Book review: Why We’re Not Emergent
The last part is a repeat from an earlier post. . . but the first part offers just a few of the many good points DeYoung and Kluck bring up in their book. The more I read and think about the emergent church the more I am troubled. . . while the “emergent church” in some ways is a thing of the past their thoughts and beliefs certainly are not. They are representative of the culture in which we live. Evangelicals will need to continue to listen to the culture and respond accordingly with biblical truth. May we commit ourselves to be faithful in doing just that. . .
DeYoung, Kevin, and Ted Kluck. Why We’re Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be. Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2008.
If I described to you Kevin DeYoung as a thirty year old pastor, who grew up in a close-minded, doctrinally rigid evangelical church, but now pastors across the street from a major university surrounded by diversity working to engage the postmodern world, you might be tempted to believe DeYoung reads more Rob Bell than Martyn Lloyd-Jones or that he worships to U2 on Sunday morning more often than Amazing Grace. The same goes for Ted Kluck, who earns his living as a writer, and most days wears jeans, a t-shirt, and trendy dark framed glasses. Based on observation alone, if forced to classify each theologically, many would probably peg DeYoung and Kluck as emergent rather than evangelical. However, many would be wrong. Both Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck, who are young, passionate about Jesus, and working to engage the postmodern world, are surprisingly evangelical. In fact, so much so, they teamed up to write Why We’re Not Emergent explaining not only why they are not emergent but why many of the tenants of the emergent church are especially troublesome in light of biblical Christianity.
DeYoung, pastor, and Kluck, writer, alternate chapters throughout the book with the exception of chapters 10 and 11, which are both written by DeYoung. DeYoung tackles the theological argumentation, as you might expect from a pastor, while Kluck offers various observations of the emergent church based upon a particular book, blog, recent conversation, or some other type of interaction with the emergent church. For purposes of this review I will briefly summarize two of their main arguments as to why they are not emergent and then as part of my analysis offer one specific truth which the evangelical church may be able to learn from the emergent church.
First, DeYoung and Kluck are not emergent, because the Christian faith is just a journey, but it is a journey with a destination. As DeYoung points out, “For emerging Christians, the journey of the Christian life is less about our pilgrimage through this fallen world that is not our home, and more about the wild, uncensored adventure of mystery and paradox” (32). Similar to the New Age movement, it has become unpopular to say that your faith has led you to a relationship with God. Rather the cool thing is to say is that your faith is leading you on a journey to find Him.
This idea of faith as a searching for God is more existentialism than biblical Christianity. As David Wells aptly points out this idea of faith as a journey without any clear destination is clearly not what John Bunyan had in mind when he wrote Pilgrim’s Progress. Wells writes:
“This is really the difference between Bunyan’s notion of spiritual pilgrimage and the postmodern idea of spiritual journey. . . . The point of spirituality is in the experience of the journeying, not in the purpose of reaching the destination. For Bunyan, the pilgrimage is about certain knowledge that Christians have of “the better country” to which they travel and of the way in which they must conduct themselves on the journey in preparation for the One to whom they are traveling.”
There are several problematic theological themes which underlie this subtle yet deadly idea of Christian faith. First, faith only as a journey undermines the knowability of God (35). DeYoung notes, “In good postmodern fashion, they are questioning whether we can have any real, accurate, knowledge about God in the first place” (35). On the surface the problem appears to be confusion between the incomprehensibility and knowablity of God. The emergent church recognizes God is incomprehensible, which means God is infinite and man is finite, thus God is not able to be known in His entirety (Isaiah 55:8-9, I Corinthians 13:12). Yet because God cannot be known fully, does not mean that God cannot be known truly. Scripture is clear that God can be known to the extent He has revealed Himself in Scripture. This was Jesus’ prayer in John 17:3 as he prays, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” Psalm 76:1 states, “In Judah God is known; his name is great in Israel.”
This leads to the second area of concern in seeing faith only as a journey, which is equating uncertainty with humility. Building upon our previous example, it appears the emergent church believes stressing the incomprehensibility of God to the determinant of the knowability of God is a sign of humility, since to the emergent saying that you know God is arrogant and boastful. Yet, ironically, if we are to boast of anything, the Lord desires that we boast of knowing Him. He says in Jeremiah 9:23-24, “. . . Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord. . .”
