I rarely place a resource in the “you cannot miss this” category. But I want to encourage/exhort you to take 1.5 hrs out of your day to check out this one. Recently, Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill church in Seattle, WA (not to be confused with Rob Bell’s “Mars Hill”) gave an incredible sermon/lecture at a gathering of Baptist leaders. In this session, Mark lays out in clear and loving terms, the dangers of the so-called “emergent” movement. To date, I have not seen a more compelling presentation on the issue.
I believe we are called to be aware of issues pertaining to Church & Culture. Mark specifically deals with key leaders in the emergent movement: Brian McLaren, Doug Pagitt and Rob Bell. He handles the issue with love and truth. He doesn’t pull any punches. And he provides the clearest verbal analysis I’ve seen. Trust me, this is worth the time.
On a practical note: The link below will take you to a page that provides two options. You can watch Mark Driscoll’s address by streaming it (i.e., watching it on-line) or by downloading it from the podcast page. The second option is probably the best for you (located at the bottom of the linked page) but requires you have I-Tunes. If you click on that link, it will open I-Tunes. From I-Tunes, you can download the talk as a video podcast.
Over the last two years, I have surveyed a huge number of “emergent” resources. I’ve framed my own convictions. But, as someone who spends a good deal of time thinking and writing on these things, I can say that nothing I’ve thought or said about the issue is as clear, focused and spot-on as Mark’s talk. I believe your understanding will be deepened and your discernment widened by taking the time to watch.
http://www.sebts.edu/Convergent/GeneralInfo/
Adam, I’m not much of a “blog person”, but I recently stumbled upon your blog linked through our church’s website (Corinth) and I can’t tell you how excited I am to see you posting about the Emergent Church movement. I happened upon McLaren’s book, “A New Kind Of Christian” in our church library 1 1/2 years ago and unknowingly checked it out thinking it would be a thought-provoking book to read. Well, it was thought provoking all right and downright anger provoking as well. I got online and did some research and found that McLaren is Rob Bell’s mentor-of-sorts and the dots started to connect. I had recently written a letter to the editor about some of Rob Bell’s comments pertaining to his then newly released book, “Velvet Elvis”, and was rudely awakened to the wolf in sheep’s clothing as I investigated this movement further. Sorry this is such a wordy comment I’m leaving, but I just wanted to say how thankful I am that you are taking a stand and bringing to light these post-modern teachings. I’ve read many opinions on the Emergent Church at this pastor’s website as well: http://www.apprising.org/
May God bless your work.
Kathy Z.–who’s wondering where I’ll squeeze in this interesting, but lengthy, podcast into my day!
Kathyz
December 18th, 2007
Adam,
I haven’t responded to your posts before, but I do read a lot of them and appreciate what you’re doing.
However, on this one I have to take a bit of an issue with your analysis. I listened this lecture a couple of weeks ago and was bothered by it. Not so much because of Driscoll’s conclusions, but by his approach. I disagree that his approach was clear and loving or that he doesn’t pull any punches. On the contrary, he uses what I often call “power dynamics in language,” drawing implications using “straw men,” making argument by inference, misrepresentation, and implication rather than clearly articulating the argument. It felt more like debate tactics to me than a loving, clear lecture with no punch pulling. I think that’s true of the lecture whether you agree with Driscoll’s conclusions or not.
Having said that, I think that Driscoll has been quite divisive in his approach lately to the emergent folks, even calling Rob Bell a heretic back in August. “Swearing preacher” or not, “rebel preacher” (cf. Christianity Today) or not, it still felt inappropriately presented. Grace and truth is wonderful; sarcasm, misrepresentation, and belittling those you disagree with doesn’t seem quite right to me.
Lastly, I’m not so sure I agree with or appreciate the new set of labels Driscoll is applying to those in the “emerging church” (Relevants, Reconstructionists, Revisionists) or that he’s providing a new set of standards by which to judge “who’s in” and “who’s out” or orthodox in the evangelical church. However, I do think it’s important to maintain orthodoxy and stay clear on the doctrine, and I’m concerned about some directions people are taking, I’m just not fully bought into Driscoll’s manner or his boundary lines.
(PS you can find an article by Driscoll in the Criswell Theological Review in an issue on the Emergent Movement with these categories that he mentions in the talk at http://criswell.files.wordpress.com/2006/03/3,2%20APastoralPerspectiveontheEmergentChurch%5BDriscoll%5D.PDF)
Again, thanks for your ministry. I’d love to talk further about the emerging church movement and the Emergent Church (not to be confused, even according to Driscoll) as it’s been a study passion of mine as well. Peace brother, let’s do coffee.
