A Meeting Place for Those Who Aren't Afraid of the Border

Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten around to knocking off the sharp edges or polishing the smooth ones yet. Nevertheless, here’s an essay I started a couple years ago, but didn’t finish. Enjoy:

The New Revolution
An Irreverent Reflection on New Liberalism, Sometimes Dubbed, “Emergent Christianity”

“…in this last generation, there have been strange new movements in Christian thought.”
–Harry Emerson Fosdick

“But Dan, the need to put everything into nice neat categories is part of the problem. Modern people believed that they could create a nice framework that would pigeonhole everything….At the very least, you have to be ironic or ambivalent about your pigeonholes.”
–“Neo” (ANKOC, 47)

“Meet the new boss. He’s the same as the old boss.”
–The Who

For the last eight or so years, we’ve been watching and waiting, wondering, “Where are they headed?” The pioneering explorers of the Emergent Conversation have been reporting back to the rest of us stuck in our modernist ghettos. They have unrolled some rough maps, opened sketch books and shared journal entries. Sometimes, they came back stinky and sweaty. But people who blaze trails usually do, so we forgave them, offered soap and provided grant money for the next expedition.

In the last three years, some in our midst have begun to question whether the Promised Land these explorers purport to have found is really habitable. Authors like D. A. Carson or Chuck Colson and, more recently, Mark Driscoll, Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck have pointed out some of the less than ideal conditions in the Emergents’ Land of Milk and Honey. And, in general, the Trailblazers have been fairly unwilling to accept our input.

Typically their rebuffs come in the form of: “You guys say what you say because a) you’re stuck in a modern paradigm and we’re speaking a different language or b) our new way threatens your establishment, because your establishment is founded on modern assumptions and misunderstandings. As we remove this modern framework, you’re left without a message or c) You just don’t get it.” Occasionally, they use less charitable language. But, again, we should not judge these responses too harshly. Hard travel and risk-taking can wear one out. And when others, who do not appear to be taking the same risks, have the gall to question your commitment, who wouldn’t get a bit snarky?

The question many of us are beginning to ask is simple: Is the Emergent Church really blazing a new trail? Are they, in fact, entering an undiscovered country rich with potential for the emerging generation of Christians?

On one hand, it would seem so. After all, the land they tell us about speaks an exotic language: postmodern, difference, deconstruction, abductive, post-conservative, etc., etc., etc. (some of them even had the kindness to publish a handy paperback with this new language laid out in dictionary format; isn’t that sort of modern? No, I get it…irony!). It offers the forbidden fruit of mainstream acceptance—appearances with the Dali Llama, press club invitations, glowing editorials, and prominent seats at the table for global warming conventions. And, at least this is what they tell us, the kids like it.

But on the other hand—the one that isn’t grasping at straws—I don’t think so. In fact, it seems to me the Trailblazers have actually rediscovered a land bursting with false promises, brimming over with naïve optimism, burning with the chaff-fed fires of fleeting “relevance.” This land was visited about one century ago. Institutions were relocated, congregations were transplanted and several generations were reeducated in a country then called “Liberalism.”

As far as I know, one of the best ways to tick off a professional historian is to say: History repeats itself. With apologies to professional historians, let me say: I think history is repeating itself. Just as the Evangelical Establishment of the early 20^th century was forced to grapple with the basic question of identity in the face of a changing cultural climate, the evangelical community of the 21^st century is facing some tough choices. Just as our great-great-grandparents lived in a time of differentiation, so do we. Or, to stick with our guiding metaphor, today’s Trailblazers are yesterday’s Liberals, and today’s evangelicals will have to determine whether it’s time to cease funding expeditions to a proven wasteland.

Old-School Trailblazers

At the turn of the 20^th century, a set of revolutions threatened the relevance of Christianity as a social force. Unlike the Enlightenment debates that had challenged Christianity at a primarily philosophical level, these new ideas were “discovered” in the sweat, blood and dirt of historical investigation—bottling philosophical acids as dish soap. Their threat was indirect, but more dangerous because so.

Charles Darwin had birthed a baby so cute and cuddly it made the conventional belief that atheism presented a sub-rational view of reality look like a flat-headed, snotty-nosed child by comparison. In time, the God Hypothesis was as relevant to “real” knowledge as an after-dinner mint at the Ritz—nice, but not on the menu. Archeologists were digging up old stones, tablets and scrolls. As a result, Biblical narratives were being relativised by other ANE records. Comparative religious studies were adding hue and dimension to the rest of the human race previously captured under the heading “Pagan,” opening a new age of pluralism. In short, discovery seemed to be on a trajectory that promised obscurity for conventional orthodoxy.

