The emergent church... Good yet ultimately deadly

I have a friend who, whether he believes it or not, is a postmodern thinking, which combined with his Christian faith makes him something of an emergent Christian. I remember a discussion we had a while back where he said that truth is subjective, but I replied that while truth may have different applications to different people and that what is is in fact is whether we perceive it properly or not. I had no idea I was facing emergent principles.

Before I criticize, let me state that I think the emergent church can perform the function of a needed corrective within orthodoxy. First off, orthodoxy has become a bit too steeped into unquestioning dogmatism. Witness the fact that if someone disagrees with a core group of doctrines, they are immediately branded as unbelievers and heretics. Of course these core teachings vary from one group to the next. However, the typical response isn't to look at oneself and consider what is the basis why the other person believes as they do, but the immediate response is criticism. The emergent church in some ways has a proper response. Their epistemology (while I think it is ultimately flawed) allows them to have a dialogue with others. My friend would openly engage in a conversation with others, and at one time had a more graceful spirit than I when it came to disagreements.

Furthermore, there is am emphasis of experience within the emergent church that is sorely lacking in the orthodox church. There is a sense of suspicion within the church when it comes to feelings and experience. I had one lady in one of my churches said during the Bible Study time (she leads it) that Christianity isn't about feelings. The orthodox church feels that in order to defend truth, one must exclude subjective experiences. The emergent church on the other hand tries to meet the people where they are, addresses, discusses, and legitimizes experiences, which is part of what makes them a progressively more popular sect within Christianity. They do a better job of reaching out than the mainstream church is doing.

Also, there is an acknowledgment of cultural differences in the emergent church. They recognize that there are differences between cultures and do not attempt to subvert the culture to the church. The unfortunate history of the mainstream church is that it has often time forced not only religious conversion, but cultural conversion. When such changes occur swiftly, it creates a sense of confusion within the "converted" group since what in fact happens is a strange conglomeration of old and new ideas that they have not time to fuse together. Its one thing to exert a natural influence, but when the church feels their culture is in fact the moral standard and forces that upon a group, it creates turmoil and eventually leads to suspicion and division in the subjected group.

I could go further, but I think there are some principles Christianity could take from the emergent church. However, I feel despite the value the emergent church has, it is ultimately flawed so far as that it takes the Christian faith and makes it powerless.

Going back to what I mentioned, the emergent church does a better job of dialoguing others. But the reason is that their epistemology ultimately rejects any claims that one group could potentially be closer to the truth than another. Because there have been a variety of interpretations in the past, the postmodern and emergent movement have essentially rejected any notion that one could have truth. While we can never be truly certain of the truth, it is possible for us to have truth without us being certain that it is true.

Furthermore, the Scriptures talk about faith, which in its nature often times excludes outright certainty, but the postmodern church have essentially argued in a round about way against the validity of faith. In one sense faith is upheld in that we can have subjective beliefs, but in the other sense, since we can be certain of nothing, we can not have faith that anything is really true. Of course this is to deny faith by the very thing it is an answer to, the lack of absolute certainty. The emergent church essentially conflicts with this idea of faith that Jesus and the Apostles talked about. In the end, emergents don't often times know what to believe. In this way, the emergent church is diametrically opposed to the message of the Bible.

Next, the emergent church has recognized the validity of experience. But what has happened is essentially experience, or more importantly the interpretations of experiences, are not met with a healthy skepticism. In one sense, since our understanding (and therefore our interpretations) can not be validated, then the logical conclusion is to reject skepticism of our own beliefs. Sure, in one sense there is a form skepticism, but it is a hallow skepticism in my opinion. The skepticism does not lead to a pursuit of absolute truth, since one can not be absolutely certain, but instead a shallow acceptance of any interpretations.

Now let me add that I do not believe that we need to be skeptical so as to become cynical. We need a healthy skepticism that asks why can what we believe not be true while maintaining our belief (until we study it deeper and find we need to reform our beliefs).

All this leads to nothing really. I remember reading Brian McLaren's book A Generous Orthodoxy, and while it was littered with statements of so-called humility (though much of it smacked of "humility" rooted in arrogance) and talked about the positives of other denominational beliefs, I was left feeling like I had wasted my time reading the book, honestly. I learned nothing new and upon deeper analysis of the book, it felt very shallow. Maybe this is due to my world-view and epistemology and judging shallowness/deepness according to my view.

However, the irony is that emergents who seek to reach out to the beliefs of others fail to reach out to those who have an epistemology that conflicts with theirs. Furthermore, for their lack of criticism of other beliefs, there are sure as heck critical of "modern" churches (take in mind I wouldn't classify myself as a modernist, nor postmodernist). Upon a deeper analysis of it, all the emergent church is is simply a reaction to the orthodox and "modern" church, with no real foundation of its own instead of opposing the mainstream church. And that is, in my opinion, why it is ultimately so shallow. It stands not for something so much as it stands against something else. And when that mistake is made, the groups that initially is fighting against something that needs change goes to an extreme and becomes just as much of a problem as the original institution from which it was fighting against (the Protestant Reformation is another example of a needed reform gone too extreme).

When we get down to the intellectual basis, it is a matter of epistemology. Postmodernists and the emergent church feel that because we can not be certain of truth we should give up any real claims to being able to have the truth. It is essentially a quitter mentality. They demand certainty to accept truth, which is not too much unlike the modern mentality (especially in regards to faith). Postmodernists are essentially atheistic in their mind set in that they can not see it, therefore one must reject the notion (either in the absolute sense of the atheist or the practical sense of postmodernism). Once again, it goes back to the notion of faith (in the Biblical sense and not mere cognitive function that all people practice).