Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches

Just read Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches which was edited by the late Robert Webber. The book features 5 well known leaders within the emergent movement and they give their takes on Scripture, the atonement, the exclusiveness of Christ, and some other doctrines. I am going to react to each section separately, so that will be easier to read.

Mark Driscoll – Biblicist Theology. I appreciated Driscoll’s chapter because it reminds me of what I was taught growing up and in bible college. I also appreciated the scripture that he used to back up his arguments. But as Doug Pagitt said in his response, “he (Driscoll) presents his ideas is to assume that any other view is in error. The truth of the matter is that most Christians in history do not hold the views presented in this chapter. This would mean that all those other views are not biblical and in severe error.” I don’t know if that is what Driscoll was trying to do, but I can say from reading his other writings and listening to him preach, if you disagree with him, then you are wrong and unbiblical. Which is good to hold to an opinion that strongly, the problem is, you must be open to being wrong and learning from other people.

One of the things he talked about as he wrote on the trinity is that “if we lose the doctrine of the trinity, we lose the root system from which we nourish community, love, and friendship” (p. 28). The fact that God is a triune God, founded in community, that explains our desire for community if we are in fact made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26).

He then talked about the atonement and being a Calvinist like Driscoll, I can appreciate his perspective, though I am not as strong as he is in his Reformed theology. Driscoll said, “At first glance, the positions of unlimited and limited atonement are in opposition. But that dilemma is easily resolved by noting two things. First, the two categories are not mutually exclusive. Because Jesus died for the sins of everyone, that means he also died for the sins of the elect. Second, Jesus’ death for all people does not accomplish the same thing as his death for the elect. This point is complicated, but is, in fact, taught in Scripture. 1 Timothy 4:10 says, “we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe.” And 2 Peter 2:1 teaches that Jesus brought heretics whom he will judge and destroy saying, “But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them – bringing swift destruction on themselves.” Simply by dying for everyone, Jesus purchased everyone as his possession, and he then graciously forgives the elect who repent of sin and applies his wrath to the non-elect who are unrepentant of their sin. As a result, Jesus’ death was sufficient to save anyone and only efficient to save those who repent of their sin and trust in him. Therefore, Calvinists like me do not believe anything different than our Arminian brothers and sisters; we simply believe what they believe and more” (p. 31). This was the best part of his chapter and the best explanation of these doctrines.

As he continued talking about the atonement and redemption he said, “I have argued with well-known pastors who believe that redemption was a theory taken from the pagan slave market. But the Bible clearly teaches that the concept of redemption is not taken from paganism, but rather from the Exodus, where the real God crushed Pharaoh and the false gods of Egypt to liberate his people and allow them to worship him freely…The curious paradox of the atoning death of a bloody Jesus rising above the plane of human history with a mocking crown of thorns is that he is offensive in an attractive way. It is the utter horror of the cross that cuts through the chatter, noise, and nonsense of our day to rivet our attention, shut our mouths, and compel us to listen to an impassioned dying man who is crying out for the forgiveness of our sins and to ask why he suffered. Tragically, if we lose the offense of the cross, we also lose the attraction of the cross so that no one is compelled to look at Jesus. Therefore, Jesus does not need a marketing firm or a makeover as much as a prophet to preach the horror of the cross unashamedly” (p. 33).

One of the things that John Burke brought up in his response to Driscoll’s chapter that I also thought, was Driscoll leaves very little room for doubt, mystery or questions. Driscoll very well may be sure in his theology, but I have found after 7 years of bible college and seminary, most of the doctrines that work well in the classroom do not work well in the office, sitting by a bedside in the hospital. The surroundings change some things. That is not to say that they don’t always translate well, sometimes they are difficult.

John Burke – Incarnational Theology. I appreciated John’s chapter because he has a pastor’s heart that comes through in his writing. If you haven’t read his book No Perfect People Allowed, I highly recommend you check it out. You can read my thoughts here.

John writes from the perspective of seeing theology through the eyes of a hurting world. One of the things he said was, “Honestly, I’m not that interested in internal church debates about who has the right or wrong form of theology or Christian practice if the outcome doesn’t impact a hurting, broken world. Jesus came to seek and save what was lost, to restore all things” (p. 52).

One of the things Burke said that I disagree with was “Many have learned that all of the world’s religions are trying to explain the same God, but in our limited ability to truly comprehend, we all describe God a little differently based on our cultural limitations” (p. 55). I don’t think that is true. From what I have read about other religions, we are not trying to explain the same God. This gets at the mountain idea, that God is at the top and we are trying to get there and it doesn’t matter which path you take. It does matter because at the top of the Christian mountain is a different God than at the top of Muslim or Hindu mountain. I explain more here.

