In the past two days I read Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church by D.A. Carson, who is research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.
Carson begins with a careful look at postmodernism, of which the main issue is epistemology (the study of how we know things or think we know things.) He sees a significant difference between what you might call soft postmodernism and hard postmodernisn.
He then goes on to summarize the main features of the emerging church movement. He acknowledges the important things this movement has to say to the rest of Christianity and then details the movement’s glaring weakness: its reluctance to wrestle with the category of truth, the ungenerous characterization of its opponents, its shallow treatment of postmodernism, and the distortion of facts, evidence, arguments and Scripture.
Because Brian McLaren is recognized as the preeminent thinker and writer of the emerging or emergent movement, Carson gives extensive space to a critique of McLaren’s writings. He notes several things to be appreciated about McLaren but also does not hesitate to identify what he regards as serious problems.
About McLarens’ book A Generous Orthodoxy Carson says: “Every chapter has some useful insights, and every chapter overstates arguments, distorts history, attaches excessively negative terms to all the things with which McLaren disagrees…and almost never engages the Scriptures except occasionally in prooftexting ways.” Page 180.
What are you learning about the emerging church? What do you see of strengths and weaknesses?
Leave a Reply