Bad theology usually manifests itself in an attack on the ordi­nary means of grace that God gave to the Church of Jesus Christ. When such an attack occurs, it is not an isolated event. Rather, it extends its tentacles across a wide range of biblical truths and everything – either directly or indirectly – becomes infected, tainted. Whatever the current language of the attack – either frontal or subtle – little time should be spent attempting to "appreciate" what precious little good is found in the movement itself.

By and large, when the attacks occur, some offer "left-handed" compliments to the attackers, especially if they come from an evangelical church. This is akin, in a church setting, to Americans walking on eggshells around the politi­cally correct crowd. We end up explaining ourselves out of existence by trying to be kind. Surely, there's nothing inherently incorrect with being winsome and kind. For example, when I read Paul Tillich's Systematic Theology I concluded that it had a "nice" dust cover.

When it comes to the Emergent Church Movement, I hear things such as "Brian McLaren has a wonderful writing style" or "Donald Miller is quite humorous" or "Anne Lamott is a thought-provoking author." The same things could be said of Ernest Hemingway, Jeff Foxworthy, or Karl Marx. Even in my own Presbyterian Church of America circles I've read articles recently that tend to make the ECM seem attractive without warning the readers about some of the neo­- and non-orthodox elements in this movement – and to keep with a bibli­cal phrase: they are legion.

I cannot fathom why any orthodox theologian would spend time extolling the humor and erudition of a move­ment without, at the same time, draw­ing attention to some of its obvious, glaring, egregious flaws. In Ezekiel 33 there is a graphic depiction of the watchman on the tower. If he sees the "sword coming upon the land" and warns the people and they continue to march, then their blood will be upon their own heads. But, if he sees danger coming and fails to issue the clarion call, the blood of the people will be upon the watchman's head. As a pas­tor/teacher I take this biblical admoni­tion very seriously.

In addition, I am struck by what Paul said to the elders in Ephesus in Acts 20:17-38. Verse 24 reads:

But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my source and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.

The gospel is more precious than life itself. Moreover, there is but one gospel (cf. Galatians 3:6-9).

I write this because it is becoming evident that Scripture is not held in high esteem in the Emergent Church Movement. While the leaders say that it is, their actions and supposed inno­vations point in a different direction. This was evident from the beginning – that people like McLaren, Miller, Lamott and others were not particular­ly enthralled with the Word of God written.

The Bible as "Story"⤒🔗

Where's the evidence? The latest shenanigan of the movement is to speak of the Bible not as the Word of God, but as "God's story." The argu­ment runs like this: "The real Word of God is Jesus, not the Bible; that's what John 1:1 teaches." The ECM adherents claim that this paradigm shift in no way changes their views on inerrancy or the authority of the Bible or does it deny the fact that Scripture is working in their heart.

The jargon here is over the top. For an ecclesial tribe that doesn't want to get hung up in all the traditional theo­logical "stuff" the ECM is becoming highly jargonal and is attempting to dazzle with fancy footwork.

There is, in the ECM, an explicit and implicit dependence upon the Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, who is best known for his magnum opus Die kirch­liche Dogmatik. In I/1 (Die Lehre vom Wort Gottes — The Doctrine of the Word of God), Barth's fourth para­graph (§) is entitled Das Wort Gottes in seiner dreifachen Gestalt — The Word of God in its Threefold Form. Barth delineates the preached, written, and revealed Word of God. Of course, Jesus is the revealed Word. In the fourth sub-section of this paragraph, Barth speaks about the unity (Einheit) of the Word of God.

This can sound orthodox until you recall that in the 1919 edition of his commentary on the book of Romans (Römerbrief) Barth revealed his view of Scripture. It is not the Word of God, but becomes the Word of God when the Holy Spirit works in and through it. The Word of God written becomes God's Word in the event of preaching. "It does not become God's Word because we accord it faith but in the fact that it becomes revelation to us ... (T)he Bible must become again and again His Word to us."

In other words, Barth rejects the notion of equating the Bible with reve­lation. He writes,

The direct identifi­cation between revelation and the Bible which is in fact at issue is not one that we can presuppose or antici­pate. It takes place as an event when and where the biblical word becomes God's Word, i.e., when and where the biblical word comes into play as a word of witness...

