Tim has today posted the full version of his article to his church website, the full title of which is "Emergent or Divergent? When doubt becomes a virtue." If you haven't got a copy of the August issue of Today magazine, go and take a read. Unfortunately his site doesn't allow comments.

He writes:

for the sake of clarity and fairness I will focus only on the strand of this 'conversation' that labels itself "Emergent Church,” hereafter, "EC” [linked with www.emergentvillage.com]

Unfortunately Tim is not being clear or fair, since he then moves on to quote a bunch of people who are not affiliated with Emergent Village - as proof that this is what Emergent thinks. Quick clarification: "Emergent" is "Emergent Village" (Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt etc), an organisation/network which is a part of the wider emerging church conversation in America, which is part of the global emerging church conversation. Right, got that? So Tim is actually muddying the waters by saying he will on focus on those linked with Emergent Village, and then goes on to talk about people who are not linked with them! I don't think Tim is deliberately trying to be unclear or unfair - he just simply hasn't done his research.

The only person Tim quotes under his heading "What are [those in the Emergent Church] actually teaching?" who is actually associated with Emergent is Brian McLaren. The following aren't:

• Rob Bell (I spoke to Tony Jones (the co-ordinator of Emergent Village) in South Africa last year and specifically asked him about Rob and his relationship to Emergent. Tony said that Emergent had approached Bell to be part of their network, but Bell had declined. So let's state clearly for the record: Rob Bell is not associated with Emergent. He is mentioned twice on the Emergent Village website).

 

• Steve Chalke (Steve is a Christian leader and social activist in the UK, and an ordained Baptist minister. He has nothing to do with Emergent and only merits a single mention on their website).

 

• Roger Saner (yes, that's me! While I don't get an actual mention by name, Tim talks about two of my posts on this site, and names me as one of the "chief proponents of the Emerging Church in South Africa". While I still don't know what that means, and why Tim thinks I am (and why others in the local conversation have, with rather puzzled expressions, said to me, "Huh?!"), I am not part of Emergent Village. Yes, I've met some of the Emergent Village co-ordinating group (Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, Tim Keel, Luke Miller, Bob Pyne, Courtney Perry) but that makes me Emergent as much as making me, say, American, because I met some Americans).

So the real issue Cantrell has, then, is with McLaren and Emergent Village. Including other people who are not part of Emergent - and who do not label themselves as such (his criteria for inclusion) - are factual errors which I hope, for the sake of clarity and fairness, Tim will address. If he wants to talk about "Emergent" church, he should restrict his comments to Brian McLaren, Tony Jones and others who are part of Emergent Village. If he wants to critique the wider emerging church conversation, I suggest he starts with Scot McKnight's "Five streams of the emerging church", and then read the tallskinnykiwi's blog. Only then will he be clear and fair!

Technorati Tags: criticism, Emergent, Tim Cantrell, emerging church

--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

Not fair! How come he doesn't mention me - I've written a stack load of posts on the emerging church both on my own blog and at Emergent Africa. How come Roger gets all the lime light. John MacArthur nailed Brian McLaren and Mark Driscoll in his recent book - so where's the consistency? If he nails Roger he's gotta nail me too? Surely?

I am a bit surprised that my Bishop, whom I hold in the highest regard, Frank Retief endorsed Tim's paper. Whilst I might share some of the concerns Tim has in general about some parts of the EC his paper does not reflect the EC properly.

Tim, I don't know if you read this blog and Roger's replies but as a fellow practitioner of the Reformed faith, someone who is committed to the historic evanglical gospel, to the 5 solas of the Reformation and to absolute truth - I think you've got this one wrong.

I think the EC needs critique but we need to understand the workings of it to do that effectively.

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Posted by: Stephen Murray 23 Aug, 2007 - 16:51:08

A Theology of Kenosis:

Since Tim Cantrell's blog on the above material doesn't allow comments, this rant will be diverted here. Maybe he'll read it...

Cantrell’s claims that the bible is non-mysterious/non-contradictory, and generally as something we can found firm truth claims on:

I won't deny that some statements in the bible are abundantly clear, but I doubt very much that one can construct a systematic, universal, non-contradictory theology that resonates faultlessly with all scripture. I won’t deny that Orthodox theology is not to be taken lightly, but I cannot accept all of it to be written in stone, since history routinely shuffles and reinterprets some of it. Isn't it useful to bear in mind that God's ways are higher than ours, so that we have no guarantee of being able to understand them? Yes, the bible is God's truly expert communication with us; is it not likely that, in part, its purpose is to remind us that God is Greater? – i.e. that we can't get the whole picture, that the universe (never mind God) is too weird and too great for us to understand completely, and that the proper form of worship is to be humbled and blown away by God's awesomeness (in the true sense of 'awesome')? The moment I understand God, or the bible, then I have mastered him and it. In this position, I wouldn't depend on God as much as I depend on my understanding of him: I would only need faith in my mental construction of God, and not in God himself. This, of course is idolatry. Therefore, a little mystery - wonderful and anarchic - goes a long way towards taming Religion's humanistic ego, and flattens its covert project of dispensing with God.

