesn't like new lines either. It won't let you use your full name because you're actually registered on the site as "Stephen Murray" so to use that name, make sure you're logged in. There's a login box on the right hand side (which magically disappeared and I'm magically re-instating it).

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