On Drawing Lines in the EC

Okay, let me openly say that I don't get it.  And things are changing fast with this situation, so let's think this through.

Frost and Hirsch of Forge have an internal paper that basically says, as far as I can tell, that the emerging church contains various groups and is very diverse.  They want to make clear that what Carson is dealing with in his book is not what they are dealing with in Australia.  They want to make it clear that they are more conservative and more strategic in their pursuit of church planting (CPM's).  I get it so far, but Emergent seems very uncomfortable with drawing lines inside the emerging church and have very aggressively/defensively told everyone to "stop it."

My question is, What's wrong with drawing lines inside the emerging church?

I have great respect for Brian McLaren, and things he has written (I've read a few) have helped me realize that people in the ec are asking the same questions as I have for the last couple of years.  I've realized others see the same problem issues in evangelicalism as I have.  It's connected me to a larger crowd and helped me be challenged beyond accepting what I've been told "just because."  I think there are some in evangelicalism who need to be confronted by his writings and realize where we are failing.  In that sense I am very sympathetic to the emerging church and McLaren.  He's one of those guys who challenges you by offending you.

But I also realize that McLaren and others are asking some questions that I'm not asking.  They are doubting some things I'm not doubting.  And I don't get that from Carson's book, but from my own reading and understanding of him.  So because of that, I think it's helpful and even necessary for people inside the ec to say that we don't agree with all that is being said inside the ec.  I think there is a need to draw some lines, even when we want to remain sympathetic to the ec as a whole.  Is that considered unacceptable?

I think Frost and Hirsch and Forge have acted in wisdom.  To go after them for drawing lines is, I think, to deny them the goal of being missional.  To be missional means to be incarnational in your context and culture, to understand local needs and issues and deal with them as the context dictates.  Incarnational ministry is not only incarnational to the world, but also to the Christians around us.  And if being incarnational in Australia means drawing a few lines inside the emerging church to show that Forge is different than Brian McLaren though they are all a part of the same conversation, so be it.  I think being incarnational in the U.S. may mean that for many of us too.

That seems to make a lot of sense to me, and it seems heavy-handed for Emergent to say that drawing lines for the sake of incarnational ministry (while still holding to a unity of faith and even of ec values) isn't good enough. 

Am I all wet or what?

Comments

[Darryl]

I think I'm as befuddled as you. From what I can tell, the problem seems to be that Frost and Hirsch may have given more credibility to Carson's critique.

I'm sensing that we are beginning to look more like a movement - this is sure more characteristic of a movement than a conversation!

[Joe Thorn]

You know I am EC friendly, and have benefitted from much of the writings. That it is diverse is agreed by all within. But drawing lines as you said create a "you're in" with some and a "you're out" with others. This (or this on fundamentalist steroids) is what has made many in the ec uncomfortable with comon evangelicalism. Lines. Lots of 'em, all over the place so everyone belongs in a little box with little crossover. I think it's obviouse that there is a more generous ecumenism and orthodoxy within the emerging church - so lines will probably not be received without some balking. Well, thart's my take. I could be wrong.

I think some lines must be drawn, but hopefully missional thought and practice will keep us from making our churches all about the lines.

[Account Deleted]

Good post Steve. I agree with Joe's comment. I had dinner last evening with a frined who served on the Resolutiions Committee for our recent Convention. He also serves on the Exec. Committee. One bit of our conversation centered on the ever narrowing box (lines if you will). We are both still young, though likely not as young as Steve, Joe and Marty. [would insert a smiley here if i knew how] We too feel and have felt "lines" being drawn in the wrong places; and occasionally where they should not be drawn at all. I suspect this is what Joe describes and what is at the heart of Tony's reaction. I still like Jordon Cooper's comment, "we are in this together."

[Darryl]

I'm all into being in this together and fostering the right type of dialogue, and avoiding drawing silly lines. But I hope it will still be okay to talk openly and honestly when we see things differently - I don't think I'd be interested in a "conversation" that papered over differences. Not that this has happened, but this certainly raises the issue of how we will deal with this type of thing in the future.

[Steve McCoy]

Darryl, I would call Forge and Emergent movements (in different stages, but movements nonetheless). I wouldn't call the ec a movement. Not b/c of what it implies, but because it just isn't as accurate to what is happening.

Your second comment is great. I'm afraid that is what Emergent is doing right now. I know they may have real issues on how Brian is perceived rather than properly understood, but it looks to me like the might be taking it a step too far. We'll see.

Joe and Todd, agreed. Lines exist in some form everywhere, whether we talk about them or not. I'm much more generous on lines than ever before. I think hard lines have been a mistake of evangelicalism. And I don't see Frost/Hirsch as drawing flawed lines, but good ones, important ones.