Many of the technical theologians in the ECM are openly dependent on Barth (McClendon, Franke) so it is no surprise that they have adopted his views on Scripture with some modifi­cations. It is, however, ironic that when evangelical Christianity embraced the mega-church movement it maintained a high (intellectual) view of the Bible. In the decades where little more than the themes of the "love of God" and "Jesus died for everyone" it's no wonder that knowl­edge of and respect for the scriptures diminished — drastically. Now with the pendulum swinging in the direction of the ECM, prestigious publishers such as Baker in Grand Rapids announce, with joy, that they will be publishing a number of the ECM authors. While the mega-church movement at least held to a formal view of inerrancy and infallibility, we should not be sur­prised that some of the leaders of this movement will begin to tinker with their statements concerning the Bible.

Let me give a few examples.

In November 2004, Christianity Today carried an article on the Emergent Church Movement. The author, Andy Crouch, focused on the Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids and Brian McLaren. Crouch describes the ECM as "Frequently urban, disproportionately young, overwhelming white, and very new..." The worship style is "startling­ly improvisational" affecting "every­thing from worship to leadership to preaching to prayer." What struck me as odd in Crouch's article was his com­ment that Rob Bell, the pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church is the only pastor to have begun a mega-church-planting career with a sermon series from the book of Leviticus. How could a writer for CT find the Old Testament "uncon­ventional," which is the clear implica­tion?

Bell told Crouch that "after launching Mars Hill in 1999, they (Rob and his wife Kristen) found themselves increasingly uncomfortable with church." Wife Kristen explains: "Life in the church had become so small. It had worked for me for a long time. Then it stopped working." What these comments mean and how they are to be interpreted is not expanded upon. But here is where it took them. They "started questioning their assumptions about the Bible itself." The Bells began looking at "the Bible as a human product ... rather than the product of divine fiat." Rob explains, "The Bible is still the center for us, but it's a different kind of center." No further explanation? That's it? A different kind of center is like a square circle. It's in the center, but it isn't.

Cute. Cutting edge. In the center that's the center except it isn't the center. Got it? Rob continues, "We want to embrace mystery, rather than conquer it." The mystery of the Trinity? Or predestination perhaps? No.

Kristen adds, "I grew up thinking that we've figured out the Bible, that we knew what it means. Now I have no idea what most of it means. And yet I feel like life is big again —l ike life used to be black and white, and now it's in color." One can only imagine what pearls of wisdom she'll be rolling down the floor to the younger women once she's older. Our guest speaker this morning is Mrs. Kristen Bell, our beloved pastor's wife. She'll be addressing us on the topic: We Have No Idea What Most of the Bible Means.

Crouch's assessment is almost as ludicrous: "The more I talk with the Bells, the more aware I am that they are telling me a conversion narrative — not a story of salvation in the strict sense, but of having been delivered from a small life into a big life." How did this cataclysmic change in their lives occur? It was reading Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christian.

McLaren's Influence←⤒🔗

In a book by Brian McLaren which reads as a novel, one of the characters, Neo, informs us that, "The modern period of history is coming to an end."

Here is part of the insidious nature of the ECM, even though it isn't new: Propounding a life and worldview through a novel-like book. The reader is relaxed – almost off-guard – and McLaren slips his methodology into the dialogue. The reader is unaware and begins to believe what the characters are saying. Sartre did the same thing with his technical philosophical writings and plays. The method is "trickle down."

As the dialogue continues we find out that "We are entering 'postmodernity,' an as – yet – ill-defined borderland in which central modern values like objectivity, analysis, and control will become less compelling. They are superseded by postmodern values like mystery and wonder." We don't know very much, but what we do know with absolute certainty – relatively speaking – is that objectivity, analysis, and control will become less compelling. Is it legitimate to ask how we can know about these things and not know about others? What are the signposts so that we know that we marching in the right direction rather than running like lemmings over the cliff into the abyss?

