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Page 5 of 6 In particular, Emerging Church leaders focus on epistemology, arguing that modernism corrupted the church by limiting its focus to a defense of propositional truth based in an unassailable philosophical foundation. The rejection of foundationalism is a central theme of emergent culture. As Carson explains, a majority of Emerging Church leaders and thinkers hold "that the fundamental issue in the move from modernism to postmodernism is epistemology - i.e., how we know things or think we know things. Modernism is often pictured as pursuing truth, absolutism, linear thinking, rationalism, certainty, the cerebral as opposed to the affective - which in turn breeds arrogance, inflexibility, a lust to be right, the desire to control. Postmodernism, by contrast, recognizes how much of what we ‘know’ is shaped by the culture in which we live, controlled by emotions and aesthetics and heritage, and in fact can only be intelligently held as part of a common tradition, without overbearing claims to being true or right" (Albert Mohler, "What Should We Think of the Emerging Church? Part 1," June 29, 2005, http://www.albertmohler.com/). Additional characteristics and tenets of the EMC can be briefly listed as follows: An emphasis on feelings and affections over against linear thought and rationalities; on experience over against truth; on inclusion over against exclusion (see Albert Mohler, "What Should We Think of the Emerging Church? Part 1," June 29, 2005, http://www.albertmohler.com/). The need for a far more humble understanding of truth, one that accepts pluralism as a given and holds all truth claims under suspicion. Again, when it comes to homosexuality, McLaren argues that homosexuality as we know it today may not be the behavior or phenomenon condemned in the Bible. In short there is, as Carson observes, an inherently ambiguous understanding of truth (see Mohler, "What Should We Think of the Emerging Church? Part 1," June 29, 2005, http://www.albertmohler.com/). The EMC is not so much a new kind of Christianity in a new movement, but a church movement that is so submerging itself in the culture that it risks hopeless compromise (Carson). By denying that truth is propositional, Emerging Church theorists avoid and renounce any responsibility to defend many of the doctrines long considered essential to the Christian faith (Mohler, "What Should We Think of the Emerging Church? Part 2," June 30, 2005, http://www.albertmohler.com/). When Emerging Church leaders point to a massive cultural shift in Western societies, they are not seeing an illusion. As Carson acknowledges, "The Emerging Church movement honestly tries to read the culture in which we find ourselves and to think through the implications of such a reading for our witness, our grasp of theology, our churchmanship, even our self-understanding." Something remarkable has occurred in the culture, and Emerging Church leaders certainly have a point in criticizing mainstream evangelicalism for missing this crucial fact (Mohler, "What Should We Think of the Emerging Church? Part 2," June 30, 2005, www.albertmohler.com). Emerging Church leaders demonstrate an incredible naiveté about the real nature and implications of postmodernism (see Mohler, "What Should We Think of the Emerging Church? Part 2," June 30, 2005, http://www.albertmohler.com/). Emerging Church leaders, influenced by postmodern theory, rightly understand that every individual is deeply embedded in a social location. They are certainly correct in accusing much of mainstream evangelicalism from missing this point entirely -blissfully unaware of how the ambient culture has influenced our own ways of thinking. But does an acknowledgment of the role of social location relativize the meaning of a [biblical] text? (Mohler, "What Should We Think of the Emerging Church? Part 2," June 30, 2005, http://www.albertmohler.com/).
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