Tom Elenebaas
December 20th, 2007
Hey Tom. Thanks for the post. Sorry it’s taken me this long to respond (Christmas madness, you know).
I want to respond in two ways, first to the particulars of the lecture; second, to Mark’s general approach.
The Lecture: Everyone who speaks for a living (you and I among them) is faced with a near-impossible task: to communicate truthfully without the luxury of communicating exhaustively. We do our best with a compromise solution: to communicate fairly. The more academic degrees you pile on, the more likely you find this tension playing on your prep time.
Essentially, I hear you saying that Mark was unfair in his presentation. He unfairly represented his “opponents.”
Certainly, there are parts of the talk in which Mark delves into the footnotes of the emergents he is dissecting. I recall him, on a couple specific points, presenting a fairly lengthy summary of an author, quoted by emergents, who believes some “off the grid” ideas.
Mark also makes some inferences from those he critiques. I specifically recall him responding to Rob’s famous “What if Jesus had a father named Larry?” passage. Mark concludes, if Jesus did, then Mary was a lying whore and Jesus was the son of a lying whore. I believe that was his most colorfully stated inference.
If I’m hearing you rightly, then you feel these sort of “tactics” amount to using “power dynamics in language.”
First, I’d point you or others with similar concerns to the first third of Mark’s speech. In it, he presents what seemed to me an incredibly humble, authentic confession of his own frailties as a man, a pastor, and a debate partner. Of course, that wouldn’t excuse him for proceeding to do everything for which he just repented in the next 2/3rds of his talk. But, overall, I don’t think that’s what Mark did. He definitely spoke passionately and with his characteristic bluntness. But the last thing I heard was an arrogant, know-it-all attitude. I saw a man who is truly troubled and sincerely concerned trying to point out some significant issues. I should mention that my wife, who is more attuned to these things that I sometimes am, felt the same way.
Second, I guess I disagree with you that he wasn’t being fair. In using the footnotes from each of the authors he addressed, Mark was basically taking their advice to heart. I also think he was doing something that way too few commentators have done: considering the texts behind the texts. Because many in the emergent movement have made it difficult to discern their own positions on some central doctrinal issues (e.g. the “non” statement of belief on the emergent village website), we are left with examining the sources they recommend. Many of those sources put a finer point on issues the emergents converse about regularly. For instance, in reading John Piper’s recent analysis of NT Wright’s view of justification (”The Future of Justification”), I’m getting a much clearer picture of what Rob and Brian mean when they talk about the Gospel and the Kingdom. Mark, in pursuing the rabbit trail of footnotes, helps bring to light the fact that many of these leaders are drawing their ideas from tainted wells.
Now, does he verge on the “guilt by association” fallacy? He might tread the line on occasion. But when Doug Pagitt writes, “The idea that, at the smallest level, all matter is made of energy packets and not ‘little hard balls of matter’ is a fascinating notion that requires not only different theological conclusions but different presuppositions. The idea that there is a necessary distinction of matter from spirit, or creation from creator, is being reconsidered,” he certainly gives one reason to think that Mark’s analysis of panantheism is not without merit.
In some ways, the emergent conversation makes it very difficult for anyone to give them a “fair” treatment because they appear to want to have their cake and eat it too. They have been making some very provocative statements with doctrinal implications, recommending we read people who have prompted them to make those statements, then responding indignantly when we draw what seem justified inferences based on their statements and those they recommend. I, for one, find it incredible that Mars Hill recommends Crossan and Reed as resources to understanding the roots of our faith. I just don’t see how “The Bible as it Was” should be on the short list of a new disciple’s amazon wish list.
I believe Mark simply exposed a broader audience to the texts behind books being written by the emergent leaders. It may have been embarrassing to those who recommended these resources so heartily, it may have been without nuance (something difficult to achieve in a limited time), but it wasn’t, in my estimation, unfair.
As far as drawing inferences goes, I guess one’s opinion of that will depend on one’s concept of fair play in public monologue. It is a tactic that can be abused. But it is also an honored principle of rational discourse. If one’s basic premises lead one to an unacceptable conclusion, then something’s wrong with one, the other, or both premises. In his analysis of Rob, I think Mark actually puts a fine point on the issue. Rob seems to indicate that our faith could continue unaffected if Jesus was the illegitimate child of “Larry.” Mark points out with very descriptive language that it would not. I agree.
Mark’s General Approach:
I think the “cussing preacher” (a la Donald Miller ascription) reputation is something Mark went a ways toward shedding in his initial comments.
