Thursday, April 22, 2010

Emergend?--Part 1


As a young adult pastor I get a lot of questions about the Emergent/Emerging Village/Church/Conversation/. Given recent articles about its passing/death/transformation/emergence, I thought this was a good time to talk about it.

My first real experience with the Emerg_(insert ending of your choice here) was years ago at a Youth Specialties conference. I attended a Tony Jones workshop about ministering to postmodern youth. I didn’t know anything about Jones, but I knew that postmodernism was a big issue and that I wanted to know more about how to minister to our culture. So, I went.

The first part of the lecture was especially interesting to me. Jones gave a chronology of western philosophy that began with Immanuel Kant and led to Michel Faucault. I followed along as he traced through the centuries to contemporary thought. I noted that he conspicuously left out what I would call “objective thinkers” (philosophers who focused on objective truth as opposed to the knowing subject as the center of knowledge). Every thinker he cited seemed to focus on the knowing subject rather than on objective truth. Assuming his plan was to point out this underlying problem with modern and postmodern thought, I wasn’t concerned. Things didn’t go as I thought they would.

Background info: You might remember Rene Descartes’ famous quote, “I think, therefore I am.” The basic gist of his philosophy was that man’s source of truth is his own reason, not any outside authority. This ruled out general revelation and special revelation (The Bible and Jesus), among other things. His theory marked philosophy’s turn from objective to subjective truth, the beginning of the Enlightenment, and the elevation of human reason over divine revelation. Out of this came modern thought, out of which came postmodern thought. The ultimate root of both is man’s desire to trust himself rather than God’s revelation. It is the rejection of authority.

The modernist idea of reason was to impose human rationality on a universe of disorder. Truth was seen as amorphous and man’s role was to impose order upon it. Absolute truth was in the mind of the modernist. The post-modernists rightly pointed out a myriad of problems with modernist thought. However, rather than remove the root, the post-modernists hacked at the leaves by denying absolute truth in favor of skepticism. Both elevate self rather than God as the center of knowledge.

As Jones finished his overview, I noticed that he did not offer God and His self-revelation as a source for human knowledge. Instead, Jones finishes by saying that postmodern thought should be the basis of Christian thinking in the 21st century. No critique, no appeal to Scriptural authority, just complete acceptance of the latest western philosophical mindset.

This was strange to me. He had just described the constant changing nature of western thought. How could a philosophy that rejects truth and authority be seen as an authority on truth? This is my issue with postmodernism and emergent thinking: they trust the opinions of man rather the revelation of God. They are unwilling to fully surrender.

Do you know what is disturbing? Lack of surrender isn’t isolated to the emergent church. It didn’t start with them, and it won’t end with them. I don’t know if this is the end of the emergent church (I doubt that it is). Regardless, it isn’t the end of self-oriented theology. Every time I open the Bible, I am tempted to re-interpret it according to my preference rather than what I know it says. God calls us to read His Word and surrender. Instead, we read it and rationalize.

Have you ever re-interpreted a passage of Scripture to fit your theology or your comfort?

4 comments:

  1. The ultimate root of both is man’s desire to trust himself rather than God’s revelation. It is the rejection of authority. - So everyone person that has ever used modern or postmodern philosophy is rejecting authority? Seems like that stroke of the brush was a bit too large.

    Instead, Jones finishes by saying that postmodern thought should be the basis of Christian thinking in the 21st century. No critique, no appeal to Scriptural authority, just complete acceptance of the latest western philosophical mindset. - Is it possible that the purpose of that lecture was not to address those issues? Possibly you were asking more of him and that time than he could give you. Not sure if it is really fair to him to discount what he has to say simply from one lecture.

    How could a philosophy that rejects truth and authority be seen as an authority on truth? - I think if you would review post-modern philosophy and theology you would find that it is not so dualistic. There are a lot of post modern theologians and philosophers that are more comfortable closer to the middle (instead of throwing out authority they reassess authority).

    This is my issue with postmodernism and emergent thinking: they trust the opinions of man rather the revelation of God. They are unwilling to fully surrender. - To make such a large discounting of fellow Christians is alarming.

    I realize you are trying to speak in general terms so that you get to a point. But along the way you have just categorized, discounted, and discarded a lot of good Christians. I am just as guilty of this (I am already thinking of a few posts I have done myself) but I am hoping you will realize how unfair that is (as I have had to realize as well).

    Loving you brother,
    -Dan

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  2. Understand that the point of my post was not to label individutal thinkers but to highlight the root issue of self-oriented theology. Keep in mind that the point is that we all have this problem. No one is being discarded or categorized, because all of us are in the same category on this issue. Love you too, brother.

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  3. You Said "Every time I open the Bible, I am tempted to re-interpret it according to my preference rather than what I know it says. God calls us to read His Word and surrender. Instead, we read it and rationalizez'

    Yes, I think unfortunately, we all do this. I am learning to get better at surrendering to his vooice and not what I want him to say to me; it's a constant pull; surrneder. God is teaching me how important is is to read in Context of a whole chapter or even book, to understand it all, and how "my personal passage" really fits, or now, often times, really doesn't fit. May we all learn to lean on the authority of Scripture and seek divine illumination, not just self-justifying information. God has really been working on me, and this is why I am so grateful that at COD, we not only preach the Word, but we do so in context and authority of God's voice and not our own. Blessings, Robin

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  4. Let me also say real quick that in terms of interpretation and contex, this is where the use of a good comentary is helpful, as well as the use of the orignial languages. It is amazing how much I learn and how wider my eyes can see when I read and utilize such tools. I'd encouage everyone who is serious about Bible study to get familiar with tools such as these that I have mentioned. There are plenty of free resoueces online and some free bible sofware programs that a person can start out with and begin to get comfortable with.

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