This morning I received a really fine set of questions about my posts on Brian McLaren and the emergent church from a graduate of NSA, one who really grasps what we are seeking to do here, and who wondered at the similarity between McLaren’s critique of modern evangelicalism and our own critique of it. The questions were good enough and important enough for me to pull out some of his main points and respond with some answers here in this space. So here goes.
Q1. “Many of the things [McLaren] finds problematic about modern Christianity are precisely the things that C/A mocks all the time. While he goes about it in a much different way than we do, he has serious misgivings about individualistic pietism, neat-and-tidy systematicians, church-of-the-true-flameism, and so on down the line. Much of what he says is right in line with what the Morecrafts of the world have been going after us over.”
A1. Yes. And this is precisely why it is so important to establish the difference between what we are doing and what people like McLaren are doing. The “neat and tidy” systematicians certainly tidy up some things that they ought not to. But neither do they believe that homosexual marriage is a difficult issue that the church has to learn how to “wrestle with.” Some things are neat and tidy. If someone comes along and tries to confuse those issues, I assume that there is something deeply disordered in his theology prior to that point. I have read McLaren, and believe I know what it is.
Q2. “Don’t get me wrong – I’m no fan of the guy. McLaren is, at best, a false teacher on a huge swath of issues, and is unsettling in an icky way, like a man with his hand on your thigh . . . However, much of what I have learned from you directly, and from many you have influenced, and from many who have influenced you, has made me more sympathetic to this stuff than I thought I would be (emergent church ideas, and not so much McLaren). I suppose that I’m surprised at the vehemence of your critique . . .”
A2. I grant what you are saying about the apparent similarities, and the vehemence of the critique is precisely for these reasons. A woman in an unhappy marriage is not going to be tempted to stray from her vows by some snaggle-toothed guy in a greasy t-shirt who smells bad, a man who accosts her in a bad part of town while she is trying to make it to her car. “Hey, baaybee!” But she could be tempted by someone who to all appearances is not that bad (a neighbor or close acquaintance), and one who is doing many things that her husband ought to be doing. A pastoral rebuke of the second guy would be far more necessary, and sometimes would need to be far stronger. The rebuke is stronger because the danger is greater. This is just because of very nature of the case. The worst false teachers are the ones who look good — the devil appears as an angel of light, as Paul says. Effective false teachers do not knock on your door distributing literature with titles like How to Go to the Bad Place. “Good afternoon, I am here from the sulphurous pit, and I have come to lead you astray.” If someone is indeed a false teacher — if you follow me closely here — the better it is, the worse it is.
Q3. “What is it about emergent that you find is most open to rebuke? Is it the philosophical underpinnings and direction? Is it that they got where they are via Derrida and not via Isaiah and Paul?”
A3. It is not that they got “there” by a different route. I see us as standing in completely different places — and they got to their different place by a different route. The only thing we have in common is the place we are both urging people to leave. I want people to leave the false certainties of modernity for the genuine certainties of Scripture. They want people to leave the false certainties of modernity for a bundle of uncertainties masquerading as humility. The one thing that emergent preachers cannot do (and remain emergent) is thunder the Word. “Thus saith the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, hear the word of the Lord, you sons of men . . .” And yet Scripture says that the one who speaks should speak as the very oracles of God. Given their assumed (and unassuming) ethos, they simply cannot do this. Not without ground level repentance.
Q4. “Are there things about it that you do find praiseworthy – is there a way to look at this as a promising development in evangelicalism, a sign of some sort of renewal, despite the pomo hoo-hahing?”
A4. Yes and no. Sure and no way. Go back to my seducer illustration. A man committing adultery with another man’s wife is often in that sinful place precisely because he did a number of things “right.” He talks. He pays attention. He compliments. He kisses her on the neck. But there is a category mistake here. We are not obsessing over a detail if we keep coming back to the point that she is not his wife.
We have been hammering on the Enlightenment idols in our ministry here for many years. This is not a new thing for us. And the bride of Christ needs to have her teachers pull down Enlightenment idols. The more, the better. But the need for these idols to come down has created a market for those who promise to do so, but who are doing it on a false and lying basis. The positive thing is that the controversy indicates a widespread understanding that we have to do something about modernity in the church.
So okay, a wife needs to be kissed on the neck. But not by anybody. It matters who is doing this and why. Who is he? Where is he taking her? We cannot make the question into an abstraction and ask (in general terms) whether there is something profoundly “right” with “Neck Kissing.” The difference between teachers who tell the church to abandon the false absolutes of the Enlightenment so that they may embrace a true and genuine gospel in all gospel certainty are in a completely different world from someone who says (as McLaren does) that we need to abandon Enlightenment certainties, but then goes on to say that we cannot speak forthrightly on whether homosexual behavior is right or wrong. When I cash out what that man is saying, I don’t mind saying that he is a very real danger to the church. And given this view of mine, I certainly don’t want people confusing what he is saying with what we have been saying. Except for John Robbins. He gets a special pass, and can confuse anything he wants.
Q5. “What do you think the key differences are between what Peter [Leithart] did in Against Christianity and McLaren did in Nothing New Under the Sun, er, I mean, A New Kind of Jellyfish?”
A5. The question contains the answer. Peter Leithart is not ashamed of anything in the Bible, straight up, no apologies. He believes and embraces it all. He challenges the idols of modernity in the name of the Lord of Hosts. He is an unapologetic minister of YHWH come in the flesh. Peter preaches, teaches, writes, and lives that way. And Against Christianity is one of the best books I have ever read in my life, right near the top. If Against Christianity were a manifesto, I would sign it, and then try to sneak back in the room to sign it a second time. But A New Kind of Christian was one of the most wretched books I have ever read, right near the bottom. McLaren challenges the idols of modernity on the basis of nothing more than the current trendy zeitgeist. He is a theological me-tooer, one of our cutting edge chattering classes. So both Leithart and McLaren attack Enlightenment categories. But Leithart packs a punch because he is standing on something — the absolute Word of God.