The Evangelical Establishment waited out the initial tremors. Few realized that the shaking china was a foretaste of continental drift. There was a wide spectrum of response, but the responses themselves were not yet viewed as redefinitions of the faith.

Then one group began making trips out into the New World opened up by the new science—ironically, traveling to Old World Germany for directions. In time, these Liberals reported back to the comfortable Establishment. And they brought a warning: If our faith is not “thought clear through in modern terms” (Fosdick), we will lose our place at the table.

With stunning speed, these 20^th century Trailblazers set to task. Words like demythologization were tossed about as the “husk” of biblical history was thrown away and the “kernel” of spiritual truth was retained. The tribal deity who demanded his Son’s blood was placed in a velvet-lined box and stored in Oriental Studies museums. The Gospel was wholly realigned to the horizontal as a Social Movement, comfortably harmonized with pre-World War II optimism. And the unshakeable hope that Christ would return one day and usher in a new heaven and earth was modernized as the flimsy hope that one day humanity would cure humanity’s ills.

In one of the greatest ironies I’ve witnessed, our day’s Trailblazers fault us for capitulating to “modernism.” Supposedly, doctrines like inerrancy and concerns for clarity are modern anxieties. Yet at the turn of the 20^th century, the Liberals were the ones who aligned their faith so closely with contemporary thought that Jesus appeared little more than shrink wrap around the real product.

It’s kind of like a guy who punches you in the nose then faults you for being “obsessed with random acts of violence.” The Fundamentalist response to modernity, if you really take the time to read it, was in large part a response to Liberalism. They were not as anxious about developments in science as by what some believers were saying these developments meant for the Faith.

The incredibly diverse group of scholars and pastors who made up those early Fundamentalists were concerned with inerrancy because the concept of biblical Inspiration was being undermined from within. They insisted on the Virgin Birth because insiders were questioning its relevance. They insisted on Christ’s physical return to earth because so many leaders in the Evangelical Establishment had transmuted it into a “let’s-hold-hands-and-like-each-other-grab-a-free-bowl-of-soup-on-the-way-out” humanism.

The 20^th century story is rich with insight for today. I really shouldn’t move on before examining, for instance, how the Liberal takeover of denominations, colleges and seminaries, was facilitated by a third group in the doomed Establishment, the Inclusivists. But I think we have enough here to be getting on with.

A Liberal is a Liberal is a Liberal

After observing the Liberal’s failed relocation, you’d think we’d learn our lesson. You’d think the empty shells of mainline church buildings and hollow sermonetts of Muslim-Christian Episcopal priests and Transgendered Methodist pastors would sort of clue us in to a basic reality: Liberalism is not only unfaithful, it doesn’t work. Liberalism is a knee-jerk response to culture-shift that so enmeshes itself in passing intellectual fad that when the jeans aren’t worth patching any more, you get thrown into the rag bag along with them.

[NOTE: Contemporary evangelicalism as a whole should pay attention here as well. Though our formal adherence to Scripture distinguishes us from the New Liberals, it does not insulate us from doctrineless foolishness and pragmatic faddishness.]

But are the 21^st century Trailblazers really leading us to the Liberal Wasteland? Let’s think about that. Consider for instance, the key doctrines they have placed in their rhetorical crosshairs.

The Virgin Birth—When one of these Trailblazers wrote that the discovery of indisputable proof that Jesus had an “earthly biological father named Larry” would not stop him from jumping on the trampoline of faith, I was concerned. It was very comforting to know that he personally affirmed that Jesus was born of a Virgin, but that comfort rang hollow considering he had spilled quite a bit of ink in arguing that the doctrine was not crucial to the integrity of our Faith.

Biblical Inspiration & Authority—Across the board, the 21^st century Trailblazers seem to be redefining the concept of biblical inspiration and authority. When they don’t express outright disdain for inerrancy (see Dave Tomlinson, the inerrancy debate is “a waste of time.”), they do their best to summarize N.T. Wright’s paper on the subject of authority. The Bible isn’t a court of highest appeal whose authority rests not only in its Author but also is vested in its propositional content. Instead, it’s a snapshot of faithful people in action, a conversation partner.

Atonement—Recently, one of the most visible Trailblazers presented his view of the Gospel in a cross-country tour. Having listened to the talk several times myself, I walk away scratching my head. He seems to be telling a radically different story than the one I learned in Sunday School or read about in Luther, Augustine, Paul, Hebrews, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, etc.