And it's not just about lines, but what kind of lines. Theirs are more permeable, dotted lines. They still express an identity, but without the were in/they're out mentality.

[Darryl]

Steve, I hear you on the debate on whether the ec is a movement or conversation, but if it's a conversation, then the type of thing that has just happened should be welcomed and encouraged.

I think my point was that the call to "STOP IT!" sounded a little more characteristic of a movement to me.

[JM]

i don't think I have much to offer on this subject. I think Emergent(Tony Jones) wants to promote a new way of thinking about boundaries. I think maybe they feel the Forge paper reflects the "old" way of delineating boundaries. Stan Grenz wrote an article in JETS (June 2002) on the "Boundaried People". I think his categories of "centered" and "bounded" sets might be helpful in discussing boundaries in emergent conversation. http://www.etsjets.org/jets/journal/45/45-2/45-2-PP301-316_JETS.pdf

[Steve McCoy]

Point is, I can say I'm in or I'm out of the ec and it really doesn't make much difference. But if someone is looking beyond the lines of evangelicalism and toward a missional approach to "postmoderns", they are in the ec in some form, IMO. I hope these things are clarified at some point, but for now it's hard to pin down. So Driscoll tries to distance himself from Emergent, yet he still has tons of influence inside the ec which makes him an insider in my book.

If borders are strange within the ec, then the borders of the ec itself (conversation/movement) may be strange as well.

[Paul]

In reading Tony Jones' comments at TSK I didn't hear him arguing that lines should not be drawn, but that if we are going to draw them we should be careful that we're drawing them on real issues and not perceived ones. Tony keeps saying that he is defending his brother Brian. But he is defending him from what he perceives as a mischaracterization, not a proper one. I think he would say, "Hey, if there are legitimate issues, draw the line."

And the issues seem to be that Carson wrongly evaluates things like McLaren's Christology and soteriology. I would simply say that if Tony is right, and these are mischaracterizations, then Brian could clear a lot of this up by not being quite so vague in some of those areas. It sounds like he may be doing some of that privately. Perhaps he should do so publicly as well.

[Account Deleted]

Daryl, i understand what you are saying. i too think if we are going to describe what is taking place as a "conversation" then we may well have these kinds of flare-ups when attempting to describe our location within its given context (Emergent/ec/Forge or USA/UK/Aus).

the comments over on TSK's site may be demonstrating there can be the kind of dialog many of us would like to see. yet, i do agree with Paul that if one is basing conviction on someone else's characterization, and that it may be a "mis"characterization, then it may be best to do one's own "due diligence" in the matter before allowing a private conversation to go public.

paul, could it be Brian himself is working through some of the implications for a missional theology that intersects and engages an emerging culture and he is not finished so clearing someone else's misperceptions may be premature.

steve, you have read/reading Frost and Hirsh. you have noted your own resonance with Driscoll and Reformissionary. i am inclined to follow Tony's (Jones, notes since he is not posting here) contention that what is at work in Emergent is both missional and theological and these two cannot be unhinged.

others in the ec or even Emergent who are taking the missional discussion into their theological framework (say like Reformed, Calvinists, Methodists, Lutherans, Anglicans, etc) tend to draw the lines between "missional" and "emerging" precisely because these are not issues they are rethinking as you note above referring to some resonance with, say, McLaren but not complete resonance.

those who have taken the idea of missional/incarnational and find the need to address theological frameworks that for them seem in need of rethinking are no less missional than others. so the line is not between missional and emerging but how missional is being taking into one's understanding of the way of Jesus (IMO).

thus, at the end of the Forge document the attempt to distinguish betweenn Forge and Emergent "seems" to raise an apparent "dichotomy" between missional and spiritual and discipleship and theology.

how can these be unhinged?

[Steve McCoy]

Todd, let me know if I misunderstand.

One person's understanding of missional/theological connection may not be the same as another. If you imply that because there is a missional shift there must be a theological one, I don't know to what extent I would agree. Certainly at the least the way in which we study and understand and explain and hold our doctrine will have to change, but that doesn't necessitate a change in theology. Is that what you mean?

I realize the connection, and I don't try to draw a line between missional and emerging. I'm trying to say that all who are missional are emerging whether they know it or not.

Am I making sense? Have I misunderstood you Todd?

