I am getting quite tired, bored and depressed (probably in that order) by Christian pastors, authors and magazines responding to the "emerging church".  Fuelled by books by Carson and MacArthur (which have been reviewed many times on this blog) and by a few itinerant presenters, like Gary Gilley (also reviewed at this blog) and some pastors who have taken it upon themselves to make opposition to the emerging church a personal crusade (Tim Cantrell of Honeyridge Baptist is a prime example - see a review of his writings here), South African Christians are being presented with a very one-sided view of the emerging church.  In fact, no, let me call it what it is - normal church-going Christians who want to do what is right and Godly are being told Lies about the Truth.

Now, we also have journalists joining the fray.  The July Joy magazine for example has a cover story on the issue.  This article on the emerging church (EC) is so badly written, so incorrect in it's approach, so lacking in journalistic integrity and so wrong, that I cannot believe that Joy magazine have made it a cover story.

In his book, The Truth Wars, MacArthur called for Christians to stand and fight for the truth.  Most people within the emerging church are wonderful saints of God, trying desperately to understand what God is calling His people to do in the world and trying to understand some of the cultural, gender and historical bias that has for many years blinded us to the truth found in God's Word.  And most of them are trying to live out their faith specifically in the way they respond to criticism and critique.  The upside of this is that most of the leaders of the emerging church around the world are more Christ-like than any of the so-called Christian leaders who attack them.  The downside is that their silence or reticence to get into an old-style evangelical theological wrestling match is taken for consent or defeat.  This could not be further from the truth.  There is part of me that really agrees with MacArthur - we need to fight for the Truth. 

The Truth will indeed set us all free.  And it is becoming more and more obvious that the only way the opponents of the emerging church can succeed in breaking down the emerging Christian approach is to tell lies about it.  Here are a few examples:
The approach is wearingly similar:

• The first thing you do is take a few quotes out of context.  The favourite is Rob Bell's paragraph on the Virgin Birth from Velvet Elvis.  This quote is so badly out of context that you can only assume one of two things:  (1) the person quoting it has not actually read the book, but has rather just cut and paste the quote from someone else, without checking the context at all; and/or (2) the person quoting it is deliberately trying to malign Rob Bell and distort his original message in an untruthful attempt to destroy his credibility.  I am sorry, but I do not see any other options.  If you have the book, the quote is found on page 26 - halfway down on the left hand facing page.  On the very next page - at the top - so you don't even have to turn over a page, you will find this statement:  "I affirm the historic Christian faith, which includes the virgin birth and the Trinity and the inspiration of the Bible and much more.  I'm part of it, and I want to pass it on to the next generation."  The point Bell is trying to make is that seekers must come to God with all their questions and concerns.  Two page turns later in his book (page 31), he explains the point of his virgin birth "what if" scenario, so often repeated by emerging church critics:  "Central to the Christian experience is the art of questioning God.  Not belligerent, arrogant questions that have no respect for our maker, but naked, honest, vulnerable, raw questions, arising out of an awe that comes from engaging the living God."  This is the "manifesto" statement that we should really be discussing, for I think it is this issue of whether or not we are allowed to have questions that actually is one of the key differentiators between traditional evangelical and emerging evangelical Christians.
• The second thing you do to try and discredit the emerging church is claim that they have abandoned the atonement.  What did Christ achieve on the cross, and how is His sacrifice "used" by God and appropriated to humanity?  This has become a modern day litmus test of purity of doctrine.  Here, the favourite person to quote is Steve Chalke. 
  