Moreover, rather than certainty producing arrogance, certainty in knowing God actually produces humility. This was the case with Isaiah as he came to know God with certainty in Isaiah 6! Seeing the Lord high and exalted and hearing the seraphs call out to one another “Holy, holy, holy”, Isaiah cried out, “Woe to me! I am a ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty” (Isaiah 6:5). The implications of equating uncertainty with humility are toxic leading the emergent church to deny homosexuality as a sin, deny hell as an eternal reality, and deny Jesus Christ as the only means to eternal life, which ultimately leaves people dead in their sins. As DeYoung rightly states, “Uncertainty in light of our human limitations is a virtue. Uncertainty in light of God’s Word is not” (44).
Thirdly, seeing faith only as a journey has lead to doubt becoming the essence of faith. For those in the emergent church doubt is welcomed and encouraged as a vital part of the Christian life. While this may sound humble realizing that certainly all Christians will experience doubt in their lives, the Bible nowhere presents doubt in relation to trusting God as good. The Christian life is lived in faith so to present the Christian life as a life lived in doubt is not only misleading and unbiblical but it is reminiscent of Satan who encourages Eve to doubt God in the Garden.
Now clearly doubt is part of the Christian life, and in some way, this is the essence of Christian growth. We learn by faith and experience with God to doubt Him less (i.e. trust Him more) for what He has revealed about Himself. Therefore, the idea of doubt in the Bible is always something to be worked through rather than encamped in. For example, in Jude 22 we are told, “Be merciful to those who doubt”. The implication is to be patient or encourage those in doubt helping them to work through their doubt not encourage them to embrace it. It was Abraham who was credited as righteous for the fact that “he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promises of God but was strengthen in his faith and gave glory to God” (Romans 4:20). He is given as the example in Romans 4 of one who by faith believed and was declared righteous. While he had times experienced doubt in his life, his doubt is not commended but only his faith.
While the problem may appear to be confusion between incomprehensibility and unknowability of God, confusion between uncertainty and humility, or doubt becoming the essence of faith, the issue is dangerously deeper. At the heart of the matter the emergent church is not questioning whether God can be known. They are rejecting the authority, sufficiency, and necessity of Scripture in making God known. This leads to the second reason why DeYoung and Kluck are not emergent. They are not emergent, because the Christian faith by nature is propositional. DeYoung points out that that the emergent church has a strong dislike for propositional truth, which are those objective theological statements of belief which Christianity affirms or denies based on what is revealed in Scripture. This is problematic, since the basis of the Christian faith is objective truth. As you read the Bible, there is no way around propositional statements revealing an objective truth to be believed or rejected. For example, Jesus says, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him” (John 3:36). Jesus is stating an objective truth. That is if you believe in Jesus you will have life. If you do not believe in Him, you will remain dead because God’s wrath on you has not been dealt with.
The emergent church argues that faith is a personal relationship and not a truth or set of doctrines to be believed. The emphasis on personal relationship to the neglect of doctrinal truth is clearly a dangerous and wrong reaction to the institutional and organization formalism in religion, since there can be no personal relationship with anyone, not just Jesus, without underlying beliefs about that person. Christianity does include propositional truth and is foundational to the Gospel, which is objective, historic reality revealed in God’s Word passed on in an interpreted truth claims. These truth claims demand belief. “I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). Certain things must be believed in order to be saved.
This was clearly not how the early church fathers viewed Christianity. Rather the early church fathers fought feverishly over the specificity of creeds, phrases, words, and even two letter prepositions all for the purpose “to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 3). To them doctrine defined Christianity. Without doctrine there was no Christian faith.
However, it is not as though the emergent church disregards doctrine, but doctrine is subordinated to experience. For the emergent church doctrine does not define Christianity. Rather the experience of walking with Jesus is how Christianity is defined. Thus, the emphasis is on right living not right belief. They focus more on the manner of Christ (i.e. his way of life) rather than the message of Christ (i.e. his message proclaimed). The Christian faith then becomes more of an experience rather than a set of truths to be believed. So for the sake of orthopraxy, (i.e. right living) they sacrifice orthodoxy (i.e. right belief) seeing the doctrines of Christianity as something that stands in the way of experiencing Christ and his way of life rather than leading to it. This is classic Protestant liberalism packaged to a new generation. Adolf Harnack said the same thing many years ago when he stated, “True faith in Jesus is not a matter of creedal orthodoxy but of doing as he did.”