Paul Crouch (in Christianity Today) writes that "The controversial implication is that forms of Christianity that have thrived in modernity are unlikely to survive the transition." Which forms? How do you know they're going to meet their demise? Can the ECM leaders look into the future and predict its outcome with certainty? Wasn't it Mark Twain who said that the future is notoriously difficult to predict? McLaren's journey led him to believe that some evangelical pastors were disillusioned and that their dissatisfaction with ministry was neither a faith nor psychological nor sociological problem but a philosophical one: "the result of a way of thinking that was no longer adequate."

It's one thing to write that in a book purporting to be a kind of novel. It's quite another to make such a far reaching declaration without substantiation. This is tantamount to truth by declaration. My statements are correct because I say they are correct. We don't need actual data to prove the point. Just lick your finger and stick it up into the wind. Don't you feel the winds of cultural change? For the sake of argument, suppose that there is no massive change under way in our culture. Suppose that there is nothing new under the sun and McLaren has missed the boat. Are we prepared to jump through a bunch of theological and cultural hoops based on a premise; a theory?

Crouch contends that A New Kind of Christian has its real significance not in its answers – and they are few and far between – but in its openness to questions. Part of the dilemma, however, is that when questions are raised to Mr. McLaren – does hell exist – he categorically refuses to answer even though Jesus speaks about the reality of hell repeatedly. That speaks volumes. Nevertheless, McLaren maintains that the ECM doesn't have a program or model. Of course it does. It might be quasi-amorphous, but they definitely have one and it is developing at a rapid rate. Where some evangelicals are missing the boat is finding the strands of methodology amid the structure of the movement/conversation. In a moment we'll take a look at the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox influence that are clearly present in the ECM, but for now let's examine one of McLaren's pet peeves. He believes that "self" has been the center of much of evangelicalism since the 1970s. He could very well be correct there. One of the most nefarious results of the mega-church movement was that it was a "me first" phenomenon. People's desires were catered to and they were given what they wanted. The word "self-absorbed" is an apt description. To that end, McLaren gives an accurate description of some of the baneful effects of the mega-church mentality. This is what McLaren terms "evangelicalism's model." He writes, "Fundamentally it's about getting yourself 'saved' – in old style evangelicalism – or improving your life in the new style. Either way, the Christian life is really about you and your needs."

He might be on to something here. Recently I went to a Christian bookstore with hardly any books. It sells trinkets, mugs, CDs, a few Bibles, and other paraphernalia. I pulled in behind a SUV with a sticker on the rear window that read, "Yes, it really is all about me" followed by the name of the person's church. Some of us might have believed that it would have been about Christ. Apparently, the owner(s) saw no contradiction between Christianity and self-absorption.

The problem, however, is that while McLaren is correct in his assessment, the ECM cure for modern evangelicalism is about as bad as the disease. Where the mega-church movement catered to the whims of the oh-so-spoiled Baby Boomers, not giving them solid scriptural teaching, the ECM is catering to the Gen-Xers, not giving them solid scriptural teaching.

So I partially agree with McLaren when he says, "It's not about the church meeting your needs, it's about you joining the mission of God's people to meet the world's needs." Where are the lines of agreement and disagreement? I agree that if you understand anything about the biblical notion of covenant and covenant community, you already know that the Church of Jesus Christ is not about you and your needs – real or perceived. I also agree that if you understand the covenant of grace you will be concerned about both home and foreign missions. I disagree that the Church can meet the world's needs in terms of material supplies. I also disagree that the ECM with its muddled, unclear doctrinal positions can help anyone – either at home or abroad. Rather than being part of the solution, their vagaries make them part of the problem.

One of the key players – in a plethora of odd bedfellows – is the late British missionary Lesslie Newbigin. McLaren is indebted to him in a number of ways, not the least of which is his discovery that the "greatest heresy in monotheism is a misunderstanding of the doctrine of election." Therefore, according to ECM, "Election is not about who gets to go to heaven; election is about who God chooses to be part of his crisis-response team to bring healing to the world." To some, this description might be considered "cutting edge." To someone conversant with the Bible, it is both crass and sloppy. Crouch indicates that McLaren wants to turn the doctrine of election "upside down." Yet he never tells us what an upside down doctrine of election might look like. Does man choose God? Is absolute foreknowledge involved in God's election? Is election in any way grounded and founded in the counsel of redemption?