• Here, we find another approach, and that is to (mis)quote some of the fringe authors or fringe books from mainstream authors, as if they represented the whole movement, AND additionally to fail to mention the wonderfully enriching debates and counter arguments often brought against those authors and books from other emerging church leaders.  I think again that one of the differences between traditional and emerging evangelicalism is this understanding of the role of discussion.  Traditional evangelicals are not used to their leaders having open discussions and frank questions - they are used to prepackaged and finalised end-product "truth" being spoon fed in bite sized chunks to an unthinking audience.  That may be a harsh overstatement, but I think there is a genuine fear that by actually musing in public you could lead people away from the truth.  The bottom line for me is that if anyone is going to critique the emerging church movement, they need to be honest enough to not just quote the attention grabbing opening gambit of a fringe thinker, but need to represent the full scope of debate within the movement on particular issues.  This does include atonement (where, just for the record, no-one I know questions that the cross was a substitutionary propitiation - there, I used and affirmed the magic words, even though no seeker in the world would actually know what I am talking about - the issue is whether it was MORE than that as well.  I think, yes).  It also includes issues like the role of women, approaches to mission, understanding of the Kingdom, social concern and how we should deal with homosexuality.  On this last issue, I think you'd battle to find an emerging chuch thinker who would claim to come to final position on the issue - we are seeking God's will and God's Word.  That does not mean we will never come to a conclusion - it just means we are taking our time to have full and proper deliberations and come to God's Truth in a godly way.  Why is that seen as a bad thing?  (After all, the church took nearly 400 years just to decide which books made up the New Testament - part of ensuring you have Truth is to take the time it takes to hear from everyone and include as many voices as possible in the process - yes, even the fringe voices.  Luther himself was a fringe voice, as was CS Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, Augustine, Paul and Jesus himself.  And after hearing the voices we then come to a considered conclusion when the time is right.  This is the witness of church history, and the way of the people of God from the beginning of time.  It is the process by which Truth is found).
  
• Next, to discredit the emerging church, you need to claim that they have abandoned the Bible and are distorting God's Truth.  This could not be further from the Truth.  Most EC thinkers are very, very serious Bible scholars, who not only know the Scriptures but have a deep love for them, too.  This criticism is the one that most obviously shows the true intent of the critic.  The actual issue is that when EC thinkers have gone back to the Bible, they have discovered that we have been wrong in some of our interpretations.  In the great tradition of all Christian theologians and apologists, they have not been scared to deal with the consequences of realigning some of their deeply held beliefs with a new understanding and clarity of God's Word.  But, where this new understanding differs from the critic's entrenched views, the only response most critics have is to attack the integrity and Christianity of the EC thinker.  What most critics don't see is that their arguments and protestations show much more about themselves than they do about the person they are protesting against.  To claim that someone is a heretic, deliberately distorting God's Word, or abandoning God's Truth, is one of the most serious charges that can be laid against a fellow Christian, but it is nevertheless these charges that are being levelled against EC thinkers, preachers and writers with no real proof except, "what you're saying doesn't fit in with my interpretation of the Bible".  If that were the charge (that our two interpretations of Scripture differ), it would be easier to accept for it's truthfulness.  But to claim that EC thinkers have abandoned Biblical Truth is both a lie and an unacceptable slight of their characters.  It also displays extreme arrogance on behalf of the critic, who is by implication claiming to be God and being infallible in their discernment of truth and error.
  
• You can also claim, as MacArthur has done, that all EC leaders are doomed to end up in financial and sexual scandals.  I suppose the proof of this one is in the pudding, and time will tell.  But the glee with which MacArthur talks about this in his books and sermons makes my hair stand on end - it's as if he is actually is willing them to fail in this way.
• Finally, for my purposes here, to discredit the emerging church, you simply lump them in with postmodernists and claim that they are trying to pander to culture.  Firstly, this is a very patronising and Western view of the world, which thinks that what is going on in America (and all the white parts of the evangelical world that take their spiritual lead from the Bible Belt) IS what culture IS globally.  A simple example will explain:  the emerging church (in general) believes that women have been incorrectly culturally excluded from leadership and teaching positions within the church because of a misunderstanding and incorrect interpretation of the Bible.  It could be thought that in allowing women "equal rights" within the church, EC is just following culture.  However, in Africa, women are still culturally very much excluded, as they are in the Middle East, too.  Emerging churches in Africa are fully countercultural in calling for women leaders and teachers.  In some countries, they face exclusion (I don't know of any examples of persecution, but, knowing Africa, would think that could easily happen).  The same would be true of homosexuality, which is seen as a "white man's issue" by many African church leaders.  The emerging church is not trying to pander to culture, nor is it postmodern in the sense that Carson uses that term.  The Joy magazine article I referred to above actually says, "the church should never adapt to suit the culture."  This is a HUGE point of divergence between traditional and emerging evangelicals.  (Actually, it is impossible to "never adapt" unless you become Amish - does that mean we cannot wear modern clothes to church, or have electricity in our buildings - or meet at night - and should we only sing Gregorian chants?  This is just an insane comment).  I wonder how we should then interpret Paul in the second half of 1 Corinthians 10, or more importantly in 1 Cor 9:19-23?  What EC thinkers are doing is not trying to dumb down the Scriptures - rather, in the light of what we now know, they are trying to look at the Bible and see where we have misinterpreted it in the past, and made mistakes in our thinking and application of God's eternal law.  What is wrong with that?  Unless, of course, we believe that somehow in 2008 we have managed to escape the flow of church history, and, now have arrived at the full and final version of the Truth that cannot be improved upon, nor questioned.

