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emerging church

PBS on ECM, pt 2

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By michael lee ⋅ July 18, 2005 ⋅ Post a comment

The second half of PBS’s series on the Emerging Church Movement is online:

PBS on ECM

Just a few thoughts. Even if Brian McLaren doesn’t want the burden of being the EC spokesman, he’s landed the gig. The whole segment is focused on him and his writings.

There are two straw-man arguments that I’ve heard B Mac launch a few times now, that I think are worth addressing. The first is this: he is arguing against a definition of certainty that nobody is defending, at least not people with substantive voices in the evangelical movement. He wants to say that spiritual knowledge is not the sort of thing we can have “2+2=4″ kind of certainty about. I thoroughly agree. Nobody of consequence has defended that position since Kant blew Descartes out of his foundationalism pond. What Evangelicals means by certainty and what McLaren means by confidence are substantively identical. I have great confidence in Jesus as the Son of God, but this side of death I can’t have Cartesian certainty. That is a very emergent statement; that is also a very Evangelical statement.

The second straw-man is this; the accusation that Evangelicals pick and choose verses, taking them in small snippets to construct a theology betrays an ignorance of the scope and subtlety of historical-textual hermeneutics. There are those who pick up a book like Leviticus and try to read it as propositional moral decree. Those people are called fundamentalists, and we are right to question their interpretation. Evangelicals and Fundamentalist are not the same thing. The majority view of Evangelical hermeneutics gives priority to the principles of text-as-text, historical and cultural context, narrative progression, and genre conventions. Were McLaren to spend a few hours discussing Acts with Clint Arnold or Ben Witherington, he would find much more in common with their interpretive schema than he would find in opposition.

Are there substantive differences between how EC and EV folk think about scripture and knowledge? Of course, but it’s not found on these two points.

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Discussion

5 comments for “PBS on ECM, pt 2”

  1. But here’s the rub. Over the last 50 years, there has been an exponential increase in the bleed-over from fundamentalist to evangelical. While biblical interpretation in EV scholarly circles may conform to the logic of context, narrative progression, and genre, in non-academic circles - and in many pulpits - a prominent interpretative M.O. is exactly the fundamentalist approach BMac rails against.
    .
    You are right to defend the scholars and academics you’ve been rubbing shoulders with, but I think you may have mistaken them for your average evangelical, which they are, unfortunately, not. Fundamentalism has been creeping into mainstream evangelicalism for a good while now, and is becoming the rule instead of the exception. (Not that EVs are a dying breed - but I believe they should be on the endangered species list.)

  2. I usually use the terms “Evangelical” and “Fundamentalist” interchangeably. It’s a telling point, I think (I’m not sure about WHAT, but…). I mean, I’m not trying to be an educated voice here (HELL, no) but I am someone who grew up Fundie Eevie, got out (yay!) and now use the terms interchangeably like I always did.
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    I didn’t know anyone thought otherwise. Screaming ignorance on my part.
    .
    Cerise

  3. I wouldn’t expect McLaren to defend the vacuous and convenient post-modernism of intellectually lazy emergent foks, any more than I would want to defend the vacuous and convinent modernism of intellectually lazy evangelical folks.
    .
    In any conversation, the thoughtful and informed voices should engage other thoughtful and informed voices. If you take issue with Evangelicalism, take issue with the movement as articualted by those who best embody it, not with those who appropriate the label for less substative purposes. And likewise, if someobe wants to take issue with the ideas of the Emergent movement, engage with the movement as articualted by those who best embody it, not with the thin and abberant version espoused by those who appropriate it for less substantive purposes.
    .
    The knife cuts both ways.

  4. I disagree. Just as we were talking the other night about the values of the masses informing the direction of any one body, I believe it is the values and/or methodologies of the masses that should be engaged. It’s all well and good for Clint Arnold or Ben Witherington to be on the money theologically for the EVs, but they are not the ones appearing on TBN and going into 4 million homes nightly, or writing NY Times bestsellers like Joyce Meyer. Who’s really driving the ship? That’s who should be engaged, addressed, and perhaps redressed.
    .
    On the EC side, it IS Brian McLaren who is seen and heard, as well as doing a lot of the thinking and philosophizing. But people aren’t listening to him because he’s the Arnold or Witherington of the EC; they’re listening because he’s the Paul Crouch or Jerry Falwell of the EC…the fact that he’s thoughtful and articulate and right is just an added bonus.

  5. Cerise,

    I love your candor! Scream away!

    -Ash

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