Earlier in the year I posted on the completion of my ThM thesis, which is titled Reimagining the Kingdom: The Generational Development of Liberal Kingdom Grammar from Schleiermacher to McLaren. Little did I know it’d be another 3 months and a few more rounds of edits before it would be finally complete. Thankfully it is complete and thankfully I can now finally leave my “nourishing mother” (aka alma mater) once and for all this Friday!
I’m also pleased to announce I am launching my thesis in ebook (initially for NOOK and Kindle) and printed book form the same day, May 4. I’m going to repost the intro and conclusion this week, as they’ve gone through some needed tweaks. Then I’m going to give some promised commentary on three key aspects of my research: how theological liberals define our human problem, our solution, and the One who bore our solution.
I think my research has made an important contribution to the ongoing discussion of the Emergent Church and evangelicalism, as few people, from what I’ve seen, have taken the time to trace the continuity between it and aberrant forms of the Christian faith, mainly theological liberalism. While some scholars have noted similarities, few have significantly explores the similarities and the connections between liberalism and Emergent, particularly when it comes to the Kingdom of God, the central guiding motif to both liberalism and the Emergent Church.
I hope my research fills this gap in scholarship and helps the Church better understand this contemporary conversation and its connection to a very historical one. I also hope my research helps mainstream evangelicals understand how their use of Kingdom of God language at times mirrors the way in which theological liberals have defined the Kingdom for generations. Recognizing such connections because as J. Greshem Machen noted in his book, Christianity and Liberalism, “liberalism not only is a different religion from Christianity but belongs in a totally different class of religions.”
Before I release the book later this week, I thought I would release a few pieces of the book, beginning with the preface. It tells some of my own story in relationship to the Emergent Church and why I decided to research this particular topic. Then I’ll release the introduction, conclusion, and an afterword throughout the rest of the week, which should give you just enough taste of the book to make you want buy it 🙂
Once upon a time I was enamored with the “I-am-not-a-movement-but-a-conversation” known as the Emergent Church. I attended Brian McLaren’s church while living in Washington D.C.; Doug Pagitt introduced me to my wife, and later attended our wedding; I helped host the Church Basement Roadshow in Grand Rapids, featuring Doug Pagitt, Tony Jones, and Mark Scandrette; I was even known as “Emergent Jeremy” at the seminary I attended. Needless to say, I was deeply embedded in all things Emergent.
My infatuation with the Emergent Church began in late 2004. That year, like many angsty young adults do in their quest to find themselves, for themselves, I entered a period of faith deconstruction and reconstruction the likes of which I had never experienced before. For the first time I was taking my faith in Jesus Christ seriously and asking a whole lot of tough, important questions.
During this deconstructive, reconstructive season, I stumbled upon a certain “emerging” author, Brian McLaren. I gobbled-up his A New Kind of Christian trilogy, because its question-asking, permissive narrative gave flesh to the phantom that was haunting me at the time: What on earth is this whole Christian thing about, anyway? Pastor Dan was my doppelgänger; Neo my mentor. Like many, this series launched me on an entirely new quest to reunderstand and reimagine the Christian faith outside the stuffy, stogy, stale theology that had come to define—and calcify—my evangelical world.
At the beginning, from what I remember when I entered it, the Emergent conversation really was an exploration. Such sites as emergentvillage.org and opensourcetheology.net were catalysts for bursting and burning through the cobwebs and rickety structures of conservative evangelicalism. The Emergent conversation tried to root itself in the more ancient, forgotten parts of our faith—like the Creeds—in order to moor itself while forging ahead with reimagining the Church as centered around the teachings of Jesus and the Kingdom He bore.
Theologically, it was a deconstructive tour de force with its crosshairs aimed squarely at conservative evangelicalism, and rightly so. Reconstructively (is that a word?) it helped construct a missional response to a real, genuine shift occurring within Western culture known as postmodernity. Most of the church was ill equipped to deal with the tectonic shifts our culture was undergoing, and Emergent helped navigate those shifts for church leaders as New Tribes Missions does for tribal missionaries in Papua New Guinea. At the time I greatly appreciated and benefited from the Emergent conversation, because it intersected with my own faith exploration at the time.
