(Ir)religiosity

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“Emergent is dead” and emergent “break-up” posts seem to be in vogue lately.  The latest round have to do with the release of Brian McLaren’s new book, A New Kind of Christianity.  In the eyes of some he’s gone way too far; for others he is finally clarifying his own positions.  I tend to fall in the latter category.  I am still a few chapters shy of finishing, but it seems to me that this book is the next logical step in the evolution of Brian’s work over time.  In other words, ten years later he is putting more substance to the wild ride he started with A New Kind of Christian.  And the result is the most cohesive and the “best ordered presentation to date of emergent theology.” That last statement has, quite frankly, pissed some people off because Brian hasn’t conformed to their expectations or notions of “orthodoxy”¹ (although I think the subtext to some of the more vitriolic reactions has to do with some built up disdain over the trajectory of the conversation for the past several years) .  Hence the eulogies and dear John letters. The problem, though, is that people had fixed expectations.  This isn’t that type of conversation.  I’m of the opinion that emergence isn’t dead, rather it is evolving and maturing.

Among the more charitable critiques are those offered by Jeremy Bouma who, along with bidding emergent goodbye, is submitting some of the thought to some much needed, though perhaps misguided, thoroughgoing theological critique.  I raised some issues on a few threads that I think are worth exploring here a bit more.

Bouma’s main issue that is that the trajectory of emergent in the past several years (he cites Doug Pagitt, Peter Rollins, and McLaren among others) has departed from “historic orthodox Christianity,” a monolith to be determined by “the rule of the faith.”  In other words, emergent fails the litmus test.  The real question, though, is what is this rule of the faith and who gets to be the arbiter of orthodoxy?  Here Bouma cites both the Nicene and Apostle’s Creed (which, for the purposes of this post, I have no qualms with) alongside his own constructive theological interpretation of them.  This is where we run into problems.

If we want to use the Creeds as the norm, that is fine. But once assertions about what is “implied” or “affirmed” are made we are entering some pretty tenuous territory, making the shift from putting the Creeds forward to making constructive theological claims them. I think it is untenable to conflate the two, especially when we are talking about “rules” of the faith, indeed to do so limits the content of the faith to a singular expression.  Now that is fine if we are talking about constructive theology in se, but perhaps a bit myopic if we are talking about the overall norm.  I would submit that not once in the history of the church has it been the case that there as one monolithic interpretation of the faith.  Many have tried to impose such a standard, to be sure, and church history textbooks are rife with those violent exploits.

If a neo-orthodox, Barthian interpretation of the faith is the norm, then what of us who are more Tillichian?  What about the liberation and postcolonial theologians?  Those integrating postmodern thought and continental philosophy of religion? What of the process people?

I can affirm the historic creeds but I interpret them in a manner quite different from Bouma’s interpretations (substitutionary atonement and original sin being chief among them).  For me, the umbrella under which we both sit is big enough for Bouma, myself, Doug Pagitt, Brian McLaren and many other practitioners and theologians with whom I both passionately agree and vehemently disagree. Here I find John Franke’s (and others, to be sure) claim that the norm is inherently diverse and pluriform to be quite compelling. I would want to affirm a Christian reality based upon plurality which includes, but is certainly not limited to, a particular interpretation of the Creeds.  The mantra here is not uniformity but particularity.

So bracketing the surface level details (and the emotionalism of others), it seems to me that the deeper questions here — with Bouma’s critiques and the many negative reactions to the release of McLaren’s book — have to do with how we negotiate and deal with theological difference, and, by extension, the old questions of epistemology.  How do we hold and view our theological sources (Scripture, the tradition, etc.).  Are they merely repositories of timeless, eternal truths the meaning, form, and function of which are static and fixed or are they more dynamic requiring, under the guidance and inspiration of the Spirit, new forms and interpretations for the ever-changing current situation? Put another way, can the tradition speak against itself? My reading of church history suggests that it not only can but should as we are being pulled closer and closer to God’s future. Though it is far from perfect and deserves penetrating critiques like Bouma’s, I believe that Emergent is but one form among many that is seeking to accomplish this.

My reading of McLaren’s suggest that he is not drawing a line in the sand as some have claimed, but reiterating and clarifying his own position (which he argues is not an Answer but rather a response among many). He is articulating a different perspective and he’s not the first one to do so nor does he claim to be some sort of crypto-gnostic brokering the more enlightened path. Again, the question is how we deal with diversity and whether or not we believe it to be healthy.  Should Brian’s work be condemned, dubbed as “heretical” and anathema to The True Christian Monolith?  Or should it be affirmed — even if one disagrees theologically — as a valid and important expression of a plurifom and diverse faith?  I would submit that there is no singular Monolith; there has always been a multitude of expressions.  And we don’t really help ourselves by submitting each to a reductive litmus test based on a particular interpretation of founded statements or documents.

In that vein, I find the following from McLaren’s newest to be helpful:

[W]e’re not importing any strange language into our theology; we’re strictly working with what’s always been there.  We’re not claiming some new revelation or new authority figure.  We’re following the best Christian tradition of going back to Jesus and the Scriptures, so our quest for a new kind of Christianity is, in fact, a most conservative quest.  In our return to our roots, however, we’re not writing off all the great sages, scholars, and saints of church history.  We’re simply going back to the original Evangelists, apostles, and especially Jesus and making sure we’re as in sync with them as possible from this point forward.  We’re not trying to explain away anything in the Bible.  We’re simply trying to take seriously the central elements of the canonical texts that have been studiously marginalized for too long — the good news of the kingdom of God the biblical narratives that it consummates, integrates, celebrates, and opens to all people everywhere.  [...]  Similarly, we’re discovering that the more we let Jesus’ message of the kingdom of God sink in, the more it begins to unsettle all our existing understandings and categories.  It changes everything.  Before this realization, we are like lawyers trying to save an old contract, adding more and more fine print on page after page, until the provisos are weightier then the original contract.  [...]  At some point though,  more and more of us will finally decide that it would make more sense to go back and revise the contract from scratch.  And that process has begun.  It is nowhere near complete, but the cat is out of the bag; imaginations are sizzling, and exciting theological work is being done…. (141-142)

And the thing is, this is nothing new.  If church history is any indication, this has always been the case.  We are always (re)working (with) what was already there. Christianity — its sacred texts and traditions — is very much a living, dynamic organism that is constantly being molded and remolded; constantly dying and being resurrected.²  This is emergence.

1. I’m not one to suggest issuing moratoriums on buzzwords, but if I were this word (along with maybe “biblical,” “scriptural” and “heretical”) would be one of them.  It has lost virtually all of its meaning and is only used as a rhetorical trump-card [↩]
2. This is part of the wonderful, poetic insight of Pete Rollins’ book, The Fidelity of Betrayal. [↩]