As always, this is a longer response than I intended to a simple article in a Christian magazine.  But, I cannot help myself.  When Christians, in the name of helping other Christians to understand and find the truth, must resort to distorting the truth, bad journalism with no integrity (in the Joy magazine article, a good friend of mine, David Lock, is quoted as a "leader of the emerging church" and his photo used - he was never contacted for comment, nor was he asked permission for the use of his image in the mag, and he, in fact, is not and would not consider himself to be a leader in the emerging church in South Africa - this is bad, bad journalism), and downright lies, then my juices start to flow a bit.

The Truth shall set us free, and we shall be free indeed.

If you are a Christian seeking truth, please, please do not believe the half truths and distortions being pumped out of pulpits and pages about the emerging church.  Part of the journey to truth is to actually do the seeking after truth yourself, not relying on pastors and journalists who spoon feed you only the bits they want to for their own purposes.  God promises you that if you seek Him and His Truth, you will find it.  This seeking involves more than passively accepting what you hear from the pulpit or read in books and magazines that deliberately distort the truth.  Go to the source.  Seek, and you will find.

Amen and Amen! The Joy article is irresponsible in hanging David Lock out there as the only SA example of someone "For the EC". It is irresponsible because people in the pew where he is pastor don't get to discuss the full context of his BT article, nor the nuances of what he is talking about.

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Posted by: JP Farrell 24 Jul, 2008 - 14:10:45

Graeme,

On the point of people not speaking on behalf of the EC positively - have you considered writing a rebuttal or article for Joy Magazine?

It would be great if they'd be willing to publish a balanced article.

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Posted by: Tim Victor 29 Jul, 2008 - 12:47:12

Graeme - I'm sorry you are tired, bored and depressed. See it as a step on the via negativa, making you stronger.

At the moment I feel energised, jumpy and quite ready to defend what G-d is doing.

Have you got a copy of the Joy article (the new issue is now out so it's no longer available). I'd really like to read it and offer some views.

All in all thanks for your efforts.

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Posted by: nic paton 29 Jul, 2008 - 13:14:44

Hi Graeme,

Thanks for your thoughts and insights. They are thought provoking and clear. I began this journey after I first got a copy of Brian McLaren's book 'A generous orthodoxy' - for the first time in years I found a theology that resonated with my own!

I've since written a few articles and a book on this subject, and I continue to think and pray these issues.

In my work with the Global Day of Prayer I have had the incredible blessing of traveling the world and meeting many, many, wonderful Christian people. Among them are some persons you would know (such as Sivin Kit in Malaysia). I have found that there are more and more persons who share the conviction that one can discover, and serve, Christ outside of the conventional Church!

Rich blessing in your ministry,

Dion

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Posted by: Dion Forster 30 Jul, 2008 - 20:16:05

Sorry for the delay in replying to you all. I don't have a digital copy of the magazine, and probably wouldn't post it here even if I did. Sorry.