[adam]

frost and hirsch came to the states about two months ago and held an informal "conference" on their book (shaping of things...). they came to atlanta and i was able to meet them in person while i still lived in the area. they commented on emergent there. their critique sounded "reasoned" to me at the time. now, i haven't read the document you're talking about, steve. (perhaps you could email me the link?) but, from what i understand, they perceive emergent as another phase in the evangelistic/attractive method of church.

frost and hirsch do not see missional/incarnational as a response to culture as much as they see it as a reclaiming of biblical models. their critique is that emergent is an e/a response to culture. and, bro, i have to admit, i see where they are coming from. for the most part, emergent folk are in the process of creating environments that are attractive to people (perhaps with the phrase "open" or "accepting")--whether it be in thought or in deed. frost/hirsch talk about alt.worship as another way of being "creative" with worship services. essentially, the same line of thinking as the seeker movement, etc., only this time with a pomo twist to it.

my understanding of why frost/hirsch do not view emergent as missional/incarnational has to do with the fundamental assumption that to be m/i is to approach "church" without the assumption that the church is still the center of culture (especially here in the west). emergent still holds on to liturgy, candles, heritiage, etc..

now, that's just my understanding of what they said. i could be horribly paraphrasing them (wholy possible). again, send me the linkage when you get it.

imo, i really don't care about e/a, m/i and ec labels. i mean, really. each one of them has about 95% truth to it. i enjoy gleaning the truth where i find it...

[Scot McKnight]

Perhaps the most significant issue in this little scuffle between the Aussies and the Americans is this: Hamo and Alan pulled their paper from public and, in so doing, are putting into question the propriety of what they did. Let's give that some consideration.

And, I'm not so sure this is about "differences within" but whether or not Hamo and Hirsch accepted, for their paper, too much of Carson's characterizations of McLaren, when many within the Emerging movement (how can you call it a "church"?) think Carson has so misrepresented Brian that it is unfair to McLaren to accept as much as Hamo and Hirsch did.

Well, that's my two cents worth.

[Steve McCoy]

As I read TSK, I didn't see Alan backtracking on anything. It seemed it was the perception that worried them, that the context wasn't clear enough, not that they were wrong.

I know Brian certainly was not happy with the characterizations that F&H were willing to go with, but their ultimate end doesn't seem any different: that Forge is more conservative and strategically missional than Emergent. Both are true, I think.

[Account Deleted]

Steve,

yes. i also do not necessarilly think one "must" rethink their theology in order to be missional. that being said, i think it is natural to rethink one's theology when missional/incarnational is grasped. it does not mean one will "change" their theology (an Arminian becoming Calvinist, or other oontrasting shift). a personal example would be an eschatological shift. my working through missional/incarnational has implications for my understanding of the substance and place of eschatology. we have had the discussion on the Emerging SBC, if i remember correctly, that moving missionally/incarnationally may have an impact on one's understanding of the Gospel to the degree that the Gospel is about more than a ticket to heaven which brings into view other aspects of the atonement that are often summarily dismissed.

just some for instances for me personally.

adam, for some ec may indeed be about envirronmental shifts. but, if McLaren is considered a leader, he sure has not necessarily changed the shape of his worship service as he has wrestled through his theological pilgrimage. i agree that some will always view trends pragmatically - how about an "Emerging Purpose Driven Church." the sbc is often pragmatic when it comes to trends. if it gets them in the door and gets them down the aisle and in the tank, let's use it. this is experienced in a wider evangelical context as well. i do not believe many of those considered leaders would be content that what they are pushing for or environmental changes. many of them have been influenced by Dallas Willard and as a result are definitely thinking well beyond environmental shifts.

Scot, you said what i was thinking. there must be some reconsideration going on as to how far we travel with Carson. which is precisely why i agree with some of the comments, Carson's book, regardless of his conclusions, would have been more meaningful if he engaged people rather than merely words.

[Tim Keller]

I think Forge was (and has been) saying something this: their movement is more missionally radical than U.S. Emergent and at the same time it is less interested in abandoning traditional evangelical doctrinal formulations. I think the problem is that, in so doing, they appeared to be giving credence to Don Carson's critique of Brian McLaren. And because Frost and Hirsh are very respected, this support of Don's critique is perceived as being particularly damaging.

[Scot McKnight]

Tim, you got it right. Though saying they are more missionally radical is not quite what Emergent would say either.

[Steve McCoy]

Very helpful explanation Tim.

[Darryl]

I guess the real question is what to make of Carson's critique then. Given that Carson has agreed to talk to McLaren, I'm looking forward to seeing how that one plays out.

[Account Deleted]

Daryl, where did you see this? i think it a very good thing. i am with you, i am eager to see how this plays out too.

i like Tim's and Scot's addition to this discussion.

[Darryl]

http://tinyurl.com/7gnfv

Brian writes in his Amazon review of Brian's work:

"Although I had not attempted to contact Dr. Carson before the Cornerstone Festival, I have attempted to contact him since, and I'm glad to say that he responded promptly and has expressed willingness to converse further. I am hopeful that these conversations will remove misunderstandings and make points of agreement and disagreement more clear."

[Account Deleted]

Thanks Darryl.