Good, Healthy Conversation within Emerging Church

I'm of the opinion that there is a lot of good, healthy conversation going on in what is known as "the emerging church," particularly when the conversation is on more of a theological level that informs praxis effectively. However, I'm increasingly discouraged by comments and attacks that come from the self-proclaimed gatekeepers of evangelical Christianity. These are mostly men who have contributed much to the academic and pastoral circles of the Christian faith in the last 30 years or so and who deserve respect and a listening ear. However, oftentimes, the things that they are writing and saying in reaction to the "emerging church" conversation are not consistent with the character and wisdom that they are known for, at least by me and a few other amateur church leaders and thinkers.

One Christian leader in particular who has seemingly softened his tone and been very helpful in his responses to the emerging church is Michael Horton, who contributed to the book Church in Emerging Culture: 5 Perspectives. He had a very gracious discussion online with Andrew Jones last spring that was somewhat softer than his contribution to the book. If you surf around enough on Andrew's blog, you'll also discover something of his interaction with D.A. Carson, author of Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church. Recently, I also came across this interaction on John O'Keefe's blog with yet another criticism.

In response to the flurry of reactions, opinions, criticisms, and responses to the emerging church dialogue, a few prominent members of this club got together and wrote what I would consider a very gracious, gentle response (and even "subversive rebuke?") to these reactions.

I'm sure there are more recent online conversations between established evangelical leaders and those in the emerging church conversation. (Too bad that there is this "us and them" dichotomy that is developing over the issues, but I guess it's consistent with both the history of protestantism, not to mention the very name "PROTESTant.")

The reason I'm pointing these things out is because I have a lot of friends, family and supporters who are following my life and ministry in Europe. An increasingly big part of that ministry is connected to this movement called the "emerging church." (I myself am not particularly excited about labels, but I realize they can be helpful.) As I think through and blog about some of these issues that are being thrown around by the EC, I realize that there are plenty of people out there who listen to/read respected evangelical leaders who are issuing blanket condemnatory remarks about the EC (eg., Chuck Swindoll, Michael Horton, D.A. Carson, etc.) And without doing the research and thinking through things for themselves, they are buying in to the views of these men about the EC dialogue.

Within historical Evangelical Christianity, there seems to be a tendency to dismiss someone completely whom you might have a disagreement with in one area of theology/doctrine/philosophy. This may be a result of an evangelical presupposition that bad or innacurate theology has the power to corrupt one's mind and even usurp the sovereignty of God. Therefore, in this view, we should put up our defenses and protect ourselves. It is because of this mentality that I have heard people say things like, "Ooo, stay away from those people or from that website because they promote this or that heresy." (In other words, "Don't think for yourself, let my version of 'sound theology' indoctrinate you and do the thinking for you.")

Rubbish. This protectionist, defensive posture is nowhere found in scripture. In fact, if we are to obey Jesus' command to love God with all of our minds, we should be willing to dialogue with people of all sorts of viewpoints and perspectives with humility, realizing that no human being has the monopoly on truth, even in spite of the fact that God has "clearly" revealed Himself to us in Scripture. If this means having an intelligent, respectful conversation with someone outside the narrowly defined boundaries of evangelicalsim, then so be it - especially if it sharpens us and causes us to think more deeply about the issues at hand.

Having said that, I understand scripture's warnings about false teaching and the like. The problem is that it is much too easy to misuse those passages to put controls on our own doctrinal opinions, thus granting ourselves immunity from whatever false teaching is out there threatening our controls.

My apologies if this informative-essay-turned-rant has developed an antagonistic tone (with a British flare - "rubbish"? where'd that come from?). That is not my intention. Evidently, there are some tensions and frustrations that have been bubbling under the surface of my own heart that decided to come out during this increasingly lengthy blog session.

Much more to be said about these things, but I think it's time I cut myself off and turned my attention back to the wedding planning. =)