We don't pause to reflect because there are other fish to fry. McLaren is also convinced that we haven't gotten the gospel right either. That's a conclusion from the doctrine of election: If you're wrong in one you will, in all likelihood, be off in the other. McLaren, who is a pastor, is confused about the very notion of the gospel message. When he reads the Bible, he doesn't see it meaning "I'm going to heaven after I die." I understand his zeal to move away from the pernicious narcissism of the mega-church movement, but surely part of the biblical message contains assurance of salvation and our eternal inheritance (Psalm 16:6; Acts 20:32; Ephesians 1:11, 14, 18; Colossians 1:12; 3:24; Hebrews 9:15; 1 Peter 1:4).

This isn't the sole message of Scripture, but it is, without a doubt, a part of it. He compounds the issue when he asserts that "Before modern evangelicalism nobody accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Savior..." What then are we to make of Thomas – to use one example – and his statement in John 20:28? Similar things could be said about Peter, Paul, the disciples, and everyone up to and including the modern period. It's one thing to criticize the mega-church movement, it's quite another to throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water.

Moreover, in attempting to maintain his position, McLaren believes that neither liberals nor modern Protestants have the gospel right. Are we 100% correct? No. Have we understood the basics of the gospel, justification, sanctification, the Trinity, the two natures of Christ, Christ's active and passive obedience, the atonement, the doctrine of the Church, and a host of other scriptural truth? Yes. Without a doubt. McLaren claims that it was Rick Warren who convinced him that his church should be more evangelistic. He didn't know that already? McLaren took ten months to "regroup." He then "reconstituted the church with about 80 Christians – and in a year or so, another previously unchurched people joined us." At this crucial juncture in the story, you'd expect him to explain how he got the extra one hundred people to show up without him and his church acting like the mega-church movement. Was he preaching the pure gospel – that few, if any of us, truly understand? Did the preaching of the gospel bring these one hundred people to a true saving faith – if there is such a thing in the ECM – in Christ?

Cultural Collision or Train Wreck?←⤒🔗

In April of 2004, an emergent Convention was held in Nashville TN. Percolating to the surface were a number of divergent approaches which revealed that the ECM is not a monolithic movement, but one with a number of internal contradictions, struggles and disagreements. They already share with all other human methodologies the weakness of having feet of clay. Irrespective of what their formal view of sin is, they are all beset by it practically.

In the cavernous hall of the Nashville Convention Center three separate screens kept the "tribes" (read: participants. Tribe is hip; postmodern; participant is drab; modern) occupied throughout each of the general sessions. "On one side of the room, the ancient and currently fashionable tradition of a prayer labyrinth has been revived, with the addition of bicycles." A medieval prayer labyrinth with bicycles is definitely just what the postmodern Church needs.

During the opening session of the convention, Youth Specialities President, Mark Oestreicher, "urges attendees to come and go and will." They do. Oestreicher maintains that "A lot of what conference speakers say is not really true – they take 20 years of reality and turn it into 90 minutes of unreality." The result of Oestreicher's prodding is that the 800 conference-goers wander in and out through the videos, worship, and plenary speakers (90 minutes of unreality) "chatting on their cell phones in aimless motion." This verges on the theater of the absurd.

Paul Crouch (upon whose article this information is based) encounters Brian McLaren outside the convention hall. McLaren confides that he "hates" the worship music and that "the general sessions are a betrayal of everything Emergent stands for." That's quite a statement in itself, because finding anything that you can pin the ECM down on verges on the miraculous. In a leaderless movement, no one can walk into the cacophony and say, "Shut it down, NOW!" Besides, in such a fluid, amorphous "conversation" (read: movement) who is to say what's right and what's wrong?

Another plenary speaker, Robert Webber, author of the book, The Younger Evangelicals, is taken aback by what he sees. His comment is insightful: "They claim to be rejecting the last 30 years of evangelicalism – and they're repeating the last 30 years of evangelicalism."

