Emerging Truth?
I’ve recently spoken with someone, who is of the impression that elements within the emerging church want to throw out the literal interpretation of scripture. He’s a brilliant and gifted bible teacher, and it seems he is not alone in his opinions. He called the emerging church “a group within the ranks of evangelical Christianity that is attacking the sufficiency of scripture”. I asked him where he got this idea – he points to some things said by “leaders” in the emerging church… things like “we can’t know what scripture really says/means”. Apparently these people want to decide for themselves what scripture says. He's getting me some info on it.
At any rate, I felt pigeon-holed, painted with the same brush as some wack job. As a part of the emerging church I embrace the literal interpretation of scripture. I want to build my life on the Word of God, it’s my bread, my light, my life. However I’m eager to challenge taboos of my day that are based in tradition and church culture rather than on scripture. I’m willing to investigate and even re-evaluate things that I was taught about what the bible “says”. I wonder if this is the kind of sentiment my academic friend might be misinterpreting. I’m gonna ask him.
At any rate, I felt pigeon-holed, painted with the same brush as some wack job. As a part of the emerging church I embrace the literal interpretation of scripture. I want to build my life on the Word of God, it’s my bread, my light, my life. However I’m eager to challenge taboos of my day that are based in tradition and church culture rather than on scripture. I’m willing to investigate and even re-evaluate things that I was taught about what the bible “says”. I wonder if this is the kind of sentiment my academic friend might be misinterpreting. I’m gonna ask him.
posted by Rob Petkau at 1:49 PM
12 Comments:
Hey Rob, interesting thoughts. Here's a good blog that Dan Kimball, from Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, wrote about this same subject. He calls this fear about emerging church's moving away from orthodox theology an "urban myth".
Whoops, look like my link didn't work. ....
http://www.dankimball.com/vintage_faith/2006/12/from_someone_wh.html
or (hope this works)
From someone who actually visited emerging churches
Hi Rob, I just thought I'd add this link from a very recent article in Christianity today (Jan 17,2007 ), by theologian and author Scot Mckight...
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/february/11.35.html
Also from Dan Kimbal, who said this recently...Much of the criticism about the emerging organic church has focused upon the worries and reservations that, due to their engagement with postmodern philosophies, organic [emerging] churches may subtly begin to embrace heretical beliefs.
Quite frankly, before I embarked on my journey I had a premonition that I would find a proliferation of unorthodox theology..... I was surprised to find this not be widespread in the emerging organic church. The vast majority of my encounters were with orthodox theology, coupled with denominational predilections. Thus, while the methodology is experimental, entrepreneurial, and inventive, their theology usually follows quite closely orthodox and denominational roots."
From following the conversations of folks in the " emerging conversation ", that has been my experience. Sometimes I think we fear the things we don't understand...or take the time to learn about what we don't understand.
Anyway, I hope you and jaime are getting out from behind the boxes and getting settled into the new home.Peace...Ron+
Once more into the breach...
The challenge of this reformation is no different than any other. Each has had a clear mandate to refocus on the purity of the Gospel message and remove the trappings of the years of man given othodoxy.
But just as the man Martin Luther was so right on so many issues and so wrong on others we must sift the barrage of infomation coming from the multiple sources of the emerging generation and sort through the truth...the tradition... and the trash.
My prayer is that the existing church will hear the call from the coffee shop for vibrant red letter Christianity and grab a mug and have a sit...
Once more into the breach...
thats probably the only thing that concerns me about the emerging church.
in my (limited) experience with it, sometimes it seems like there is too much apologizing for the fact that we believe the Bible is absolutely true. It feels like we apologize for the fact that it is convicting, exposing and powerful for the sake of being 'relevant' and in doing so, limit the POWER that it has.
i'm personally more interested in revelation than relevancy.
funny. in philosophy class at school we just studied postmodernism. and i think it's funny b/c words like "postmodernism" and "emerging church" have so many different connotations to so many people.
we studied postmodernism as a philosophy in class, and yes, the majority of it is completely contradictory to Christian theology (ridiculously so, actually). based on the claims of postmodernists, my class (myself included) decided that it would be next to impossible for a person to be a postmodernist and still claim to be a Christian.
but still the term is flung around in churches to describe what I would call a new way of doing "ministry"--ministry that involves valuing people and relationships, looking at new ways of doing things, living in the fullness of the Spirit, being real, etc. And in this context I would definitely call myself a "Christian post-modernist". But in a philosophical context, there would be absolutely no way.
It's the same with the phrase "emerging/emergent church". Emerging church to me describes what God has begun to do in the church today; in this upcoming generation, I believe that he's drawing us back to his heart. But then look at Wikipedia's article on the emerging church. I just wouldn't label myself with ALL of those things by any means.
So I personally think that, in light of conflict of opinions over words, one really must make sure they define terms... especially with words like this. there's just so much happening and so much is changing in the church. it's awesome, and I pray that we all may continue to be of the same heart and mind. And postmodern or not, part of the emerging church or not, I am in love with Christ... and I think that that's what really matters in the end.
Thanks everyone.
As with many other things, a few bad apples can give a good thing(emerging church) a bad taste to some.
Welcome Carissa!
- I've always understood "postmodernism" to be a term which is used to categorize the thinking and world view of a certain age group. (I never liked categorizing ALL people of a certain age).
I see some postmodern thinking in my world view, It can be a healthy thing, but only in so much as it submits to the Lordship of Christ. (2 Cor. 10: 5b)
Literal is such a bad term....
Literal is often determined by our experiences. I literally think the word "Father" means freak, abuser, never there if my experiences with my earthly father have been that way. This is not the intention of the scripture.
The other problem with the word literal is that it automatically puts the sayer of the word in a place of superiority, as in, "Duh, of couse it says that".
In other contexts (think back to when you read "Velvet Elvis" and that teaching on the yoke) the actual meaning is not obvious at all.
I believe in the inerrency of Scripture but not in my ability to determine it, and yet I do believe in my ability to determine it because why would God have given it to us?
I love Dave's comment about "red letter Christianity". Go to Boomers blog and check out the video of Campolo on Stephen Colbert.
I did see that video. Very interesting. Unfortunately I have heard people claim to stick to ONLY the teachings of Jesus and ignore all other scripture. In my mind that is impossible to do given what Jesus says about the rest of scripture.
Here's that video:
http://mikeboomer.blogspot.com/2007/01/interesting.html
What if we deferred to the teachings of Christ in situations where the Bible would seem to give counsel on both sides of the equation? Would that be fair? Just a thot.
Yes...no...yes...I mean no...
oh drat! that one is a hugely tough question Paul
Hey Rob,
Your friend is probably reacting to some of the linguistic theory of postmodern philosophers, who state that all meaning in language is arbitrarily assigned and that true translation of meaning is impossible because there can be no exact one-to-one correspondence between the words of a paragraph in, say, French or a paragraph in English. And even in English, the way words play off of each other can be so variously intepreted by so many different people that it becomes impossible to tell whether there is a 'real' meaning at all, or whether all meaning is just the bias of the interpreter.
This theory of interpretation has been laughed out of the universities by linguistic experts ever since it was first brought forth by Derrida and Foucalt. Not only is most of it untrue, but the true parts are totally uninteresting. Unfortunately it has caught the attention of many fierce-eyed nihilist students and hippie profs in the English departments, and it has become a cultural gospel of sorts that justifies whatever personal mythologies and relativity-based (HA!) ethics you like, and hence the cultural phenomena we see today.
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