In terms of a reply, I did write to the editor, and didn't even get the courtesy of an acknowledgement of receipt of my note. I know Joy have written me off as a heretic (I think the phrase they prefer is "liberal"), and would not publish anything I submitted. It must be so easy to live in a world where you can write off someone who disagrees with you as "liberal" and therefore justify to yourself that you can simply ignore him.

In terms of being tired.... I am not tired of what I do. I love my life. See my latest post on my manifesto. I am just weary of having to explain myself to close-minded Christians.

Go with God!

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Posted by: Graeme 04 Aug, 2008 - 22:19:10

Graeme, my rebuttal of the Joy article is here http://www.emergingafrica.info/blog/2008/08/06/joy-magazine-ec...

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Posted by: nic paton 06 Aug, 2008 - 15:24:34

Heh Graeme - good job. Thanks for your integrity and good theology. Maybe you should get this into JOY magazine as a comment.

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Posted by: Peter Veysie 07 Aug, 2008 - 13:21:07

i dont know why rob bell or steve chalke continue to get labelled as EC when both deny it and the EC movement also denies it.

maybe its time to move on from using the EC name just like we did with "postmodern". if the hat no longer fits . . .

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Posted by: andrew jones 09 Aug, 2008 - 05:41:01

<i>"you can also claim, as MacArthur has done, that all EC leaders are doomed to end up in financial and sexual scandals."</i>

Would you supply the documentation where MacArthur has said this? You said, "MacArthur talks about this in his books and sermons" (plural), so you must have multiple sources.

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Posted by: Gary 11 Aug, 2008 - 21:27:23

Summed up a lot of the issues I have with anti-ec rhetoric. Whilst I appreciate some of DA Carson's and John McArthur's contentions the worst book I have seen so far has to be Roger Oakland's 'Faith Undone'. It's abysmally reductionistic and factually anaemic with a side dish of sensationalism.

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Posted by: JSH 15 Aug, 2008 - 15:18:30

Thanks for your post Graeme - I'll refer anyone to it if they go on an anti-EC rant!

Interesting that some people don't seem to change. I used to be at a conservative church that tried to follow MacArthur to the tee. I remember reading "Charasmatic Chaos" as this supposedly brilliant challenge to those who believe spiritual gifts have not ceased!

But unfortunately, instead of a fair attempt at theological reasoning, I found that the book mostly criticized the abuse of the gifts (where I found myself agreeing with him) and then by some strange deduction, therefore they don't exist today!

It's easy to build up a "straw man" and burn it down, and then claim victory over the defeated foe! And I think that's what most of the anti-EC guys are doing. I wish they would concentrate their energies on fighting against the "true lies" - atheism, materialism, secularism etc, rather than waging a war against those who are truly seeking to understand a Being who is beyond us, yet still lives and works with/in us intimately!

Graeme, I guess the question then is: is it really worth trying to defend EC to those who've already decided they won't accept it anyway?

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Posted by: GrayMac 12 Oct, 2008 - 18:49:28

Hi Graymac,

I am as frustrated with emergent people as an increasing number of them seem to be with “conservatives”. We seem to fast, and sadly, be coming to an impasse at which EC’s see conservatives as outmoded people who refuse to listen to anything sensible and conservatives see EC’s as post-modern people who refuse to say anything sensible.

I was tempted, at first to just reply to your comment by saying that it is indeed "easy to build up a straw man and then burn it down"- especially when the EC supplies so much straw. But how can we be more fair and kind with one another. How can we get over our frustrations with one another and have a respectful meaningful, sincere, intelligent conversation? I really do think that the EC folk have a huge share in fast approaching total breakdown in communication.

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Posted by: Willem Bronkhorst 13 Oct, 2008 - 14:53:19

"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making
mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected." GK Chesterton, 1924.

Willem - communication is all of our responsibility. It's the one thing we can, regardless of our position or prejudices, have a share in creating.

I hold it dear, and I don't accept this view that I as an Emergent am contributing to this near complete communication breakdown.

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Posted by: nic paton 28 Oct, 2008 - 17:09:45

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