Burke writes, “The emerging church must stay anchored to the authority of Scripture, but we must do a better job explaining to our global village why the Scriptures can claim God’s authority.” In response to that Doug Pagitt said, “I wonder if we would not do better to help people connect with God, and then as they are part of our communities, add the internal issues of translating thousands of years of history, story, instruction, and meaning from the Bible. It seems that our history would allow for such a thing. There was serious consideration and debate well into the Reformation over the canonization of certain books of the Bible. So then, are we not asking people of our day to come to certainty on issues that those who preceded us in faith did not require?”

The other thing that jumped out was his thoughts on judging people. This is something that has always bothered me about Christians is that we are so good at judging others, pointing out where they are wrong and how we are right. Burke said, “We need a  new job description as the church, Jesus’ body in the world. As I understand Scripture, we’re misrepresenting Jesus if the world hears our message as a message of judgment. Not even Jesus came into the world to judge the world…there will be a day of judgment, but today is not that day and we are not those judges. So if our job description is not to judge the world, nor to change it by some political system (like the disciples mistakenly assumed Jesus would do in their day), then what should we be about?”

I did like the question he closed his chapter with, “Can we tell our global village, “Jesus was given for you,” so come as you are, and together, God can change us all into what he intended us to be?” That is a great prayer and goal for churches, to be the types of communities where that would be true.

Dan Kimball – Missional Theology. I think of all the chapters, I liked Dan’s the most. Dan is someone who has helped me a great deal from a distance and up close. He thinks like I do when it comes to the reaction of many Christians about their beliefs. He says, “I also think of conservative evangelicals as Christians who are generally afraid of discussing any new expression of theology and who are immediately closed to any new ideas. This always puzzled me, why many conservative evangelicals go into such a “defend and protect” mode when it comes to hearing and discussing other theological views and thoughts. I don’t know why anyone should be afraid of discussing other theological views; we should always be open to questioning in healthy ways what one believes. If not, it seems like we are not confident in what we believe and are afraid of what we might discover” (p. 85).

Dan holds essentially that we should hold to the Nicene Creed as absolute and undebatable, but then we should not hold to things outside of this creed as tightly as we do to the creed. He says, “When we move beyond what the Nicene Creed discusses, I feel that it is not as easy to be saying so confidently that we have things all figured out. I wonder quite often if, beyond the Nicene Creed, we end up shaping some theology or even choosing what theology we believe because of personality and temperament” (p. 92). His church desires to be a “worshipping community of missional theologians” which is something more emerging churches should desire to be. I love Dan’s commitment and passion for scripture, it is something that I share with him.

Dan said that the church needs to see theology as a “mysterious adventure instead of a mathematical puzzle.” He also says that the we need to “believe the Bible is inspired and a compass and an anchor.” I love this analogy. He says, “A compass gives direction but doesn’t go into specifics. I see the Bible as a spiritually – inspired compass, where it gives us strong direction and even gives specifics about many things. But at the same time, there are some topics and things we wish we could have specific answers to, but they remain more of a mystery. It gives direction rather than acting as a how-to answer book. But the Bible gives enough direction so we don’t get totally lost, and it helps us stay on the path and go in the right direction, no matter what culture or time period we live in” (p. 96). Too many people look at the Bible as an answer book that you go with a problem, look up a passage or two, pray through an Old Testament passage and wait for God to do something. I don’t think that is how we are to see the Bible.

You can read more about how Dan sees this kind of theology working in the world here.

Doug Pagitt – Embodied Theology. Pagitt’s chapter was one of the more interesting chapters of the book. The problem is that he didn’t address any of the topics that the authors were supposed to address. He didn’t talk about where he stands on different topics, instead, he talked about how he does theology. Which was interesting, but not overly helpful. Pagitt said, “I consider theology a personal venture. I think there is no way to remove ourselves from our theology. We choose our theology for reasons that can be traced to not only our knowledge and faith, but also to our fears and aspirations”  (p. 120). He goes on, “Theology is the living understanding of the story of God in play with the story of our lives” (p. 121). Again, these both feel right, but I think he missed the point on sharing where he stands on things. This is one of the things that has bothered me about Pagitt in the different places I have interacted with him or heard him speak. I think this is also a place of frustration for many leaders as they think about the emergent conversation, trying to nail it down.

Karen Ward – Communal Theology. Ward definitely had the more creative chapter of the book. She used the analogy of the kitchen and having different cooks helping to cook a meal and how that is how they do theology at her church. While I like this idea of communal theology, I think it gets away from the Biblical idea that the church is a body. By doing theology the way she is proposing, anyone can proclaim themselves the head and say whatever they want, and everyone has to go along with it. This is probably one of the reasons Paul had to address false teaching so much in his letters. While this is popular because many in our culture want to rebel against the idea of authority, the Bible says we all play a different part and when we don’t play that role,the body is out of whack.

I would say that personally, while I enjoyed the book, I definitely resonated more with Kimball had to say. Which I expected going into the book. It is definitely one worth reading and batting around the ideas.

You can read what others thought here, here, here, here, here, here & here.