Emergent divergence My own experience shows that I have learned more about Emergent from blogging and talking and asking Emergents than I have from reading McLaren, but I have learned plenty from McLaren and from Pagitt. There are other Emergents to deal with: Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones, Andrew Jones and Dan Kimball. They deserved to be dealt with more adequately if one is to be “conversant” with the emerging church. I think DA Carson’s book is really “becoming conversant... Read more

Issue #1A: Emergence is passionate in various directions: Why? And, along this line, we have to ask why it is that so many Evangelicals are upset with their past – whether or not one agrees with DA Carson that its leaders come from conservative Evangelical pasts is not the point. If they are, that is not the issue: the issue is why are they so upset to fashion an entirely new way of “doing church” (which expression I don’t really... Read more

Issue #3: What is Truth and how do we put it together? Furthermore, DA Carson’s book fails to deal with what “truth” means. It regularly tells us that we can know truth, that we find it everywhere in the Bible, but he doesn’t really define it and expound it at length. I think we could benefit from that, and I think the Emergent movement would like to see what he means by Truth to see if they agree, if they... Read more

Issue #4: The Subject’s grasp of the Object leads to chastened truth-claims Also, I don’t think DA Carson deals with the inevitable entailment of truth-claiming, namely, that even if we think the Scripture is Truth and Jesus Christ is Truth, we are still in need of dealing with our “articulation” of that Truth, and that is the place PM enters and that is the struggle we find in the Emergent Truth. This is a pressing issue for me: I utterly... Read more

Issue #5: Over-reactions in the Emergent movement The over-reactionary nature of some of its claims, especially about (a) modernism and postmodernism and (b) what modernist Christianity really believes. The reason this is a problem is because it resorts to false dichotomies and to simplistic comparisons. DA Carson’s book will help with this and I do hope that everyone serious about Emergent church stuff will read him carefully on these matters. DA Carson’s book explodes this issue and it needs to... Read more

Issue #6: Self-analysis or even self-deconstruction Is the Emergent movement largely white? largely post-Evangelical? If so, it needs to spread its wings and embrace the whole world. This is evidently an issue for some; DA Carson does not bring this up except in his stuff about it being reactionary. Read more

Issue #7: A strength with a weakness: permeable walls abounding I find the “permeable walls” (they are not strong, solid, or thick) of the Emergent movement a breath of fresh air. It reminds of Jesus’ table fellowship where people could be with him, could be near him, could sit down right next to him, and the gradation was possible because the structures were there that enabled that to occur. Emergent folks are working out permeable walls. I worry about too... Read more

Issue #8: Particularism One of the most exciting issues is also a potential problem; I have heard many speak of the “particularism” of the Emergent movement and by that mean that the gospel will manifest itself differently in each location – and I couldn’t agree more with Andrew Jones knowing that the Emergent movement in UK will look different than the one in Southern California or up in Minneapolis where Doug Pagitt is — and that the goal is to... Read more

Issue #9: Great Traditions I like the Emergent focus on the Great Traditions, but robbing and stealing from them without taking into consideration contexts is no more than ornament. You can’t have Icons if you don’t have a theology of nature and revelation the way the Eastern Orthodox do; and you can’t have candles without a view of prayer that the Catholics do; I could go on and on. So, read the Great Traditions and learn from them, but simplistic... Read more