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emerging church

Emergent No and the lie of certainty

  • emerging church
By aly hawkins ⋅ June 11, 2005 ⋅ Post a comment

Since Michael put a link to the EmergentNo site on the blogroll, I’ve developed the habit of checking it once or twice a week, just to see what new conspiracy-laden vitriole is being spewed over there. For a few weeks, I kept a safe distance and did not participate in the discussions, but the time inevitably came that I was unable to quietly observe any longer. Boy, did I learn my lesson.

I responded to Carla’s response to Emergent’s recent “response to our critics” with a nicer version of my Sola scriptura? post on this site. I suggested to Carla that perhaps she was not finding success in her attempts to dialogue with the emergent community because of her unwillingness to examine her sola scriptura foundation, which is a big slice of the emerging church’s inquiry into modernity and its effect on the modern church. Her response totally floored me:

“First of all, you’ve made the mistake of assuming I’m attempting to ‘dialogue with emergent’. I’m not making any attempt at all, and never have. Now before anyone gets up in arms about that statement - let me assure you it’s not meant to be inflammatory. It’s simply factual - the purpose of this blog is threefold:

1. to replace the ‘what’s new page’ at the main site, with a blog that allows for easier, daily updates
2. for the contributors to share their insights and viewpoints on what they (we) have read concerning this subject
3. for those with questions about this ‘conversation’ or ‘movement’ to have a place to ask them, or contact one of us.

I don’t necesarrily have any desire to dialogue with emergent - but I do have a desire to see those professing Christ, to be doing so in a Biblical fashion.”

I don’t think I’m being overly sentimental or idealistic when I say “Huh?” What I get from this is “I’m right. People who question my objective and verifyably true rightness are wrong. This site is dedicated to my rightness and is an available resource to all who are also right, so that we can all affirm our rightness. Wrong people not welcome.”

Now, I don’t want to take a page out of Carla’s playbook and affirm my own certainty of rightness…but I genuinely don’t get it. About the only thing I’m pretty certain about is the lie of certainty and the vast, myraid dangers of claiming certainty. The Bible does not offer it — scripture rather loves the word “assurance,” which seems to indicate an outside source of knowledge and comfort instead of a self-contained intellectual confidence — and the results of it are truly terrifying. (Think the Crusades. Think Palestine and Israel. Think 9/11.) On top of the funky end results of certainty, I don’t understand the philosophical and/or theological defense for it. If one affirms the Biblical assertion that none of us is getting it right on this bus, and all of us in fact might need saving of some sort…it’s a little hard to square that with the thought that ANY of us could reach a place of absolute, 100% rightness.

Am I off base here? Humility and trust seem like the only “right” response to the human condition. Humility in recognition that we don’t have the full story, and trust that Someone out there still wants us in the story, despite our ignorance and propensity for trying to write our own version.

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Discussion

15 comments for “Emergent No and the lie of certainty”

  1. wow. I just finished reading the whole thread, including all of the responses. I’m going to take a few minutes sometime this week to craft what I would call a humble and limited version of the sola scriptura position. For now, let me just say that the version that Carla is “holding fast” at at EmergentNo is not the most prevelant (or even the most biblical?) reading of the tradition.

  2. I also wonder if they are actually thinking for themselves when it comes to emergent, pomo, and modernism info. I don’t mean to make fun in that statement, but in all honesty I truely wonder if they are reading primary sources (like the actual books of Merton, Manning, Sweet, Derrida, Foucault, etc…) or just relying up like-minded interpretations…(the problem with relying on secondary material is, What if they are wrong in their interpretation???) It is one thing if you are consciously reading through these people, considering the arguments and claims, and then coming to a conclusion based on reading and conversing. It is quite another if you write off someone or some argument because someone else (ie. the lighthouse group…) who is like-minded says it is so…

    Also, I wonder if they have a true grasp of the theoretical and philosophical discussion. To really understand where emergent is going, you have to know where Christianity has come from. To know that, you need to have a grasp on Modernism (philosophical) and understand that Postmodernism is not a scary boogyman (although some of it is…), but a reaction to Modern thinking and paradigms. Similarly, emergent is a reaction to the Modern version of Christianity.

    Anyway, I guess it seems like “emergent no” is so simplistic and unreasoned in their arguments that I really doubt they have given serious academic, intellectual thought to the broader, philosophical discussion. I’m not trying to be rude, and I hope I am making sense, but it is 1:30 in the AM…

    -jeremy

  3. Jeremy, I think I would agree with you. There are good reasons to ask some questions about how post-modernism and orthodoxy stand toward each other - EmergentNo represents none of those good reasons.

