The Emergent Conversation: a Professors Reflections

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The Emergent Conversation a Professors
Reflections

• Michael Wittmer

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Outline

• I. Theological Strengths of Emergent Church
• A. Mystery
• B. Community
• C. Cosmic/Holistic Redemption
• II. Overplayed Strengths may become Weaknesses
• A. Mystery
• 1. questions about revelation
• 2. questions about Scripture
• B. Community

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Outline

• C. Cosmic/Holistic Redemption
• 1. relative unimportance of the afterlife
• 2. questions about the substitutionary atonement
• 3. nature and existence of hell
• 4. other religions
• III. A Calvinist Critique
• A. Common Grace Antithesis
• B. Why Our Beliefs Matter
• C. What About Hell?
• D. The Relation Between This Life and the Next

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Theological Strengths of the Emergent Church

• 1. Mystery
• 2. Community
• 3. Cosmic/Holistic Redemption

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Overplayed Strengths may become Weaknesses

• A. Mystery so much mystery that we dont know
  anything?
• 1. Questions about Revelation

Revelation of God in Christ
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Mystery

• 2. Questions about Scripture
• a. Its role in our web of beliefs
• 1) Gods existence grants confidence in the
  deliverances of reason.
• 2) Scripture grants access to the truths which
  transcend reason.
• b. Inspiration and Inerrancy
• Interestingly, when Scripture talks about
  itself, it doesnt use the language we often use
  in our explanations of its value. For modern
  Western Christians, words like authority,
  inerrancy, infallibility, revelation, objective,
  absolute, and literal are crucial.Hardly anyone
  knows about the stories of Sir Isaac Newton, Rene
  Descartes, the Enlightenment, David Hume, and
  Foundationalismwhich provide the context in
  which these words are so important (Generous
  Orthodoxy, 164).

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Inspiration and Inerrancy

• Dan Pooles confession states that Words
  like inerrancy, infallibility, and authority are
  related to a philosophical approach to belief
  systems that I used to hold but no longer do. I
  believe that the Word of God is inerrant, but I
  do not believe that the Bible is absolutely
  equivalent to the phrase the Word of God as
  used in the Bible.I would prefer to use the term
  inherency to describe my view of Scripture
  Gods inerrant Word is inherent in the Bible.
  (The Last Word, 111).

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Overplayed Strengths may become Weaknesses

• B. Community so much community that doctrine
  does not matter?
• One feature of what is sometimes called the
  emerging church is a turn from doctrines to
  practices unity is built less around a list of
  things one professes to believe and more around
  how one pursues truth and puts beliefs into
  action through practices. In this way, churches
  and other similar organizationssee themselves as
  communities of practice (The Last Word, 197).

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Community

• Dan summarizes Jesus take on the gospel It
  wasnt hold the right beliefs, affirm the
  right doctrines, or anything like that.
  Instead, Jesus was clearly interested in action,
  in what we do, in how we treat others especially,
  and in whether we trust him enough to follow his
  teaching even if it means difficulty and
  persecution (The Last Word, 121).
• McLaren describes the wrong, fundamentalist view
  On judgment day, all God will care about is
  opening up our skulls and checking our brainsto
  see if we had the right notion of salvation by
  grace through faith in there somewhere (The Last
  Word, 136).

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Overplayed Strengths may become Weaknesses

• C. Cosmic/Holistic Redemption so much focus
  on this life that we forget about the next?
• 1. Relative unimportance of the afterlife
• Focus on the afterlife ?
• preoccupation with doctrine (what do I have to
  believe to go to heaven?) ?
• legalistic view of God (how can I overcome my
  original sin and go to heaven?) ?
• disregard for others in my present life. The
  Last Word, 85, 134-36, 166 Generous Orthodoxy,
  100.

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Cosmic/Holistic Redemption

• 2. Questions about the substitutionary atonement
• 3. Nature and existence of hell
• a. Pharisees used hell to intimidate sinners.
• b. Jesus used hell rhetorically, turning the
  Pharisees threat back upon themselves.
• Our problem is that we use the idea of hell
  precisely the way the Pharisees did, exactly the
  opposite of the way Jesus did. We say everyone
  not of our elite partythe party of people who
  believe in certain doctrines, however theyre
  definedare excluded and will face not only our
  rejection in this life but also Gods eternal
  rejection and scorn forever (The Last Word,
  163).

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Hell

• c. Everyone must stand before God to be judged.
  Whatever is bad will be burned away in painful
  loss and whatever good that remains will enter
  the new earth.
• You know, if God judges, forgives, and
  eliminates all the bad stuff, there might not be
  much left of youmaybe not enough to enjoy
  heaven, maybe not enough to feel too much in hell
  either (The Last Word, 137).

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Hell

• d. The traditional view of hell makes God into a
  petty human being, full of anger and revenge,
  who commands us to forgive our enemies but is
  unwilling to do the same (The Last Word, 40).
• our way of talking about hell sounds
  absolutely wacky. God loves you and has a
  wonderful plan for your life, we say, and hell
  fry your butt in hell forever unless you do or
  believe the right thing. God is a loving
  father, we say, but hell treat you with a
  cruelty that no human father has ever been guilty
  ofeternal conscious torture (The Last Word,
  75).

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Cosmic/Holistic Redemption

• 4. Other religions Jesus includes rather than
  excludes
• It bothered me to use exclusive and Jesus in
  the same sentence. Everything about Jesus life
  and message seemed to be about inclusion, not
  exclusion. I couldnt figure out how anything
  with eternal conscious torment in it could be
  called Good News (The Last Word, 35).