Is Mark being divisive? I have not heard or read all of his comments on the emergents. He might have made some pretty confrontational statements. I suppose that one’s reaction to some of these statements (use of the word “heretic,” drawing lines, etc) will depend on one’s understanding of doctrine.
At this time in USAmerica Christianity, the prevailing winds blow away from the idea that doctrine should ever divide. The EV non-statement of faith is a perfect example. But I think the biblical doctrine of doctrine is significantly different. I won’t spend too much time exploring that here, because my post is already way too long. But in short: I believe Scripture makes fidelity to certain propositional statements a condition for inclusion. We’ll be posting video podcasts of my upcoming class. In it, I’ll spend 45 minutes establishing that, and other, claims about doctrine.
If the Gospel has been fundamentally redefined, if the historicity of salvation events have been recast in post-critical terms, if the Creator-Creature distinction has been thrown out the window, I think some lines of distinction and/or division should be drawn.
Of course, those are some big “ifs.” A lot of us are waiting for the emergents to answer them.
Finally, just a word about whether this resource was worth recommending. One of the things I’ve tried to do in this blog is less lecturing and more inviting. My hope is to expose those who visit to some of the stuff that’s going on at the border of Church and Culture. If you troll through previous posts, you’ll see plenty of examples. In recommending Mark’s lecture, I went beyond simple “check this out” to “this is good.” And I guess I still stand by that. While Mark’s lecture wasn’t a perfect critique, I would say it was, on the whole, a fair one. Of course, one cannot listen to anyone without discernment. But Mark’s talk wove together a lot of information in a short time frame. Most of the issues I might have with it would fall in the “too little time to nuance” category.
Anyway…Thanks again for the comments Tom. I appreciate your sensitivity to fairness. But I also treasure straightforward speech. Isn’t it true that our greatest strengths are often our greatest liabilities as well? Those who carry a deep burden for “fairness” sometimes risk obscuring difference. Those who speak bluntly can sometimes swing an axe incautiously.
Let’s grab that coffee.
Administrator
December 29th, 2007
Kathy,
Thanks so much for your post! I’m glad you’re finding this information helpful. I think a lot of us are starting to wake up and ask questions about this whole “emergent” thing. For some more info, be sure to attend the class I’ll be teaching at Corinth starting on January 6, “The Church in Emerging Culture.”
Administrator
December 29th, 2007
Adam,
Thanks for the thoughtful and measured reply. That’s the kind of engagement that I like to see and hear. Though I would disagree still on some of your assessments and come to a different conclusion, you’re very fair about it. First, in chasing down the footnotes - it seems that Mark went after the most controversial footnotes he could find to create a caricature of his “opponents” rather than engaging on a higher level with the whole of what they’re saying. I agree, that’s hard to do in an hour lecture. But, isn’t that part of the point? Here Mark was speaking to people who were pretty much going to say “yes” to everything he said, and I haven’t heard a lot of real conversation with the people he disagrees with. I would hope that if he’s confident in his assessment and confident in the lines he’s drawn, that would be helpful to the “conversation” that he so critiques. In fact, by removing himself from the conversation and instead lobbing his criticisms from afar can tend to polarize rather than really seek truth together. You’re right though, it certainly falls in the “too little time to nuance” category, and if he didn’t have the time, maybe he shouldn’t made such sweeping claims. In fact, he tends to say in this and other talks, “Well, I don’t normally get in this, and I’d rather not, but here goes…” and then he makes some sweeping comments and accusations without the full nuance and/ or full engagement. He also does, in my opinion, fall into the “guilt by association”. There are lots of people who I’ve read over time with whom I’ve agree some, but certainly not most or all. Many of these writers fall into the same category for the Emergent folk. By pretending that some thinkers are pure and others aren’t allows us once again to fall into this sacred-secular dichotomy that cleanses certain writers and thinkers because they agree with us on certain issues. Things are generally more complex than that.
Having said that, I want to be clear that there is a lot of Driscoll that I agree with, and some I disagree with. In fact, he’s done some fabulous work on contextualizing the gospel and being truly mission in his urban context. He thinks well on so many of these issues and is willing to go where Jesus would go and many Christians would not. I deeply appreciate that about him.
In terms of presentation, in this and other talks, he tends to be regularly “confessional” about his tendency to offend, and then goes on to offend again. It’s almost as if he’s making excuses for himself because he knows he’ll do it again. (He sometimes does the same thing in his books.)
I do appreciate, too, that he was willing to be part of a larger conversation in the recent book “Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches: Five Perspectives” with John Burke, Dan Kimball, and Doug Pagitt. This is helpful in terms of dealing more seriously with some of the bigger issues of how we approach the Bible, what we think of salvation, etc.