According to this Trailblazer, the Cross isn’t really about Jesus taking the punishment I deserved. Instead, it’s a dramatic display of the fact that God isn’t all that miffed at us to begin with and only wants us to live in a new way! In fact, the whole idea that God needs some kind of atoning sacrifice is rooted in humanity’s primal, evolutionary anxieties. In the end, God doesn’t need “to hurt something to love.” It’s the systems of Imperial oppression that require such things.

Christ’s Return—Listen closely; you can hear a pebble drop. In the thousands of pages I’ve read, I have yet to find the basic teaching that humanity’s hope is Christ’s return. Instead, our hope is in the ability to live like Jesus and make a new earth. McLaren employs his pen eloquently:

If we believe that Jesus came in peace the first time, but that wasn’t  his “real and decisive coming—it was just a kind of warm-up for the real thing—then we leave the door open to envisioning a second coming that will be characterized by violence, killing, domination, and eternal torture….If we remain charmed by this kind of eschatology, we will be forced to see the nonviolence of the Jesus of the Gospels as a kind of strategic fake-out, like a feigned retreat in war, to be followed up by a crushing blow of so-called redemptive violence in the end.

You might find this interesting: When the silver-tongued Liberal preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick preached his most well known sermon, “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” in 1922, he chose out four doctrines the Fundamentalists were defending and employed his rhetorical skills in undermining them. They were: The Virgin Birth, Inerrancy, Atonement and Christ’s Return.

Hmmm. Kind of makes you think.

The Real Problem with Liberalism

And this is where we “fundies” always feel so misunderstood, like a trip back to your 15 year high school reunion. Is it that we relish God’s wrath and want him to pour it out on “those baddies”? Is it that we really wish God had given us a Bible like the Oxford English Dictionary (unabridged)? Is it that we don’t give a rip about anything but “winnin’ souls”?

No. That’s not it. Here’s what it is: We’re not easily satisfied.

We don’t think it’s enough to do the sorts of things Jesus did while denying who he was. We don’t think it’s enough to stand amazed at the stories in Scripture while devaluing its propositions. We don’t think it’s enough to hope for heaven in this world while discounting the sticky implications of Christ’s Return as King and Judge.

We don’t think these things are enough. And Liberals, whether Old School or new Trailblazers, seem to think that it is. The crimson cord that binds the 20^thers and the 21^sters together is a lassie faire approach to the content of our faith.

On one hand, who can deny they have passion? Frankly, I love the way they slap the face of American privilege, trying to waken Christians who pretend the world outside their cul de sac doesn’t exist. I love their passion for the message of Jesus. Sometimes we can fall into the trap of thinking, “Man, it was great that Jesus died for me, but when it came to living, I’m not sure what he has to contribute.”

And who can deny the way in which the Trailblazers call us out of our Lay-Z-Boys and into adventure?!? Without a doubt, one of the greatest gifts the Trailblazers have given us is this: A dissatisfaction with our suburban dreams. Maybe we’ve forgotten that the real call is to live as sojourners. Maybe we really have become SUB-Urbanites, satisfied with a pale earthly substitute for the Eternal City. God help us if we have.

But their passions aren’t enough. The corrective balance they lend to overly-other-worldly theologies aren’t enough. The prophetic calls to consider issues of economic justice and environmental stewardship aren’t enough. Frankly, there are other voices making the same points without abandoning the very concept of orthodoxy.

Let me speak to the Trailblazers directly: Guys, we appreciate many of you. We appreciate your passion, verve and creativity. We appreciate that you’ve given us interesting, if inaccurate, readings of Scripture. At the very least, they drive us to think more clearly in response.

My hope is that some of you will, through the Holy Spirit and humble dialogue, choose not to settle in a land that’s already been proven fruitless. As much as I understand your desire to chart new maps. I encourage you to do something I did as a young Trailblazer flirting with the places you frequent now: Journey back into the wild country of Church History. Journey not as a gold prospector looking for material support for the Liberal wasteland.

Journey as a humble inheritor of a great Faith!

Journey back into Scripture.

As you may have heard, RCA Integrity is planning a brief two-day conference in Chicago on May 17-18. We will have a website up for registration very soon. The mini-conference will start Monday afternoon (around 3:30) and finish before lunch on Tuesday. We will be meeting at the Rosemont Hotel at O’Hare (with free shuttle service to and from the airport). Mark Dever, from 9Marks and Capitol Hill Baptist in Washington D.C. will be our speaker. He will talk to us about the centrality of the gospel and the local church. Anyone is welcome to attend. The conference will be around $40 plus the cost of the hotel room.

Every Tuesday, tune in for your weekly dose of Border Devos. The formula is simple: A passage of Scripture or other confessional document, a short reflection, questions for discussion, and prayer. Enjoy!

