Adjusting to Misconceptions

One of the reasons the Emergent Church Movement has appealed to many people is that it, I believe, submits to cultural misconceptions about Christianity and orthodoxy.  Based on their own writings, the leaders of the Emergent Movement agree with those false ideas and adjust their theology and practice to them rather than trying to correct them.  The introduction to a brief interview with Brian McLaren illustrates some of these misconceptions.

The second sentence characterizes McLaren's break with "rigid orthodoxy."  On the one hand, that is a redundancy if by "rigid" it's meant that there are limits to what is "Christianity."  Any kind of - orthodoxy, theological, political, philosophical - has a definitional line or else the terms loses all meaning.  McLaren himself has limits, as he expresses in the last answer.  On the other hand, if "rigid" is meant instead to characterize orthodoxy as narrow without allowing any discussion or debate, then that is misconception.  Christian orthodoxy allows quite a bit of debate.  It did in the first few hundred years of the church as theology was explored and defined more precisely, and even after those careful formulations there is still room for disagreement.  For instance, Christology isn't narrowly defined, but there are orthodox limits.  This is called "the Christological box."  Within certain the boundaries of certain views of Christ that are considered unorthodox there is a lot of room for discussion within orthodoxy. 

The next sentence states that the "emerging church reclaims ancient practices and prayers and creates new ones."  Well, that isn't unique to the emergent church because there are many aspects of liturgy and practice that date back to the early church, some of which in more liturgical churches have been in practice for a very long time.  Many churches even hold worship services, especially to mark major holidays such as Easter and Christmas, with vigils that date back to the very early church.  So why is the emerging church credited with reclaiming ancient practices while liturgical churches are simultaneously characterized as "rigid"?  Reclaiming ancient practices isn't what makes the Emergent Movement distinctive.  It's their theology and philosophy, not their practices.

A couple of paragraphs later, the writer of the introduction claims that "conservative Christians remain suspicious of the movement and its approach to theology."  Now "suspicious" is another one of those words that labels negatively.  Why aren't conservative Christians described as "critical."  After all, the criticism of the Emergent Church has been accompanied by a great deal of principled reason and argument.  We're not suspicious because we don't like innovation and change.  We're critical because of the substance of what is being proposed.  True, many churches are resistant to change in practice.  But it's not mere practice that the McLaren and his colleagues are innovating; it's the substance of Christianity.

The Emergent Movement can be attractive when someone has misconceptions about Christianity.  What's worse is that over and over in their own writings, the leaders of the Emergent Movement accept these misconceptions and build their case on them.

(HT: The Christian Mind)

Comments

[e. barrett]

Orthodoxy is an interesting word, because I think it can have two different meanings when it comes to Christianity.

1. On the one hand, nothing can be more radical than following Orthodox Christianity.

Jesus pretty much revolutionized everything. G.K. Chesterton went as far as to say, “the orthodox Church never took the tame course or accepted the conventions; the orthodox Church was never respectable.”

That's the kind of Orthodoxy I'm in favor of. The kind where you love your enemy, sacrifice for the hurting, and develop strong community with the people around you.

2. The other kind of Orthodoxy, which I think McLaren is focused on (mostly), is the orthodoxy of tradition. I don't see anything wrong with letting a tradition die if it's no longer useful or relevant. (At the same time there's no reason to get rid of a tradition just because it's a tradition).