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Other Religions

• (The Pharisees) rhetorical use of hell made
  clear that Gods righteousness was severe and
  merciless toward the undeserving. Jesus turned
  their rhetoric upside down and inside out and
  used hell to threaten those who excluded sinners
  and other undesirables, showing that Gods
  righteousness was compassionate and merciful,
  that Gods kingdom welcomed the undeserving, that
  for God, there was no out-group.a lot of
  Christians today use hell to threaten all
  non-Christians and put them in the excluded
  out-group, and you can decide which pattern that
  conforms to most (The Last Word, 74).

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Other Religions

• Maybe Gods plan is an opt-out plan, not an
  opt-in one. If you want to stay out of the
  party, you can. Nobody will force you to enjoy
  it (The Last Word, 138).
• Dan responds to the story of a Jew who was
  brutalized by the Nazis. How am I supposed to
  believe that after all Shirleys father suffered,
  hes going to burn in hell forever, eternally
  tortured, because he didnt believe in Jesus?
  What kind of God would add his own eternal
  torture to the obscenity of human torture her
  father suffered? (The Last Word, 85).

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III. A Calvinist Critique

• A. Common Grace Antithesis
• 1. People do not seem that bad.
• Neil, how can I calm down? If peoples lives
  end in eternal torture, if every good thing they
  ever did is swept away into insignificance
  because they werent one of the chosen or they
  werent lucky enough to believe the right things,
  how can I be calm? (The Last Word, 85).

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III. A Calvinist Critique

• 2. Whether or not they have heard of Jesus,
  everyone will see their good remain and their
  evil perish in the fire of judgment.
• I believe that God in justice wants to exclude
  from creation all that is evil and wrong. I
  believe that God wants to include everyone and
  everything redeemable by mercy and grace.God
  shows no favorites. All will have to stand
  before Gods merciful and just gaze and will be
  judged by justice and mercy. In this context,
  all evil will be judged and excluded, all good
  saved and included, universally (The Last Word,
  112).

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III. A Calvinist Critique

• B. Why Our Beliefs Matter (Why We Need to Know
  and Believe the Christian Gospel to Be Saved).
• 1. We are born in sin, addicted to autonomy
  (Romans 118-32 512-21).
• 2. Only the Holy Spirit can liberate us (Titus
  35 2 Thess. 213).
• 3. The Holy Spirit (internal means) uses the Word
  of God (external means) to regenerate us (Romans
  1013-15).

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Holy Spirit Uses the Word

• Martin Luther Outwardly (God) deals with
  us through the oral Word, or the Gospel and
  through visible signs, as Baptism and the Lords
  Supper. Inwardly He deals with us through the
  Holy Spirit and faithbut always in such a way
  and in this order that the outward means must
  precede the inward means, which come afterwards
  through the outward means. So, then, God has
  willed that He will not give to anyone the inward
  gifts (of the Spirit and faith) except through
  the outward means (WA 18, 136).

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Holy Spirit Uses the Word

• John Calvin, Institutes I.9.1 Therefore the
  Spirithas not the task of inventing new and
  unheard-of revelations, or of forging a new kind
  of doctrinebut of sealing our minds with that
  very doctrine which is commended by the gospel.
• Calvin, Institutes I.9.3 For by a kind of
  mutual bond the Lord has joined together the
  certainty of his Word and of his Spirit so that
  the perfect religion of the Word may abide in our
  minds when the Spirit, who causes us to
  contemplate Gods face, shines and that we in
  turn may embrace the Spirit with no fear of being
  deceived when we recognize him in his own image,
  namely, in the Word.

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Why Our Beliefs Matter

• 4. If the adherents of other religions are
  already good people, then they might be able to
  please God by their own efforts. But if everyone
  is broken by Adams sin, then we need the Holy
  Spirit to apply Christs work to our hearts. And
  if Luther and Calvin are correct, this requires
  knowledge of the gospel.

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A Calvinist Critique

• C. What About Hell?
• 1. The fact that Jesus used hell rhetorically
  implies that he believed it is real.
• 2. As with everything connected with the fall,
  the existence of hell does not fit in Gods
  story. Because it is evil it will never make
  sense, but will always remain a mystery (Romans
  1133).

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What About Hell?

• 3. Jesus went to hell, so God has suffered more
  from evil than anyone.
• 4. We should wish that God empties hell, but the
  clearest teaching of Scripture does not give us
  reason to hope for it (Matthew 713-14
  Revelation 2011-15).

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A Calvinist Critique

• D. The Relation Between This Life and the Next
• 1. Martin Luther, The Freedom of a Christian
• 2. Heidelberg Catechism, Question 1 Because I
  belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit,
  assures me of eternal life and makes me
  wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to
  live for him.

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Conclusion

• A. Mystery why not embrace the divine mystery
  with a robust belief in revelation and the
  inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture? Indeed,
  mystery is the best way to account for the dual
  authorship of Scripture.
• B. Community why not embrace our hunger for
  vulnerable, authentic relationships with our need
  for correct beliefs? Indeed, it is the doctrine
  of the Trinity which supplies the rationale for
  sacrificial community.
• C. Cosmic/Holistic Redemption why not embrace
  this life without downplaying the next? Indeed,
  it is precisely our security in the next life
  which motivates us for this one.