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TechnoratiThe familiar debate on tribalism goes like this:
The emerging voices blame the traditional church for being sectarian, having no desire to reach people in postmodern culture, being uninterested in the biblical call to be creative in the arts and having sold out to Christendom (the church-state political alignment). Because the church has aligned itself with the state, it has a terrible reputation in society. In short, the traditional church has become irrelevant to the cause of Christ in the world.
The traditional voices argue the emerging church has succumbed to the worst forms of syncretism, becoming indistinguishable from the postmodern world they say they want to reach. They have assimilated, become worldly and lost their ability to be salt.
After studying arguments from both sides, Belcher found that the emerging church is "thinking deeply about how postmodernism and the gospel of the kingdom are to interact, and how Christians can create and transform culture."
As Belcher cites, Steve Taylor contends in The Out of Bounds Church? that the traditional church's view of God's creation and the world has led them to confuse the world with worldliness. Though the Bible rejects worldliness, it does not condemn the world, which, of course, includes God's creation. Some strict fundamentalists in the traditional church show disdain toward creation and culture, and yet in doing so become proud, arrogant and uncaring.
"Taylor correctly calls the church to recapture a biblical view of the world which allows us to engage culture in a way that honors God's calling on our lives – to be missional, or what Jesus calls 'salt and light,'" Belcher wrote. "Since God has not given up on his good creation, neither should we."
Taylor encourages creating culture, mainly in the area of music and art.
Pastor John MacArthur pushes back saying the emerging church's biggest problem is their refusal to shun the world, Belcher cites. They labor under the false impression that in order to win the world for Christ, they have to gain its favor.
Pointing out weaknesses in both arguments, Belcher says "the traditional church is pacifist in the area of culture but not in the realm of politics, and the emerging church is pacifist in the realm of politics but not in the realm of culture. Both sides suffer from the lack of a comprehensive view of Christ and culture that treats the private and public realms in a consistent manner."
Belcher presents a third way. In a nutshell, be distinct from the surrounding culture but also engage it.
The PCA pastor offers a third way in greater detail for each of the seven protests he lays out. He uses his church, Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, Calif., as an approximation of what that third way, or the deep church, looks like but he insists that Redeemer is not the model.
"It’s a starting point," he said. "It’s not the end all and be all. I don’t think we've got it all figured out."
Deep church may not be the answer to reconciling the traditional and emerging camps, but he's hopeful that his book has at least broken down some of the distrust from each side.
"They're not as threatened by each other," he said. "I think that's good for the church."
Belcher wants more than anything, unity in the church.
"What I’m after is getting the church to be united around deep church or mere Christianity, as C.S. Lewis said first, so that we can work together and move into mission and really present a unified front to a watching world instead of one that’s always arguing and complaining," he said. "Why would someone out there want to join a family that’s always arguing?"
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