Is the Emerging Church a Threat to the Gospel?

Now, Religion in the News, a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media. This week’s item is from the Baptist Press, March 25, 2005, with the headline, “Leaders Call Emerging Church Movement a Threat to the Gospel. A recently developed way of envisioning church known as the Emerging Church Movement deals carelessly with Scripture and compromises the gospel, according to a prominent Evangelical scholar and a Southern Baptist seminary president. But Brian McLaren, who is the founding pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church near Baltimore, Maryland, listed as one of 25 influential evangelicals by Time Magazine, and one of the movement’s leaders, told Baptist Press that such criticisms are unfounded, and that the Emerging Church Movement is seeking to be more faithful to Christ in the current postmodern cultural context. 

R. Albert Mohler Jr., President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, questions McLaren’s claim to be giving a credible witness for the gospel. Responding to McLaren’s book A Generous Orthodoxy, Mohler writes, ‘Embracing the worldview of the postmodern age, he embraces relativism at the cost of clarity in matters of truth, and intends to redefine Christianity for this new age largely in terms of an eccentric mixture of elements he would take from virtually every theological position and variant. As a postmodernist, he considers himself free from any concern for propositional truthfulness, and simply wants the Christian community to embrace a pluriform understanding of truth as a way out of doctrinal conflict and impasse. When it comes to issues such as the exclusivity of the gospel, the identity of Jesus Christ as both fully human and fully divine, the authoritative character of Scripture as written revelation, and the clear teaching of Scripture concerning issues such as homosexuality, the movement simply refuses to answer the questions,’ Mohler writes. Mohler concludes that McLaren and other leaders in the emergent church represent a significant challenge to biblical Christianity.”

Tom: Dave, for our listeners that aren’t familiar with the Emerging Church Movement, it’s really an attempt to reach, I would say, those between 18 and 30 who are characterized as being part of the postmodern generation. “It’s all about me, it’s all about self, no rules, no regulations, everything is relative…” Even language means whatever they want it to mean, and so on. So it’s basically our next generation.

Dave: All about feelings.

Tom: All about feelings, image-oriented, as we have been talking about, sensually oriented, and so on. And so to attract these people to the church, and that’s the basis for it, to attract them to the gospel and to evangelical Christianity, they are looking for forms that these young people identify with, or are attracted to. And we are seeing evangelical churches now put on emerging services in which they have candles and incense, imagery - icons, certainly - movies are a big thing. Again, it’s part of the whole image presentation. Again, this generation disdains the Word. Although they are literate, for the most part they are alliterate, meaning they know how to read, but they don’t want to read. And in this process, the Emerging Church Movement is trying to go back to what they say is “authentic” or “vintage Christianity,” and basically, they haven’t gone any farther than the church fathers with - really, Catholic mysticism is really the primary basis for enticing this young generation to the church.

Dave: Well, Tom, it sounds like the perfect vehicle to introduce into the church the errors and seduction that we have been talking about that come through visualization, and turning away from the Word, the very word of God. We’ve quoted it many times, but it doesn’t hurt to quote it again - this is God’s Word - Peter said, “We are born again, not of corruptible seed, (well, that would take in icons; they are certainly corruptible) but of incorruptible by the Word of God that liveth and abideth forever.” 

The sower that went forth to sow, the seed that he sowed was the Word, Jesus said. They are only going to be saved by the Word, and we are saved through the gospel. Well, how is the gospel presented? You going to present it in imagery? That’s a problem today. We have movies supposedly presenting the gospel, but going back to 1 Peter:1:23-25 [23] Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. [24] For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: [25] But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.
See All..., Peter says, “We are born again by the Word of God,” and then he says, “And this is the Word which by the gospel is preached unto you.” 

So, the gospel comes from the Word of God. The gospel is about Jesus Christ, who is the living Word, and we’re, as you said, disdaining the Word of God. We’ve got all of these various so-called translations, some of which so pervert Scripture that you can’t even recognize it if they didn’t give you the reference. And some of them, like The Message, which we have mentioned a number of times, is so perverse, so wicked - I’m sorry, I will have to say that - because it pushes God’s Word, what He spoke…it’s inspired of the Spirit of God - pushes it to one side and puts his own words in place of it and calls it the Word of God!

Tom: Dave, a clear example of the imagination. Eugene Peterson takes over God’s word and supplements - really, forces it out of the way through his own imagination: what he thinks, what he believes God is saying.

Dave: Well, Tom, we are living in, I think, perilous times, as Paul said. Dangerous times. Men are lovers of self with psychology. Self-love, self-acceptance, and so forth. Self-image, self-esteem, the whole self trip. But we have shoved the word of God aside. If you don’t have the word of God - Jeremiah:8:20The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.
See All...: “To the law and to the testimony: if they don’t speak according to this word, there’s no light in them.” But we’ve got to get back to the Word of God. We desperately need this; this is our only hope.

Tom: Dave, as you know, I grew up Roman Catholic. This imagery that we’ve been talking about - the icons, the statues, the imagery, and so on - I can understand that, because that’s the history of the Roman Catholic Church. But now I’m seeing this very same thing in evangelical churches. It’s no different, but it’s shocking - it’s grievous to me, Dave.

Dave: Mm-hmm. So what are we going to do? We’re going to do what Paul told Timothy to do: “Preach the word in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine, for the day will come when they will not endure sound doctrine.” So, Tom, we’re only trying to obey the Bible in what we do. We’re not trying to be critical. We’re trying to get ourselves and the church back to the Word of God.