Conversing With The Emerging- part 5

Today, the ECM echoes the populist arguments of the main line denominations of the early and mid 1900’s. Then, as with the ECM today "penal substitution is too harsh a model for understanding the atonement; the claim that too much stress on orthodoxy undermines orthopraxy; and the incessant please for liberality and tolerance—even while leading voices in the movement are systematically attempting to dismantle the biblical foundations of evangelical belief."

The ECM is largely a reaction against the Enlightenment and modernism and what the ECM perceives as modernity’s arrogance with respect to certainty and absolutes and human reasoning. Modernity, which was stems mainly from Rene Descartes’ foundationalism and was unleashed with Darwin’s theory on evolution exalted human reasoning and science, and determined that humanity was not accountable to any higher being. With numerous wars being birthed out of its era modernity eventually died in the mid-late 1900’s giving way to postmodernism.

"Postmodernism—borrowing ideas made popular by existentialism and cultural and ethical relativism, and blending them with values made politically correct by secular humanism—stepped into the gap. The ECM is fundamentally a self-conscious attempt to adapt the church and frame the gospel message in a way that meets the unique challenges postmodernism presents." Ironically so, the ECM is concerned with trying to communicate more effectively with postmoderns, which is something that evangelicals should also give more attention to. The problem is that in doing so the ECM has compromised the message of the gospel and has used questionable methods to articulate the gospel.

However, while the ECM is a reaction against the Enlightenment and modernity with all of its tenets of rationalism, reasoning, certainty, and the scientific method, and seeks to be in conversation with postmoderns, the ECM does have a common touch points with modernity. Not only does the ECM and the Enlightenment minimize the certainty of knowing truth through the Scriptures, but both also have "important threads of continuity between [them]…not least among these is the fact that at the center of both is the autonomous self, despite all the postmodern chatter about the importance of community…."

Interestingly enough, the ECM does not particularly care for the seeker-friendly movement because it sees the movement as being big-business, which is more concerned with entertainment and flash than it is with mystery. The seeker-friendly mega churches grew largely without a sense of community and personal touch. This left a number of people longing for something more. Into this void stepped the ECM with its promise and deliverance of community. The fact that it lacks in solid biblical doctrine and teaching seems irrelevant to many.

From my perspective the ECM and their conversation methodology will be "laid to rest in the theological cemetery within the not too distant future due to its shallowness and ‘faddish’ nature." The remaining of this paper are my own brief views and conclusions to the message and methodology of the ECM.

Quotes taken from Gary L. W. Johnson and Ronald N. Gleason, Reforming or Conforming.