The problem occurs when thinking rightly is separated from living rightly. The two are not either or. They are both and. I contend that it makes no sense to talk about the two separately. Rather what is more beneficial is to talk of the two together defined as “right worship”. This means that right thinking informs right living, “which is your spiritual act of worship” (Romans 12:1). Problems always occur when the two are separated. If right living is emphasized over right belief, liberalism is the result. If right belief is emphasized over right living, then legalism is the result. Liberalism or legalism each are a different Gospel, which is really no Gospel at all (Galatians 1:6-7).
More could be said regarding DeYoung and Kluck reasons for why they are not emergent, but focusing on faith as a journey and rejection of objective truth are two of the highlights. So what might be learned from this book? The temptation is to read this book as someone who is not emergent agree with everything DeYoung and Kluck write and move on. Yet while I do not agree with the conclusions drawn by the emergent church, this does not mean that certain critiques by the emergent church of the evangelical church are not valid and there is nothing to learn from them. Rather than write-off and ignore them as the same repackaged Protestant liberalism of years past, which I believe is an accurate assessment, it is wise to look deeper and investigate what has caused the emergent church to arrive at certain conclusions. Why are they asking the questions they are asking even though they may be arriving at the wrong answers? I want to particularly offer my analysis regarding their disdain for propositional truth or doctrine. What is it that we can learn from their disdain? I submit we learn that as teachers of God’s Word we must think, believe, and teach Christian doctrine as objective reality which is Christian existence not theoretical truth which is Christian formularization. What do I mean?
While there are a myriad of reasons which may explain such a rejection of doctrine or propositional truth among the emergent church, one such reason may relate to the fact that doctrine is often taught as theoretical truth rather objective reality. This arises when doctrine is separated from duty. When doctrine is separated from duty, the result is a prioritization or order of emphasis between the two. Either doctrine is emphasized to the neglect of duty, or as the case with the emergent church, duty is emphasized to the neglect of doctrine. The evangelical church does the same thing. If doctrine is emphasized or taught at all, it is divorced from duty too frequently taught as a formularization of random truth claims which end up being only theoretical. Thus, we have a Wednesday night study on the attributes of God or we study the Trinity in Sunday school. As we teach, we give people facts about God or statements of truth about the Trinity. People walk away thinking doctrine is the correct propositional truth combination they must remember in order to open the locker of the Christian faith.
The result is the truths of the Bible remain distant. Why should they not? We see the propositional truth combination taught as something to be remembered rather than truths describing a reality which we are to be drawn into. The truth claims of the Bible are not theoretical. They describe actual reality. When the Bible states “blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5). It is not as though the meek will someday inherit the earth. No. The meek inherit the earth now. That is in the Christian existence the meek really do inherit the earth. But you see those in your workplace who push and claw their way to the top inherit the earth. They are not meek. But that is not reality. The Bible is reality. It is describing for us the world in which the Christian lives. When the Bible says “you were dead in your transgression and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). It is describing for you a reality. You were dead. But you look at yourself and say no I was actually moving and breathing. I am alive. But that is not reality. The reality is that while you think you were alive, moving and breathing, you were dead. The Bible is describing reality.
Now what makes this so difficult is that this reality runs contrary to what you see around you. The meek seem not to inherit the earth. People around you look alive and not dead. It is then by faith that you believe and are drawn into this reality in which the Bible describes. “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of the things we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). As we begin to think, believe, and teach the Bible as the world in which we live, we are drawn into this world by faith. The result is doctrine no longer remains theoretical. We understand it as reality. It not longer remains formulaic. It becomes transformational. Thus, understanding that Christian doctrine is not theoretical truth which is Christian formularization, but objective reality which is our Christian existence is one of the first things we can learn from the emergent church regarding their disdain for doctrine.
In summary, DeYoung and Kluck offer a fairly good introduction to the emergent church. However, there is still more to learn, and I hope evangelicals will be ready to do just that not in an effort to win a debate but in an effort to win others to Christ.
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