That's true. There are clear lines that those of us who lived through the past 30-40 years can trace to the Jesus (Freak) Movement into the mega-church movement. Both of those movements were generally disinterested in and unconcerned about theology and illiterate of fundamental biblical truths. Some mega-church pastors even pride themselves on the fact that their congregations don't know any theology. What an indictment!

Near the end of his article in Christianity Today, Crouch returns to Rob Bell who hopes people will ask: "What is the gospel?" Crouch alludes to what he considers to be a parallel situation involving Martin Luther, "who found church increasingly dissatisfying." It is averred, correctly, that Luther's answer was "rooted in Scripture." Precisely. But there is a chasm of difference between Luther and McLaren. Luther's aim was to clarify; McLaren's isn't. McLaren intentionally refuses to answer key questions while Luther devoted his energy and theological expertise into making doctrines such as justification by faith understandable to the Christian. He repeatedly pointed to Scripture, showed from Scripture, and proved from Scripture that what he was teaching was not something new and innovative, but rather, what the Bible had always taught.

In distinction from what Luther, Calvin, and other Reformers taught and sometimes paid for with their very lives, the "post moderns" have reversed the process and find vagary to be the hallmark of their movement. That's their prerogative, but the negative results are looming on the horizon.

It Will Crash and Burn←⤒🔗

It's my settled opinion that the ECM will eventually crash and burn. I'm saddened, however, by the spiritual destruction that will be left in its wake. Not only will we be left with the biblical ignorance caused by decades of catering to the whims of unchurched people from the Baby Boomers, but now we'll also have to contend with the Gen-Xers who are equally bereft of serious biblical knowledge.

Webber's comment above was to the point. Even though the ECM is being touted as something new and innovative, that's not true. Anyone with even a casual acquaintance with church history will recognize that what's being done has been done before. Thomas Sowell recently wrote, "History is the memory of the human race." This is also true in the Church.

Make no mistake: McLaren has an agenda. This makes Sowell's supposition all the more true: "When facts ... that are both known and relevant are deliberately suppressed because they would undermine a particular vision, doctrine, or agenda, then history is prostituted and cannot serve as a check against visions, because facts have been subordinated to visions."

One of the key reasons that McLaren and others in the ECM are so vague is not due to ignorance of the facts, but because of their agenda. What makes the movement insidious is that Christian "jargon" continues to be used and the unsuspecting and biblically illiterate assume that the content remains the same. It doesn't. Like the mega-church movement, the ECM caters to a me-centered, man-centered approach.

Below are some examples taken from a recent PBS broadcast.

At one point, McLaren asks, "how can we go back and get reconnected with Jesus with all of his radical, profound, far-reaching message of the kingdom of God?" What does it mean to get "reconnected" with God? McLaren offers no answer. He merely poses the question. The man-centered approach is observed when McLaren comments, "In my travels, where I speak and where people talk to me about my books, they say to me again and again: 'The people who are the normal spokespeople for the Christian faith don't speak for me. They don't represent me. That approach to faith is not my approach." This is tantamount to saying, "President Bush doesn't represent me." Of course he does. You might not like it, but he does, just as Bill Clinton represented a number of people who didn't particularly care for him. Again, I'm not certain who the "normal spokespeople" might be; I could guess. But what are we looking for? Are we searching for someone who will tell us what our itching ears want to hear? (cf. 2 Timothy 4:1-3.)

Moreover, McLaren faults others for trying to be good Protestants, Catholics, conservatives, or liberals. The moderator of the TV program states, "Many churches in the emergent movement have adopted McLaren's call for a faith that integrates elements of different Christian traditions. McLaren describes himself as evangelical, charismatic, fundamentalist, Anabaptist, Anglican, and Catholic – among other things."

This is a linguistic sleight of hand. These traditions are not merely different, they are often 180 degrees out of phase with each other. Professor D.A. Carson aptly remarks about the ECM smorgasbord phenomenon: "At the end of the day, it becomes a kind of very isolated, new form of individualism, in which I pick up what I want from these things, rather than in fact belonging, honestly, to any of them. Instead of being all of these things, he really isn't any of them." But when it's all about you, who cares?

