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TechnoratiCP: And doesn’t the younger generation want that kind of clarity especially when there’s all this ongoing debate on moral issues?
DeYoung: My experience is that you’re right. Young people do want that. We’re right across the street from Michigan State University. And at least the students we come in contact with, they’re tired of getting the response of squishiness in their classes. They want to know “What do you believe?” Even people in our church doesn’t believe in every single thing that I believe or preach but I think for the most part, if you can do it in a way that’s gracious and winsome, they’ll appreciate it and say “Well, at least know what this guy thinks and I know where he stands on this issue.” I think there’s a way to be clear and dogmatic that isn’t unnecessarily offensive and harsh to people. Just say “Hey, here’s what we believe, here’s where we stand. What do you think?” And we’ll still love each other.
CP: In the book, you say that the more you learn about the emergent church, the harder it is to swallow. What’s most difficult of the movement to swallow?
DeYoung: I’ll just mention two or three. Probably most difficult is the emergent view of the Gospel. There are more and more books coming out like this that explain the Gospel without putting at the center of it the substitutionary atonement for our sins on the cross. So the Gospel becomes this message about a broken world and Jesus as the great example, he died on the cross as an example of suffering for what he believed in and showing how to overcome evil in our own life and evil in the world; here’s an invitation to follow Jesus and bring about this new world and this shalom. That sounds like a great message but it’s missing the offense of the cross, it’s missing the fact that we can’t obey God’s commands, we need a savior, substitute for our sins. So I see an emergent Gospel that is more law than Gospel, it’s more imperative about what we need to do and not first of all indicative statements of what God has done for us.
One other concern I have is the emergent view of knowledge. They’ve taken the postmodern view of knowledge that God is so infinite and so beyond us that to put Him in human words or to describe Him in human language is by its very nature heretical. That sounds humble but it undercuts God’s ability to reveal Himself in the Scriptures – that He is always a god who wants to speak to us, who wants to reveal Himself to us. Now, absolutely we cannot understand God exhaustively but God is sovereign, God is good, God wants to go public with His glory. So He has explained to us in the Scripture, through Jesus Christ what He’s like and we can know it.
CP: You talk about the role of a pastor in the book. Ted had mentioned that he actually appreciates the pastor flock relationship and he came to realize that after experiencing the emergent church and how the pastor is actually more on a conversational level with the attendants. Where does the emergent church go wrong on the pastor role?
DeYoung: My concern is some of the emergent leaders have said that our new model of leadership is Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. She’s a woman, she’s lost and she’s confused, she’s a fellow traveler. I’m all for pastors being authentic, real and not trying to be up on a pedestal. But biblical language is still a pastor, a shepherd under shepherds who are governing and caring for and tending this flock. That imagery is there for a reason. The shepherd-sheep imagery is all throughout the Old and the New Testament, not only God with His people but God’s appointed leaders with His people. I think there needs to be times in the church for facilitation and conversation but there also needs to be times for heralding, that’s Paul’s word for preaching, where you declare a message. It’s not just a conversation, it’s a pronouncement. Continue »
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