When I entered the conversation around Christmas 2004, I had been ministering on Capitol Hill since Fall 2003 for a little known entity, The Center for Christian Statesmanship, of a more well known entity, Coral Ridge Ministries, run by an even more known entity, Dr. D. James Kennedy. During this season I became increasingly uncomfortable with the theology behind this thoroughly conservative evangelical ministry, especially their theology of the gospel. The gospel Story it told was rooted in Dr. Kennedy’s Evangelism Explosion, which started God’s Story of Rescue at the end and in the middle—with heaven/hell and sin. Jesus, we were told, came to inaugurate a cosmic transaction between me and Him in order to beam me out of here “some glad morning when this life is o’r.”
The theology of this Story disturbed me, so did the methods we used to sell that Story and manner in which we did ministry in our context. You see, the mission context of Capitol Hill is thoroughly postmodern and young adult: at the time there were roughly 24,000 congressional staffers (an average age of 27) who were from the brightest liberal arts institutions this country had to offer. Missionally, we sucked because we were ill-equipped to engage this young adult postmodern culture. Theologically, God’s beautiful, majestic Story of Rescue was reduced to five talking points, and Jesus was reduced to a product sold like a vacuum cleaner or set of kitchen knives sans nifty accessories. After a year in ministry I began to wonder: is this what I’ve committed myself too, not only as a minister of the gospel but as a Christian?
Then along came the Emergent Church.
My story follows others, me thinks. Many others have endured similar frustrations before wandering into the oasis-village of Emergent, finding solace, healing, and inspiration from a band of sisters and brothers making a similar trek. There, I found what I needed at the time; I am certainly thankful for what Emergent was during those years. I absolutely appreciated the theological deconstruction and missiological reconstruction this conversation provided. At the time, this quest was a healthy and freeing journey that opened up a whole new world to explore and enjoy, particularly the world of the Kingdom of God that I had neither understood nor explored by nature of my own Christian upbringing. For this I am grateful.
In the past 5-6 years, however, it seems like the desire to missionally reconnect the Christian faith to our postmodern, post-Christian culture has faded and the desire to reconstruct Christianity anew in light of both has markedly increased. Now that the Emergent Church has established the missional response to postmodern culture, the time for theological construction has begun. For me, the development of this new era of theological construction is crystalized by four books: Peter Rollins’, How (Not) to Speak of God; ((Peter Rollins, How (Not) to Speak of God (Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2006).)) Doug Pagitt’s, A Christianity Worth Believing; ((Doug Pagitt, A Christianity Worth Believing (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008).)) Samir Selmanovic’s, It’s Really All About God; ((Samir Selmanovic, It’s Really All About God: Reflections of a Muslim, Atheist, Jewish, Christian (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009).)) and Brian McLaren’s, A New Kind of Christianity. ((Brian McLaren, A New Kind of Christianity (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010).)) The Emergent Church movement has indeed exchanged missional engagement for theological reconstruction. ((You could also lump Rob Bell’s Love Wins in with this crowd of witnesses, but Bell has disavowed the Emergent label.))
As my relationship with Emergent progressed, I became deeply uncomfortable with this theological reconstructive effort. And as I have progressed in my own academic journey, I have become downright vexed by the theology that has bubbled-up out of the Emergent Church.
I’m not exactly sure when my saucy love affair with the Emergent Church ended. My “I don’t” isn’t as crystalized as my “I do.”
Maybe it was when I read Pelagius’ writings and realized much of Emergent theology really does mirror his 5th century theology—and 5th century heresy.
Maybe it was after the former head of Emergent Village, Tony Jones, rejected original sin, claiming that it is “neither biblically, philosophically, nor scientifically tenable.” ((Tony Jones, “Original Sin: A Depraved Idea,” BeliefNet, January 26, 2009, http://blog.beliefnet.com/tonyjones/2009/01/original-sin-a-depraved-idea.html.))
