Like He Was David Copperfield

Like virtually all evangelicals trying to go with the zeitgeist flow, John Franke has to do some foot dragging here and there. He has to throw in a few sturdy absolutes from time to time, and this puts some believers at their ease. “The Spirit is guiding the community of faith into the truth, purposes, and intentions of God. These purposes and intentions are a divine goal” (p. 35, bolding mine).

And conservative believers, who ought to be more cynical than they are, say, “Oh, good, at least he acknowledged that.” Yeah, but where did it come from, given the entire flow of his argument?

In this chapter, he points to the incredible diversity of various Christian traditions. “How should the diversity and plurality of the Christian tradition relate to the ongoing tak of proclamation in the present context?” (p. 31)

Franke appeals to the pomo commonplace on the situated and limited nature of all communities:

“These traditions shaped their understanding of the Christian faith, their reading of the Bible, and the particular shape of their witness to the gospel” (p. 33).

“The history of this ongoing conversation or argument constitutes tradition” (p. 34).

Spoken like a true academic! The history of the world considered as an endless graduate seminar. Oh, great.

“Thus, we may say that the Christian tradition serves as a resource for contemporary proclamation, not as a final arbiter of theological issues or concerns, but rather by providing a historical and interpretive context for the tasks of proclamation, theology, and biblical proclamation” (p. 35).

Tradition here is like a resource center at the library. Check out what you want, leave that other off-putting stuff in there.

Franke points to the de facto plurality of the Reformation, but notes that they were not pluralists. They wanted to get to the truth, and they wanted to establish it (p. 38). In contrast, the emergents want to embrace and affirm this plurality, thus make them pluralists (p. 39). But we are not allowed to bathe in the warmth of this inclusiveness for more than a minute — suddenly we discover there are limits. And who’s to say what those limits are? Gosh . . . dunno.

“First, while the Christian faith is properly characterized by multiple expressions, it is also true that not all expressions of Christianity are appropriate. Indeed the history of the church is littered with manifestations of Christian community that are at odds with the message of the gospel” (p. 41).

Well, darn. Who let that happen?

“We must develop this practice in order to identify and correct inappropriate forms of Christian community while at the same time allowing for the continued expansion of appropriate diversity . . .” (p. 41)

Well, three cheers, say I, for appropriate diversity. As for inappropriate diversity . . . ick! poo! But . . . stay the celebrations for a minute. Why do I have this nagging thought that there might be a hidden standard at work here? Why do I smell the sulphur from dat ol debbil totalizer? Why do I see old slewfoot under the hem of the rainbow robe?

Franke doesn’t say, but I may be forgiven if I surmise that these icky manifestations of Christian community would be the ones that offend the central standards of his faith community, the one that gets its ethical bearings from MSNBC. But his faith community is situated, just exactly like the rest of them, is it not? Who died and left Franke’s faith community king?

There have been problems with naked cultural imperialism perpetrated by missionaries. Back in the day, there were errors made by a missionary-position, neckties-on-natives dogmatism. But give me that honest “our-way-is-better” approach to the dishonesty of the emergents that sets up a global pretense to inclusiveness and diversity, and then, when all the calculations are complete, we discover that all the plural communities he has been appealing to in order to make his argument are plural communities that are actually riddled with non-politically correct communities that have been doing it “wrong.”

This is the kind of application that a strict biblicist can do, and we do it all the time. What is central to the gospel? Who were our friends all the way back through church history? Who was screwing it up? Who was to be opposed? Who departed from the gospel and how? What are allowable differences, and what are not? And what is the standard of all such evaluations? An open Bible and an honest heart.

But this is the kind of assessment of church history that Franke cannot consistently do, given his assumptions and argument. And someone needs to point out that he is doing it anyway, levitating away like he was David Copperfield.