If you’ve been following my thoughts here recently, you’ll see I’ve been reading quite a bit about the “Emergent” movement and postmodern thought. I do think we Evangelicals need to deal better with the epistememological issues raised by postmodern thought. As I look more into Emergent, however, I’m growing increasingly concerned about how that movement is doing this.
My sample of Emergent probably is skewed because it primarily comes from reading Brian McLaren’s books and haning out on The Ooze. What’s really disturbing me is that much of the conversation seems to go beyond “how can we as committed Christians better understand our faith, theology and fellowship with each other in light of recent developments in epistemology” to a free-for-all that sometimes is, at best, sub-Christian.
I’m not completely sure what the problem is, or even if there is one “problem.” It seems, however, that some folks take non-foundationalism or epistemological uncertainty so far that they have indeed bought into the “anything goes” of relativism. It becomes difficult, if not impossible, to generate a discussion beyond the level of individual feelings, because there is no locus or loci of authority.
Maybe the issue is that the higher level ideas — the real theological meat offered by folks like John Franke and Nancey Murphy — don’t trickle down to many at the popular level. All some people hear is “the old ways of thinking about truth and authority are being uprooted”; they don’t hear “and here is a better way to think about these things, that recognizes there is truth and authority, perhaps even more robust concepts of truth and authority, without foundationalist epistemology.” It’s a bit discouraging.
3 replies on “Pitfalls of Emergent”
I agree. There is a lot of postfoundationalist theology out there to draw from that isn’t being drawn from by many within the “emergent” movement. Perhaps that is because many come to the emergent movement out of dissatisfaction. I know that there are many within the emergent movement that are reading some good theology, and attempting to incorporate it into their “doing” of ecclesiology, but there are precious few. Good challenge.
It seems to me that there is something extremely valuable in the “emergent” movement AND in the Franke/Grenz trajectory of evangelical theological method. If the two marry, we may have a new Reformation. Now wouldn’t that me worth stimulating?!
Good concerns raised here and I am hopeful about the possibilities for the movement you raise.
A piece of information that would be of interest to you: both John Franke and Stan Grenz are heavily and personally involved in the Emergent movement. I should know; I JUST came back from the Emergent Conference in San Diego last week. There, I attended seminars by both Grenz (a group discussion with McLaren on the nature and role of the Scriptures) and Franke (a group discussion with Todd Hunter on the nature and role of Truth as well as a lecture on the Emergent movement and Karl Barth). All presentations were very, very good and made for great conversation.
While we need continuous critique, what we need more than anything are people who realize, in the words of a great feminist in the last 50 years, WE ARE THE HEROES WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR!
I hope we can all build together (as well as be open to continuous critique).