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Page 1 of 6 Vol. 37, No. 4 _ April 2006  Since it appeared last year, Donald Carson’s Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church (Zondervan) has been both favorably and unfavorably reviewed - favorably by conservative evangelicals, unfavorably by those "evangelicals" who are part of the Emerging Church movement. This was to be expected. What is this movement? Basically, it is a movement of people who believe the church must use new modes of expressing the gospel as western culture adopts a postmodern mindset.
In his review in the Christian Examiner, David Roach observes what many other evangelicals have also observed, about both the movement and the accuracy of Carson’s analysis, namely, that the movement’s few positive points (it encourages evangelicals to take note of cultural trends and emphasizes authenticity among believers) are far outweighed by its weaknesses (a watered-down or reduced gospel). In his analysis, Carson makes the same point: At the heart of the "movement"...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 (Carson, Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church, Zondervan, 2005, 12). Carson points out the movement arose as a protest against the institutional church, modernism and seeker-sensitive churches. His strongest criticism of the movement is that it is characterized by a reductionistic understanding of modernism and an inappropriate dismissal of confessional Christianity, with many leaders in the movement shying away from asserting that Christianity is true and authoritative. He observes the movement’s leaders and pastors frequently fail to use Scripture as the normative standard of truth and instead appeal to tradition. For example, Carson minces no words late in his book when he criticizes Steve Chalke and Brian McLaren, the most influential leaders in the movement, saying: Perhaps their [McLaren and Chalke] rhetoric and enthusiasm have led them astray and they will prove willing to reconsider their published judgments on these matters and embrace biblical truth more holistically than they have been doing in their most recent works. But if not, I cannot see how their own words constitute anything less than a drift toward abandoning the gospel itself (Carson, 186-187). Chalke, with the help of Alan Mann, wrote The Lost Message of Jesus (Zondervan, 2003). Chalke is a prominent leader of the Emerging Church movement (hereafter, ECM) on the British side of the Atlantic, whereas McLaren is the founding pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church in the Bal-timore-Washington area. His book, A Generous Orthodoxy, was also published by Zondervan (2004). Whether one reads McLaren, or hears him in person, he is one of those people who is, as Carson observes, "very hard to dislike" (Carson, 158), and whose experience and learning are readily impressive. For example, John Armstrong of Reformation and Revival Ministries writes of McLaren: It is widely agreed that Brian McLaren...is one of the most important spokespersons for this new missional trajectory known as emergent. Brian is a talented man. He writes songs, loves art, reads widely (he taught literature), appreciates drama, the Romantic poets, and modern philosophical literature, and speaks with passion and conviction. He is never bombastic, shows consistent evidence of genuine humility in his public and private dialogues, and generally causes a reaction wherever he speaks about modern evangelical Christianity in America. After meeting Brian McLaren for the first time about eighteen months ago, I began to read his work with much greater personal interest. I have real appreciation for his distinctive apologetic and missional concerns. His words often make me uncomfortable. I like this, once I step back and think a bit more deeply. But I also have concerns about Brian’s "manifesto," as expressed in his book, A Generous Orthodoxy (John Armstrong, "Introduction - The Emergent Church: Invention or Innovation?, Reformation and Revival Journal, 14:3, 2005, 8).
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 06 January 2007 )
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