.jpg)
E-mail
Print
RSS
G-bookmarks
Live
TechnoratiPostmodernism insists that truth claims must be presented in a humbled form, without claims of universal validity, objectivity, or absoluteness.
Carson criticizes the majority of Emerging Church leaders as relying on a facile and simple antithesis--"namely, modernism is bad and postmodernism is good." He credits Brian McLaren with a more sophisticated understanding of postmodernism's dangers. Nevertheless, he also criticizes McLaren for holding that "absolutism is associated with modernism, so that every evaluation he offers on that side of the challenge is negative." McLaren may dismiss religious relativism, but Carson argues that he does not critique it. As Carson reflects, "I have not seen from McLaren, or anyone else in the Emerging Church Movement, a critique of any substantive element of postmodern thought."
In his opening chapter, Carson focuses on a workshop led by Brian McLaren at a conference for Emerging Church leaders. When asked about the issue of homosexuality, McLaren insisted that there is no good and satisfactory position for Christians to take, because all positions will hurt someone, and, as Carson explains McLaren's position, "that is always bad." McLaren also took refuge in the assumption that homosexuality as we know it today may not be the behavior or phenomenon so roundly condemned in the Bible.
In focusing on this workshop, Carson's concern is not primarily the issue of homosexuality itself. Instead, he understands that McLaren's carefully nuanced nonanswer to the question is illustrative of the Emerging Church Movement's failure to render clear answers in the aftermath of a rejection of absolute truth.
In a perceptive footnote, Carson makes an interesting comparison: "It is impossible to find in the writings of, say, Brian McLaren, an utterance akin to that of Luther at the Diet of Worms." Instead, many in the Emerging Church Movement prefer to take refuge in an either-or, both-and, and inherently ambiguous understanding of truth. All this leads Carson to ask a crucial question. "Is there at least some danger that what is being advocated is not so much a new kind of Christian in a new Emerging Church, but a church that is so submerging itself in the culture that it risks hopeless compromise?" In the end, that question can be answered only by a careful look at what Emerging Church leaders actually believe and teach. They have certainly given us plenty of material to consider.
Tomorrow: What Should We Think of the Emerging Church? Part Two
______________________________________________
R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. For more articles and resources by Dr. Mohler, and for information on The Albert Mohler Program, a daily national radio program broadcast on the Salem Radio Network, go to www.albertmohler.com. For information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to www.sbts.edu. Send feedback to mail@albertmohler.com. Original Source: Crosswalk.com