To relate this to Cantrell’s piece:
- The Emergent desystematising of theology (a) does not presume that God is a bad communicator. Rather, it does justice to an empirical fact of biblical interpretation: that we cannot understand all of it or systematise it. (b) It avoids the idolatrously humanistic faith in theology, religion, or one's ability to understand God. Cantrell's 'standing on one's faith' is nothing other than reliance on some epistemologically unjustified theological construction, rather than reliance on God.

This last point needs a bit of clarification: absolutely any instance of relying on God is made possible by the existence of one or more concepts about God, about God's relation to oneself, etc. that render one’s reliance on God intelligible and pragmatic. As such, we rely on concepts – mere human constructions – in order to do anything. What I am criticising, however, is Cantrell's prioritising of doctrine as source, followed by faith - as if we receive faith (and the Spirit) by an intellectual understanding of something. The Word - Jesus - the Spirit - God - is the life of faith and the cause of doctrine. It is God that animates faith; it is God that makes doctrines reliable. Therefore, the causal order - and thus the epistemological succession by which we trust God - is this: (a) God 'breaks in' to someone's life however he wants to. (b) This is followed - where people respond virtuously - by faith in God, love for him, etc. (c) Then, the systematising processes of reason naturally attempt to make one's actions and experiences intelligible, and so they construct a likely explanation of things. This explanation is Theology, which comes to be believed in and trusted. Cantrell's error here is that his cart is before his horse: he puts (c) before (a) – surety of one's doctrines before its source - God himself. That's rather idolatrous, I think. [I am sure that Tim Cantrell doesn’t actually believe that doctrines come before faith, and isn’t actually an idolater, but his negative response to the Emerging Church follows these lines, and is therefore in error.] As far as I'm aware, a properly humble relation to God (which is also a genuinely personal relation to God) involves the striving after his voice, after intimacy with him, WITH THE READINESS to abandon one's prior presumptions should God say so.

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Posted by: Arlyn Culwick 25 Aug, 2007 - 20:36:27

...continued...

But now I’m getting into difficult waters: in the light of the above, religion – and the Church – should be nothing but a collective act of humble penitence, borne out of an awareness of extreme spiritual poverty – that ultimately we have nothing but God’s gracious helping hand to guide us [“Blessed are the poor in spirit…”]. But this conception meets two strong opponents: (1) the notion that the Church is God-ordained – that the authority of tradition is something right and positive – and (2) the reality of church splits, cults, wild theologies based on supposed revelatory experiences dispensed by God himself, and any other seemingly detrimental happening based on supposed emanations from the source of faith, namely, God. I have praised the anarchic and mysterious aspects of Christianity as being essential to non-idolatrous religion, but in doing so have offered no defence against disunity and wild, dangerous cultism, and haven’t justified any mechanism by which a tradition can be preserved. This is a worrying thought when one considers how the Emergent Church, and Christianity as a whole – might justifiably continue to exist, which is something no-one would doubt is a beneficial, vitally important thing. Here’s the crux: if these considerations can’t be dealt with, CANTRELL’S ARGUMENT, SLIGHTLY REVISED, MAY STAND: if tradition / church authority / established doctrines are necessary and God-ordained, then the Emerging Church is violating them in the way Cantrell says it is (i.e. breaking with tradition, not being sure of Orthodox doctrines, and defaulting to mysticism) and its anarchy is unjustified. A wider question here is the problem of how to unite the anarchic elements of Christianity (revelation, personal relations with God) with the institutional elements of Christianity (tradition, doctrine, human authority).

How do you prevent cults? By reminding people that the Church has God-ordained authority, by declaring that a Church’s tradition is sanctioned by that authority, and by indoctrinating people into understanding and believing the doctrines of that tradition. Same goes for validating prophecies and generally making sure God is heard. Of course, the process by which this occurs is nothing more than the working out of how to best transfer one’s tradition onto the next phase of the Church’s history, how to accommodate any new revelatory data into that tradition with minimum alterations to the tradition, and – often – how to placate the opposing parties so that they don’t split off and go in their own direction. This mechanism – the preserving of tradition – is founded on the following value: the church is more important than its members and constituent parties, and it dominates the Church’s decisions in matters of significance. It is oppressive: it is a perfect instance of Durkheim’s ‘mechanical solidarity’. Deviants (i.e. ideas or people) are oppressed or scapegoated.

