Modern Reformation #1- The Emerging Church by D.A. Carson

July 17, 2005 Posted by Roger OvertoncloseAuthor: Roger Overton Name: Roger Overton
Email: rogeroverton@hotmail.com
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About: Roger Overton is currently pursuing a Masters degree at Talbot School of Theology. He has addressed various churches, schools and youth camps throughout the United States. Roger was co-editor of The New Media Frontier (Crossway, 2008) and God and Governing (Wipf & Stock, 2009). Roger can be emailed at rogeroverton@hotmail.com.See Authors Posts (559)

Today I finally received the latest issue of Modern
Reformation in the mail. Every issue is written to address a specific topic and
it just so happens that this issue is focused on “The Emergent Church.” There
are six features on the subject and over the next week or so I’ll be reflecting
on each of them. The first is an article adapted from D.A. Carson’s book, Becoming
Conversant with the Emerging Church. Conveniently, this article is
available online at Modern Reformation’s website. Since it is available online
I’ll skip summarizing and simply reflect on a few quotes.

“What Are We Talking About?
At the heart of the Emergent Church movement—or as some of its leaders prefer
to call it, the “conversation”—lies the conviction that changes in the culture
signal that a new church is “emerging.” Christian leaders must therefore adapt
to this emerging church. Those who fail to do so are blind to the cultural
accretions that hide the gospel behind forms of thought and modes of expression
that no longer communicate with the new generation, the emerging generation.”

Tonight while watching the best show currently on television
(Monk) a commercial caught my attention. “Moms have changed, shouldn’t the
mini-van?” Companies test their products in the market and make changes based
on the likes or dislikes of the consumers. Their argument is that mini-vans
should be adapted to fit the desires of the contemporary mom (something a
Feminist would deplore). Often, in much the same way, people within the
emerging church movement look at church, or perhaps even the Gospel, as a
product that needs to be adapted to the changing culture. Churches that don’t
adapt won’t survive. This analogy will likely offend those in emergent, since
they typically try to distance themselves from consumerism, but it appears to
be entirely accurate. If church and/or the Gospel are merely products, then
we’ve trivialized the necessity and truth of Christianity.

“So while [Brian McLaren] dismisses absolute religious
relativism (it cannot be said that he critiques it; rather, he recognizes that
as a Christian he cannot finally go down that avenue), I have not yet seen from
McLaren, or anyone else in the Emergent Church movement, a critique of any substantive
element of postmodern thought.”

Neither have I. Has anyone else (honestly)? What I usually
see are claims of modernism being entirely bad, and though they don’t say
postmodernism is entirely good, they imply so by failing to critique and sometimes
embracing it.

“I find that I am more critical of the movement because my
“take” on contemporary culture is a bit removed from theirs, partly because the
solutions I think are required are somewhat different from theirs, partly
because I worry about (unwitting) drift from Scripture, and partly because this
movement feels like an exercise in pendulum swinging, where the law of
unintended consequences can do a lot of damage before the pendulum comes to
rest.”

If we disagree on the problem, we will disagree about
the solution. I’ve seen emergent folk surprised that people are skeptical of
what they’re doing. They shouldn’t be. They shouldn’t expect us to agree about
what to do when we’re in disagreement about why we’re doing it. The uncritical
embrace of postmodernism within emergent, to various degrees, is in stark
contrast to those of us who are more cautious about jumping in. In reality,
every culture has some good qualities and some bad qualities.  I’m skeptical of any person who talks about
changing the church or the Gospel in light of the culture without even asking
if the culture is an appropriate stimulus for such a change. I don’t see many
emergent folk taking this question very seriously. Rather, they tend to assume
culture’s an appropriate motivation and that leaves folks like Dr. Carson and
myself very concerned.

Related posts:

1. ETS 4- John Hammett on the Emerging Church
2. Modern Reformation #2: An Interview with Stanley Grenz
3. Modern Reformation #3: Settlers, Pilgrims, and Wanderers by Michael Horton
4. Modern Reformation #5: Emergent Church Roundtable Discussion
5. The Corporate Church- An Emerging Church Update
6. The End of the Emerging Church

Posted in Culture, Emerging / Emergent Church, Main Page, Roger's Posts