Scot McKnight, Professor at North Park University, likes what McLaren is doing. He states, "He's asking hard questions, and he's not letting people get by with shallow answers. So, he's forcing conversation about topics that are kind of sacred cows in the evangelical church." Which "hard questions" is he asking that have never been asked – and answered – before? He might not be letting people get by with shallow answers, but he allows himself to get by with any number of shallow, superficial non-answers to questions. Is McLaren the only one allowed to ask questions and expect answers? Many of his detractors have found him more than just a little reticent to answer honest questions.

The moderator of the program tells us that McLaren believes Christians must always question their own interpretations of Scripture. Let's consider that for a moment. It's often a good thing to look for ways to improve previous interpretations of the Bible. Man is a work in progress so he needs to take fresh looks at Scripture. For that very reason, my Session and I have agreed that we'll read through the Bible once a year and also that we'll encourage the members of this congregation to do the same. Nine times out of ten, you'll find something new you had not seen before. Such is the nature of spiritual growth. But there's another approach to McLaren's theology that is highly dangerous. If there is no new evidence for me regarding, say, the infallibility and inerrancy of Scripture, why should I start rethinking my position on the Bible? We shouldn't become complacent, but we also should not be destroying the assurance the Bible says is legitimate for believers.

McLaren reveals more of his methodology in the TV program. To him, the Bible is very complex which means, therefore, that Christians should not use a "proof-text" mentality. Otherwise, "we're going to have stonings going on in the street." Let's address this piece by piece.

First, yes the Bible is complex, but it is also simple. It is so deep that the wisest man in the world could not plumb the depths of it in a lifetime. At the same time, it is shallow enough for a child to wade in it.

Second, there can be a negative use of "proof-texting." A man desires to know God's will for his life so he decides to open the Bible randomly and to obey what it says. He opens to Matthew 27:5 to where Judas went out and hanged himself. He quickly doses the Bible and tries again. This time he opens to Luke 10:37, "Go and do likewise." But there is also a very good sense in which we quote the Bible. If citing Scripture is an illegitimate manner of dealing with life's issues, then Jesus was wrong to give us that example. Perhaps McLaren doesn't want to hear the claims of Scripture so that he can do his own thing. And he's training a postmodern cadre to think and act in this fashion as well.

Third, McLaren is void of any effective, reasonable hermeneutic. When the Old Testament speaks about stoning people to death that was during a time when religion and state were one. Clearly, the New Testament ascribes the performance of the death penalty to the state (cf. Romans 13:1-7; 1 Peter 2:13-17). But McLaren is likely to disagree with this as well.

Finally, McLaren says: "First of all, when we talk about faith, the word 'faith' and the word 'certainty,' we've got a whole lot of problems there. What do we mean by 'certainty'?" Is the Bible so unclear that we still don't know what faith means? If this is true then the Lord has failed miserably. How can Paul speak to us about the obedience of faith (Romans 1:5) if we don't know what that is?

When he quotes from Habakkuk in Romans 1:17 and says that the righteous shall live by faith, what meaning can that have if we don't know what faith entails? If we are to receive Christ's propitiation and redemption by faith, what sense does that make if McLaren is correct? There are numerous texts that say the same thing.

The concept of "certainty" is anathema in the ECM, even though they employ methods of linguistic certainty to make sure that at the end of their discussion you're certain that you're uncertain about the Bible. Obvious texts are ignored that speak about faith and certainty (1 Kings 17:24; Jeremiah 26:15; John 6:68-69; 8:32; 14:17; 17:8; 1 Timothy 3:15; 4:3; 2 Peter 1:12; 1 John 2:21; 4:6).

Such an unbiblical approach will not live long. But the spiritual casualties will be high. Those who escape will desperately need to get to a solid, ordinary means-of-grace (i.e., preaching, sacraments, prayer, fellowship) church. It may not sound innovative or cutting edge, but it is biblical. In Jeremiah 6:16 we read,

Thus says the LORD: Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths,
where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.