New Testament scholar Scott McKnight is a friend of the Emerging Church, but not in an uncritical way. He sees the movement as in part a protest movement. Its primary target is evangelicalism, and McKnight identifies ten items of concern. I quote at large:-
First, it protests too much tom-fakery in traditional churches. This generation of Christians is not as capable or interested in putting up fronts when it comes to “church” or when it gathers.
Why we’re not emergent (by two guys who should be) is a good read, if slighty bitty due to its two-author format (Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck each contribute alternative chapters).
The best part for me is towards the end, where Kevin relates the Letters to the Seven Churches (Revelation 2-3) to our contemporary church situation.
Here’s the overview:-
Ephesus was your loveless fundamentalist church. They were orthodox, moral, and hardworking. But they didn’t love either the lost or one another. …
I’ve just finished reading Emerging Churches – Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures. It is touted (by Brian MacLaren, no less) as the best guide to emerging churches around.
It’s an engagingly-written book, based on interviews with 50 EC leaders in US and UK. Although it therefore incorporates a range of opinions and experiences, the whole thing is given a measure of coherence by the thoughtful commentary of the two researchers/authors.
Gibbs & Bolger summarise the characteristics of emerging churches in their conclusion (pp235ff):-
…Emerging churches are not young adult services, Gen-X churches, churches-within-a-church, seeker churches, purpose-driven or new paradigm churches, fundamentalist churches, or even evangelical churches.
Nine down, one to go, in this chapter-by-chapter review of Dave Tomlinson’s The Post-Evangelical. Even though the book has been out for some time (published in the UK in 1995) I’ve gone back to it because it seems to have had a seminal importance in the ‘movement’ now known as the ’emerging church’.
In the final chapter, Tomlinson argues that post-evangelicalism is linked to the shift from the modern to the postmodern. The challenge is ‘how to express eternal truth in and through this emerging culture.’ …
Why We’re Not Emergent (by two guys who should be) by Kevin DeYoung & Ted Kluck. Moody, 2008.
This book argues that “you can be young, passionate about Jesus Christ, surrounded by diversity, engaged in a postmodern world, reared in evangelicalism and not be an emergent Christian. In fact…it would be better if you weren’t.”
Here are some reviews:-
Vintage Faith. Dan Kimball, one of the ‘leaders’ of the EC ‘movement’ is not unappreciative. His piece is not actually a review, but a reflection on the need for each ‘side’ of the debate to be open to constructive criticism from the other. …
The Emerging Church is a rapidly shifting mix of ideas and activities. The term covers a wide spectrum, from those who retain the historic evangelical message but seek new methods of commending it and celebrating it, to others who raise more radical questions questions about the message itself.
The following list represents speakers from various points along the spectrum.…
The Post-Evangelical is entitled ‘Let Me Tell You a Story’. This chapter deals with the failure of modern, and the rise of the postmodern, ‘stories’.
What is the new postmodern world that is emerging?
…It is a world which understands itself through biological rather than mechanistic models; a world where people see themselves as belonging to the environment, rather than over it or apart from it; a world distrustful of institutions, hierarchies, centralized bureaucarcies and male dominated organizations.
In chapter 5 – ‘Woolly Liberals?’ – Dave Tomlinson informs us that he shares with evangelicals a rejection of theological liberalism. But what he does not share are evangelicals’ reasons for opposing liberalism.
Indeed, he expresses amazement at ‘how paranoid evangelicals are about liberalism’. Evangelicals are constantly patrolling their boundaries, lest one of their number should trespass into liberal territory.
This is not to suggest, says Tomlinson, that theology and doctrine are unimportant:
…‘Far from it; but there is no evidence from the Bible that it is (sic) of ultimate importance.
Chapter 4 of Dave Tomlinson’s The Post-Evangelical is entitled ‘Longing to Grow’. In this chapter, an attempt is made to explain the evangelical ‘problem’ in terms of a couple of psychological models. ‘The problem’ for Tomlinson, as is becoming increasingly clear as the book develops, is that evangelicals are way too sure of themselves and need to grow up and start doubting things.
A couple of stories are given of people who started off as evangelicals but (you guessed it) became disillusioned with evangelical certaintism and found no welcome for their doubts and questions. …
Why are many people irritated by certain aspects of ‘evangelical culture’? This is the question addressed in chapter 3 of Dave Tomlinson’s book The Post-Evangelical. A summary and a brief comment follow.
Even in New Testament times, people were arguing that Gentile believers must submit to the Jewish law in order to be real Christians. Throughout the Christian era, the missionary enterprise has been dogged by similar problems – requiring indigenous peoples to adopt not only a change of heart but also a change of culture. …
