Next question is
#2: Is the “emerging” movement fundamental a church of protest? And, if so, is the primary target of the protest evangelicalism? What are its targets?
i think this question is much easier. The Emerging Church movement is a movement of disillusionment. While the church groups the EC “emerged” from were focused on a stringent hierarchy and maintaining some balance of top-down leadership, the EC wants to break that order and return to an egalitarian structure. Charisma (leadership quality, not speaking in tongues or raising the dead) is becoming the focus again. Leadership is being invested into people of various backgrounds who are able to lead charismatically.
Protest is a pretty strong word to use for the EC, especially if one considers that the EC wants some kind of harmony and/or acceptance. Protest excludes that possibility. If the EC had to be characterised as a protest, i’d suggest its target is Fundamentalism (again, think Niagara Conference in the 1890s and not a specific denomination). Fundamentalism arose as a result of Darwinism and was meant to define Christianity as being totally against any kind of science. The five fundamentals that came from the conference were: (1) inerrancy of Scriptures (total perfection of the text with no contradictions, writing errors, even to the last jot ant tittle) which was a rather new concept, (2) the diety of Jesus (and hid virgin birth), (3) the substitutionary atonement, (4) literal resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and (5) the literal return of Jesus in the Second Coming (which required some kind of view of Revelation that excluded amillenialism and preterism). Some of these don’t seem too bad–and they’re not. Yet, by taking this relatively radical position in the 1890s, the fundamentalists were able to set up a strong dichotomy between “sacred” and “secular” that had slowly faded away since around the time of the Reformation.
It became such that these fundamentalists decided what was orthodoxy and what was not. Belief in evolution (even the one scientifically proven)? Wrong. Belief in a metaphorical interpretation of eschatological events in the Bible? Wrong. The radicals defined Christianity instead of the texts. They defined the method of interpretation (which excluded any kind of critical or grammatico-historical approach). That is what the EC may be protesting: a group of humans claiming authority on things well behond human understanding.
It seems that so many people nowadays, even Christian fundamentalists, confuse the cultural phenomenon of Christianity and the spiritual phenomenon of Christianity. To be a “real” Christian (for them) is to be both cultural and spiritual.
Yet, this is not really the case. For a historical lesson, let’s travel to Denmark around 1850. During this time, everyone born a Dane was automatically a Christian. To become a citizen, one must convert to Christianity. Now, that may sound good at first, but let’s now fast forward a hundred years. Denmark, still with its official state religion as Christianity, has amazingly little church attendance. Why? Because everyone is a Christian. This is because they confused cultural Christianity with spiritual Christianity. They thought that because they walk around claiming “Christian” as their religion that they needn’t actually practise it. That is the problem of confusing cultural with spiritual.
Now then, let’s return to the mid-19th century Denmark. Here we have a philosopher running around named Soren Aabye Kierkegaard. He’s writing more books than can be imagined and many of them under psuedonyms such as Johannes Climacus. One of his main contentions against his culture was that cultural Christianity. He attacked it every chance he got. In fact, he made a distinction which i believe is important between the cultural Christianity (or as he called it, “Christendom“) and the spiritual Christianity (“Christianity”). One of his last books was even titled Attack upon Christendom. That’s how adamant he was against the confusion between the two.
Where does that leave us? Well, in short, we must recognize that one needn’t be a cultural Christian (i.e. in Christendom) to be a spiritual Christian (i.e. in Christianity). Once we realise that being a Christian does not involve hanging out with a bunch of people claiming to be Christian, but rather following Christ, things will change for the (universal) Church. Until then, we must suffer unwarranted persecution because of cultural Christians (i’d suggest Pat Robertson as one) acting publicly without an attitude of Christ.
Some more on Paul…
In his discourses/letters, Paul makes reference that there are neither Jew nor Greek in Christ. Why those two? “Greek” really doesn’t encapsulate the totality of all the “nations” (ethne), does it? “Jew” doesn’t encapsulate everything not-Greek. So, why those two? Why not “Roman” and “Jew”?
That’s because Paul wasn’t talking ethnicity or nationality. He was talking ideology/philosophy. Basically, Christianity fails as a Jewish idea because of the continual refusal to perform signs that the Jews demanded. The Jewish idea of a “master” was one who would perform miracles on demand. Look at the prophets of the Old Testament. Signs were not the focus of Christ.
Christianity also fails as a Greek idea because of the continual refusal to submit to logic or answer the questions. Paul tells the Greek sophists in Acts that the weakness in God is strength and the foolishness in God is wisdom. You can’t get any more illogical than that. The Greek idea of a master was one who answers the perplexingly complex questions in a logical manner. Christ’s focus was not on answers.
Paul makes Christianity into a new discourse. It won’t conform to Jews nor Greeks. In fact, it asserts that those are utterly worthless in this new Christian discourse. This new discourse is one of declaration. It is found in Paul declaring the Resurrection. By people experiencing this event that breaks History into two, salvation occurs. By experiencing this salvation, the person is transformed from slave to son. By becoming a son, the person also becomes an heir. That is Paul’s message.
“Since at least the seventeenth century, evangelical theology has been as deductive as the Catholic Church in the Higih Middle Ages…It often reasoned from the precise texts of Scripture as if they were premises of Aristotelian syllogisms. Classical Protestantism was far more Catholic and hence medieval than it admitted. The focus on proof-texting betrayed those learnings.
“But, Aristotelianism was never compatible with the biblical faith perspective, as Luther discerned, and neither was deductive reasoning” (The Next Reformation, pp 93-94).
Faith isn’t logical. It’s not rational. Luther referred to reason and logic as “that bitch goddess”…and he’s right. By trying to rationalize faith, we are focusing on reason and logic instead of Christ and faith. Kierkegaard considered it a “leap of faith”. Christianity cannot follow in Aristotle‘s footsteps.
Insisting to prove Christianity true by using lines of reasoning and syllogism will not bring anybody nearer to Christ. Has anyone been won over by some air-tight argument? No. It is an appeal to something wholly other within that moves people to Christ.