  4. I guess that’s probably what bothers me the most about EmergentNo: I think it IS important to have voices questioning the emergent conversation-movement-thingy so we all don’t spin off the globe into theological outerspace. I kinda hoped that Carla and the girls might be an every(wo)man’s resource for those questions. Instead, I find paranoid Chicken Little-like tripe. [Sigh.] Makes it difficult to be humble and receptive to cogent, legitimate concern.

    Mike, I look forward to reading your take on sola scriptura. Jeremy, glad to have you…thanks for your thoughts about revisiting primary sources. Tom Merton and I are sitting down for a long chat before church.

  5. I’m glad I can be here. I am new to your site and find it refreshingly articulate and intelligent :) Also, I just finished reading the original post re: the emergent response on Carla’s site and think I have been proved right by my original post this morning: she herself admitted to reading few of the emergent thinker’s books and the way she argues sola scriptura and lambasting ec-ers for failing doctrinal litmus tests shows she clearly does not have a grasp on the underlying philosophical reaction of pomo to mism…it was especially interesting to see them squirm with Ross’s hermeneutical interpretation comment. Anyway, thanks for your insight and I look for me on your and Carla’s site often :)

    Be His,
    -jeremy

  6. Did you see the Emergent No site just turned off the comment option. Very interesting…Perhaps the true colors are beginning to show!

    -jeremy

  7. I’m unclear on the reason for having a section for comments in the first place if one is completely disinterested in honest dialogue. Seems like a waste of space…

  8. It’s a pity, really, since I read comments from good-hearted and right-minded (in my opinion) people on both sides of the spectrum in that site. Now that the comment section is gone, thereby stilling those voices, there’s really no reason to visit. I personally don’t thrive on shrill diatribes when I don’t have a space to tell them to go climb a tree.

    Phew. Am I DEEP.

    Cerise

  9. Oops - looks like commenting is back online back at EmergentNo. My bad. Good for you, folks.

    Cerise

  10. One of the frequent commentors on EmergentNo posted a terrific evaluation of the communication issues between modern evangelicals and emergent-types. Very succinct, very compassionate. Take some time to read it:

    http://lesstravelled.net/2005/06/11/conversing-about-emerging/

  11. Thanks for visiting my blogsite, Aly, and for posting :) I would have emailed you rather than posting here, but I couldn’t find one…Anyway, I should be at each of the 5 rallies (althought with my conservative/rightwing parents coming over the 4th weekend, it might be interesting…). Hopefully I’ll have pictures and some audio the next few times!

    Again, thanks…
    -jeremy

  12. Also, it is so sad that one of the loudest “voices” in the blogsphere is this emergentNo site. Honestly, I cannot stomach to go there anymore after 4 days of visiting…it is so pedantic, juvenile, and vitrioloc. I’m not meaning to sound rude or insensative, but it isn’t even a coherent conversation! Anyway, I’m sure there are some fine sites out there (I think challies.com is…), but do you know of any sound blogs out there that might be an alernative to emergent?? I do need to be challenged with where emergent is taking me, but no more emergentno!!

    Be His,
    -jeremy

  13. Forgive me if I don’t fully understand the issues here, which means I should really keep my tongue silenced. Or my fingers away from the keyboard.

    I found in my spiritual life some time ago that the more I read certain websites like what you are describing (and listened to certain Christian radio personalities here in SoCal), the more turned-off I got against our faith. So I quit reading and listening to them. Which perhaps may not always be the most ideal response, but at some point one must when there’s a lot of noise and frustration and words in the air, and nobody can hear anything because everyone’s talking. I’d suggest just to focus your time and energy on what you are doing with the emergent church, rather than arguing with folks like this. Say a prayer and let the Holy Spirit help them.

  14. Great advice, Larry. I decided a few days ago to skip the attempts at dialogue on that particular site (since it takes at least two to dialogue, and no one over there is interested). I can’t help but go there sometimes, though, even though I stay quiet as a mouse…it’s like watching a car crash.

  15. Dude, I totally hear you! Thank you SO much for sharing this - especially about how that much…strife, words, whatever was actually turning you off to the faith altogether. I was feeling the same way (just by visiting EmergentNo, actually) and feeling kind of bad about it.

    You know, your words brought home the whole “being silent before God” thing so much to me. I know we need to sit down and hash things out as Christians, especially during such an important time in the post-modern church, and I know that the more mature I become in my spiritual life the more I’ll want to study and think and talk and stuff, but sometimes the yammering and big words and firing six rounds of scripture from the hip makes me just want to go away and be me and God again for a while. No doctrine. No church. No bible. Or have a glass of wine with some beloved and like-minded (like Mike says) friends and just talk kindly about things.

    And I think that you’re beyond cool for reminding me that the people I disagree with are being helped by the spirit as surely (or more so) as I am.

    Thanks, Cerise

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