Conversing with the Emerging- part 7

Regarding ECM’s view of doctrine we find their leaders claiming one thing, but practicing something quite different. They may say they believe Scripture, historic doctrine, and the church creeds, but what they mean is they believe them as filtered through a postmodern worldview, which essentially creates a theology of personal religion that emphasizes practice over belief. If you check emergent websites "you will notice that they don’t like statements of faith. They don’t like them because they say they alienate people (John Piper)." This eventually becomes a moralistic, private religion based on Christian principles that implies a works salvation ethic. This self produced ‘Christ-like’ fruit is paramount and the doctrinal system that it is built upon is secondary, if not irrelevant.

Yet, the Scripture offer clear evidence of the necessity of right believe (John 1:12, Romans 10:9-10, Ephesians 2:8-9), and the relationship between right believe and right behavior (2 Timothy 3:16-17), which only the Spirit of God can produce in us as new creatures (2 Corinthians 5:17). Having and holding right doctrine (system of belief) is both biblical and necessary: Romans 6:17 talks about being committed to "a standard of teaching", Acts 20:27 mentions Paul’s presenting the "whole counsel of God", 2 John 1:9 mentions abiding "in the teaching of Christ", while 1 Timothy 4:6 is a reminder of "being trained…of the good doctrine", and numerous other references to doctrine (Rom 16:17; Eph 4:14; 1Tim 1:3, 1:10, 6:3; Titus 1:9, 2:1, 2:10; Heb 6:1) which are clear and unambiguous.

What is birthed from this is a denial or marginalizing of the historic and biblical doctrine specifics of God, original sin, substitutionary atonement, hell, the Bible, salvation, and more. The exclusivity of Christ (John 14:6) and the absolute necessity of surrendering to Him heart, soul, mind (Romans 10:9-10) is seen by the ECM as a wrong understanding of the gospel. The general view of the ECM is that everyone is in and the important thing is not personal conversion in Christ or becoming a disciple of Christianity, but rather to simply follow the pattern of Jesus. This is nothing short of a different gospel (2 Cor 11:4) worthy of nothing but judgment.

With respect to Scripture they generally do not believe in inspiration and inerrancy, but instead focus on the story aspect of the Bible, and conclude that the Bible contains the Word of God but is not the complete Word of God. So the Word of God becomes a sort of guide to navigate people through life, but is not the ultimate source of truth and inspiration from beginning to end. This too is heretical as it stands in contradistinction to the self-proclaimed revelatory nature of the Bible itself as inspired in totality without exception.

We are told in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 that all Scripture is God-breathed, irrespective of whether Jesus said it or Paul wrote it. On the road to Emmaus Jesus instructs the two disciples of Himself by referencing the entirety of the Old Testament as referring to Him. Furthermore, we find in the gospels such phrases uttered from the lips of Jesus as; ‘Have you not read? Have you not heard what the Scriptures says? Do you not understand the Scriptures? Search the Scriptures….’ And finally, Peter in commenting on Paul’s writings tells his audience that what Paul wrote was inspired. The Scriptures were written with clarity, and spoken with purpose, and are sufficient enough for understanding with the reasonable expectation of accountability and obedience.

Finally, the ECM is essentially a neo-Gnosticism promoting mystery and mysticism. As it ultimately denies absolute and objective truth, along with the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture and its clarity on doctrine and belief and expectation it has confused uncertainty with humility and has determined that mystery is to be embraced. Culture now defines Christianity and postmodernism has become fully embraced with a truth that is not universal, but rather personal, intuitive, experiential, ambiguous, and secret.

What are left are not an exclusive Christ, a particular gospel, and a system of beliefs that is biblical, but a foundationless and ambiguous set of virtues that exalt diversity, tolerance, and mystery. Since truth is subjective and not absolute and objective we must tolerate each others truth and not expose it to critical analysis from the Scripture. And since tolerance is exalted diversity is expected, which comes at the expense of unity. The church is not called to be diverse with respect to truth, but a unified (Rom 15:5-6; 1 Cor 1:10; 2 Cor 13:11; Phil 1:27, 2:2, 3:16, 4:2; 1 Peter 3:8) body of believers who are willing and equipped to carry out the great commission (Matthew 24) to a world filled with diverse people.

The mystery that needed to be revealed has been revealed (1 Cor 1 and 2). Those who would deny the exclusive nature of the gospel (John 14:6) and would embrace mystery are lovers of darkness and not light (John 3). There is truth which can be known and the Giver of truth who can be known and experienced. The outcome of is that a person can be set free (John 8:32).

My conclusion is that the ECM as a movement presents a gospel of a different kind. They have confused uncertainty with humility, and have missed that true humility is born out of a right understanding and relationship with Christ. It is spiritually depraved having surrendered to the vain philosophy of this world. And, it is intellectually lazy not willing to study and think through text trusting that God will provide the timely and appropriate illumination (2 Timothy 2:7).