Belgic Confession Article 13 The Doctrine of God’s Providence

We believe that this good God, after he created all things, did not abandon them to chance … but leads and governs them according to his holy will, in such a way that nothing happens in this world without his orderly arrangement. …. This doctrine gives us unspeakable comfort since it teaches us that nothing can happen to us by chance but only by the arrangement of our gracious heavenly Father.

Reflection:

I remember my dad drawing pictures when I was a boy. He would pull out a pad of paper and start sketching—a tree, our dog, or maybe the soybean field that stretched out like rippling bronze behind our house. As he worked, I would look over his shoulder and wonder, “What is he drawing this time?” Usually, I would spend a few minutes confused because the first scratched lines looked like random scribbles. In time, however, the picture would emerge, clear and perfect. I was always amazed!

In this short statement, the Belgic Confession teaches us that God is like an artist, and we are like little children. When we look at the sweep of history or the story of our own lives, we sometimes wonder, “What’s the point of this?” or “Why did this have to happen, God?” Though we often have no answer, we can always trust that the Artist has a plan, and that this plan is good! When he holds up the finished sketch, we will see what he saw all along.

Questions:

• · The Belgic Confession says that “not one of the hairs on our heads…or even a little bird can fall to the ground” without the will of our Father. What does that tell us about God? What is God like? How does that thought bring comfort?
• · The Belgic Confession says, “nothing happens in this world” that isn’t part of God’s plan. What kinds of questions come to mind when you think about that? Is that a comforting idea or a troubling idea? Why?
• · Why is it so important for us to trust that God is in control?

Prayer: Heavenly Father, we want to thank you for your good plan for this world. We thank you for taking care of us. We thank you that whether things are going well or poorly, we can totally trust you. We thank you that you promise to work all things together for our salvation, even if we sometimes feel lost. Help us to trust you more and more each day. In Jesus Name, Amen.

Luke 18:1-9 (ESV)
1 And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. 2 He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. 3 And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ 4 For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’ ” 6 And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. 7 And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? 8 I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

1. We should pray because we serve a good God– Unlike the unrighteous judge, God always acts on behalf of justice. He is not moved by begging or pleading or a desire to get us off his back. God sees our need perfectly and responds justly. He welcomes our cry for help. Amazing.

2. We should pray because unless we do, we’re going to lose heart–Jesus makes the point that we shouldn’t lose heart in our praying. That is, keep praying. But I think it’s also fair to say that by praying, we guard our hearts! Here is a strange thing: When we pray, we want to pray more. When we pray, our heart for prayer is enlivened.

3. We should pray because prayer and faith are proportional, prayer and pride are inversely proportional: Luke tells us Jesus spun this story for a reason: to encourage his disciples to pray and not lose heart. At the very end, he poses a poignant question, “Will the Lord find faith on the earth when he returns?” Prayer is the most basic, incontrovertible evidence of faith. Prayer indicates a dependence on God and demonstrates that our hope is anchored in him alone. Conversely, the more prideful we are, the less we perceive our own neediness. Prayerlessness equals pridefulness.

Every Tuesday, tune in for your weekly dose of Border Devos. The formula is simple: A passage of Scripture or other confessional document, a short reflection, questions for discussion, and prayer. Enjoy!

Reading: The Apostles Creed

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
the Maker of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:
Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
born of the virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried;
He descended into hell.
The third day He arose again from the dead;
He ascended into heaven,
and sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
from there he shall come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost;
the holy catholic church;
the communion of saints;
the forgiveness of sins;
the resurrection of the body;
and the life everlasting.
Amen.

Reflection:
The Apostles’ Creed provides a summary of what Christians have believed from the very beginning, but the Creed is more than a statement of facts. It is the outline of an adventure story! In these few words, we have all the makings of a story like no other. A powerful, good King. A humble, broken Savior. A people caught in dangerous rebellion. A new community, brought together by their death-defying Hero. The Gospel is the greatest tale ever told! Over the next few weeks, allow yourself to be caught up in the adventure of God’s glory on display.

Questions:

• Having read the Apostles’ Creed, what would you say if someone asked you, “What is God like?”
• What did Jesus do so that we could be saved from our sins? (be sure to look at the Creed)
• If we really believe the things we talk about in the Apostles’ Creed, how should our lives change?

Prayer: Heavenly Father, we thank you for making this amazing world! We thank you that, even though we sin and fall short of your glory, you sent Jesus to save us. We thank you for your Holy Spirit, who lives in us and makes us more like Jesus, and we thank you for your Church. Help us to live for you until you return or call us home to be with you! In Jesus precious Name, Amen.