This mechanism contrasts radically with Jesus’ new commandment: to “love one another as I have loved you.” Of course, this means dying to self – wanting the best for others at any cost to oneself; in short valuing the other more than oneself. I take this message to be the core of Christian morality and the essence of all spiritual warfare, without which no progress is made at all in personal spiritual growth or in causing others to discover Christ. In short, it’s all about ‘spreading the love’. Without this love, this ‘kenosis’, the Great Commission becomes an empty marketing strategy selling worthless religion. Without this kenosis, there is no personal living faith, only selfish, dead beliefs.

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Posted by: Arlyn Culwick 25 Aug, 2007 - 20:37:25

Therefore, how can an institution value its existence more than it values its members? How can the Church defend against its own dissolution (essential to its existence) by sacrificing its own soul (kenotic love)? If the church is to truly embody its deepest message – if it is to truly be Christ’s body – it must die to itself like Christ. It must ‘take up its cross daily’ and sacrifice itself. Resurrection is inevitable. Love’s very mechanism is life through and beyond death. Its purpose is to die, only to live on again. This is the animating spirit of Christianity. This is the nature of the Spirit of God in each one of us. It is waiting for the Church and each one of us to submit to its revolutionary power, so that it may work its way out in every facet of our social and individual existence. I think it is time the Church – as an institution – learnt to die. Individual martyrs are peppered across history at every struggle we’ve undergone, but has the Church ever martyred itself like Jesus did? Has a collective of any size given up its identity, its practices, its beliefs, or its reputation, to avoid oppressing a deviant and to engage with fully self-sacrificial empathy, abandoning all its security out of an earnest desire to ensure that the deviant discovers the utmost love that the collective has for it? Only when this love has broken through to the deviant – when (s)he knows fully and by direct experience the radical saving power of the love of God through the hands of Christ’s body – will both parties (deviant/anarchist and institution) abandon their reactionary stances and fall together with contrite, unguarded frankness on the matters at hand, working together for a resolution. It is only after you die that you can be resurrected. It is only after kenosis that God’s life and truth can enjoy perfect freedom, moulding the Church and all its members into exactly the shape they are intended to be.

So, to say this more practically, this is my answer to the seeming contradiction between Church institutions and spiritual anarchy: (1) the body of Christ must truly be a community of kenotic (self-sacrificial) love: it must die to itself at an individual and social level. (2) This way, it will avoid its idolatrous reliance on itself (its traditions, doctrines, etc.), and will throw itself onto God’s mercy in an intimate, loving reliance. (3) Its tradition will be preserved not by the selfish mechanism of mechanical solidarity, brought about by a fear of losing its sense of security or identity, but by embodying the deepest element of its tradition – kenosis – in all its actions. This way, love will be spread, all parties will be united by God’s love, and all parties will trust God for guidance, in the absence of reactionary competition that drowns out God’s whispering. The tradition will continue because it dies; it will not run from death, fighting off its adversaries and scattering dissidents that form their own traditions; it will die for their sake, redeeming them by showing them its unlimited and unanswerable love for them, and it will be resurrected with Christ. It will conquer and it will reign, by loving and dying.

To bring this back to Cantrell’s article, reacting to the Emerging Church as a ‘deviant other’ – something to be guarded against – is a typical form of scapegoating or persecution. It polarises the parties, prevents empathy, and limits conversation. Arguments start to be directed against the other party, instead of towards the truth that both rightfully should share. The Evangelical Orthodoxy (like all other orthodoxies, I think) fails to engage kenotically with a new development, and thus contributes to the regrettable fragmentation of Protestantism, makes enemies, and brings a witness of disunity to the world, all for the sake of warning the insiders/sheep of a danger to be avoided. The Evangelical institution, instead of embodying love and bringing their wealth of experience, expertise, and maturity to the conversation, defends itself, securing its security of identity at the expense of growing colder (or continuing to be cold); alienating itself from the vital fire of love that draws all things to him, and through which the world will be saved. The Emerging Church may be wrong in the details, but its basic dynamic – an inclusive conversation – is dead-on: it unifies, edifies, and clarifies; it doesn’t have a reputation (Christianese: ‘witness’) to defend; and it approaches God without alienating the world. Orthodoxy could learn something from this, I think.

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Posted by: Arlyn Culwick 25 Aug, 2007 - 20:41:45

You are completely right, Stephen! I think it will blow Tim's mind when he deals with people like you, who share the same theological values and perspectives, and yet are asking the same questions as the emerging church. I don't think Tim spends a lot of time on the internet, and since many at Honeyridge know me since I used to go there (as did Graeme, who also blogs here), this site is probably the only one they know (I've heard it made its way into one or two sermons). He has emailed me and said he's read Scot McKnight and the tallskinnykiwi, but those don't show up in his article...

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