Maybe it was when I read Fredrick Schleiermacher and realized his and modern liberalism’s vapid, gospel-less faith are being repackaged and popularized to an unsuspecting, ignorant Christian community as a wholesome alternative to what has been.
Maybe it was after I read Karl Barth and realized the natural theology pushed by popular Emergent theologians is not revitalizing the Christian faith, but killing it; it is the same kind of faith Barth so vociferously fought against in order to preserve historic, orthodox Christianity.
Maybe it was after reading a leading Emergent Church voice suggest that God and grace and the Kingdom of God are not tied directly and exclusively to Jesus Christ; ultimately its not really about Jesus, but about a vanilla, generalized World-Spirit god (lower-case “g”). ((See Samir Selmanovic, It’s Really All About God: Reflections of a Muslim, Atheist, Jewish, Christian (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009).))
My growing discomfort and vexation at Emergent theology culminated with a move I thought I would never make: in a widely tweeted and trafficked blog post I wrote two years ago I said “Goodbye” to the Emergent Church. ((See Samir Selmanovic, It’s Really All About God: Reflections of a Muslim, Atheist, Jewish, Christian (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009).))
I had to.
As I progressed in my studies as a pastor and theologian, I came to realize that while Emergent may think it is believing differently—and consequently think it is offering the world a different Christianity that is more believable than the current form—in reality they simply believe otherly; the form of Christianity that Emergent pushes is neither innovative nor different: it is a form of Christianity other-than the versions that currently exist, but mirror those that have already existed.
As I wrote back in February 2010, “The Christian faith that the authors, leaders, and followers within Emergent believe ‘feels alive, sustainable, and meaningful in ourday’ ((Doug Pagitt, A Christianity Worth Believing (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008), 2.)) is really forms of faith from other days. They combine other forms of faith that both the Communion of Saints and Spirit of God have deemed foreign to the Holy Scriptures, Rule of Faith, and gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the history of Christ’s Bride, the Church.” Particularly, the Emergent Church is simply repackaged historic, theological Protestant liberalism for present evangelicalism.
I’ve shared some of my story here to make it clear that I am not writing as a nitpicky outsider, but as one who was on the inside of and deeply involved with the Emergent Church conversation for over half a decade. Personally, I understand the type of disillusionment and dissatisfaction often engendered by mainstream evangelicalism, while also understanding the pull toward the supposed “new kind of Christianity” offered by Emergent as an antidote. I understand something else, too: the theological problems with such an antidote.
Over the last three years, I have dedicated much of my academic pursuits, through pursuing the Master of Theology in Historical Theology, to better understanding the theological roots of the Emergent Church in order to better understand how it is affecting the Church generally and evangelicalism particularly. That academic pursuit has culminated in this work, my ThM thesis. It explores a trend within evangelicalism that owes its genesis to the Emergent Church: an increased interest in the Kingdom of God and use of Kingdom language to define itself.
Recapturing the Kingdom is a good thing, as it is central to the teachings of Jesus Himself. How some evangelicals are talking about the grammar of the Kingdom—the problem for which the Kingdom solves; the One who bore the Kingdom; and the nature of the Kingdom’s solution—is becoming increasingly problematic, however. Though some theologians have noted similarities between the Kingdom grammar of Protestant liberalism and Emergent, the significance of these similarities have note been fully explored. Until now.
This book traces the contours of liberal Kingdom grammar through four generations of liberalism—from Schleiermacher to Ritschl, Rauschenbusch, and Tillich—that precedes the Emergent Church’s appropriation of that grammar for the 21st century American Church, particularly by famed Emergent founder and author Brian McLaren.
I hope this tracing effort will help mainstream evangelicals better understand the contours of Protestant liberal theology in order to better understand how some are reimagining the Kingdom, which is really an effort at reimagining the gospel of Jesus Christ itself.
Copyright © 2012 Jeremy Bouma
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