In terms of his engagement with Rob Bell. I’ve heard him numbers of times bring up this one passage and very little else. I, too, think Rob went too far at that point, but would love to hear what Mark has to say about some other stuff Rob is doing, saying, etc.
Also, question… I’ve never seen Crossan or Reed listed on Mars’ website or as recommended reading. Where is that?
Coffee would be good.
Tom Elenebaas
December 31st, 2007
Nevermind. I found the reference in the Mars site. Thanks for noting it.
Tom Elenbaas
December 31st, 2007
Thanks for the engagement Tom. I think we’re both aware of the same issues, maybe interpret and evaluate them differently. Like you, I always find the issues more complex than any one talk can cover.
On a side note, how do you evaluate the significance of the Pagitt quote mentioned in my reply?
Administrator
December 31st, 2007
I think the Pagitt quote is interesting, and I have to relook up the context. (I have the book, but haven’t gone back to look.) The first part is nothing new, and the new physics (now really old) has transformed how we look at a lot things. Whether he’s bordering on pantheism I’d have to look further into to see. My question on the quote when Mark mentioned it was “is being reconsidered” meaning that Doug himself is reconsidering, that others are, and whether or not he thinks that’s a good idea. I can certainly see how dealing with such issues means that people today might be asking different questions and approaching the issues of matter/ spirit with a re-look. Does that mean I think the church should? No. But it might change my dialogue with them, it might mean new answers are needed or new responses are needed, etc. That’s contextualization, isn’t it? As the world changes, as belief systems change, as questions change, as experiences grow, as new realities emerge, sometimes the old answers - though still good answers - are just answers to different questions are aren’t satisfactory to the new questions. Often what we need is not rehashed apologetics from a previous era, assuming that the questions are the same, but I would argue that we need a new postmodern apologetic that is biblical faithful and orthodox but may tread new ground.
To hit a touchy subject… I think the same is true in the homosexuality debate. Yes, the bible speaks to the issue. However, sometimes the questions are differently nuanced, or experiences are different. For instance, some say that the kind of long-term committed loving same gender relationships that do not have a power-differential in them are sort of a new historical/ sociological phenomenon in the last several hundred years. To say “the bible says here that…” may be right, but misses the fact that the homosexuality spoken of in the Scriptures is of a different kind. Does that mean that it doesn’t apply to the new manifestation? Absolutely not. It certainly applies. Same-gender sexual relationships are not a part of God’s design. But how do we do good exegesis of what the bible is saying in that context, and then do good exegesis of our own context, and then connect the two with biblically faithful and culturally relevent (contextualized) responses? I haven’t seen many in the church do this kind of hard work.
Anyway, I’ve been meaning to look up the Pagitt quote, and if he’s moving towards pantheism (which some folks are doing, and others that are accused of it are not), I’m certainly bothered by it.
Tom Elenbaas
January 3rd, 2008
I looked back at the passage from which Driscoll makes the quote about Pagitt [”Listening to the beliefs of Emerging Churches,” p. 142 (140-142 to read the context)]. Pagitt just isn’t as clear as I’d like him to be in this section. I’m not sure I would go as far as Driscoll (or many others online) in accusing him of Pantheism or Panentheism, although he is certainly asking some questions that deal with how our understanding of spirit and matter interact with new understandings in physics. I haven’t read anything yet that clearly places him there, although he looks to be dangerously close. I’m sure you don’t want to fall into a metaphysical dualism between spirit and matter, and yet you also don’t want to see us move towards pantheism or panentheism in which God is either co-equal with matter or that he infuses all things with divinity so that all matter is part of the divine. There is certainly a distinction between creator and created, and yet the matter/ spirit dichotomy doesn’t seem to make sense of the way the universe actually works in waves and particles of energy that mysteriously interact with one another. God is certainly active in his world, and yet the creation is not God.
Anyway, I appreciate the concern over movement towards either pantheism or panenthism, and I wish that people like Pagitt would be more careful and clear in these discussions. However, I’m not ready to accuse him of either. This is one example of where I think Driscoll may have made Pagitt out to say more than he really is in that passage, stretching it to mean something Pagitt may not have meant. Since you’ve had a recent interaction with him, maybe he would respond. I haven’t read a lot of Pagitt, either, so I might be speaking out of turn, and certainly don’t want to be seen as defending him if he’s headed in that direction. I just also want to be careful not to be so focused on finding fault that we make people say things they’re not saying.
Tom Elenbaas
January 3rd, 2008