The Palatable Gospel

Thanks for this…food for thought!

Your point that they assume emergents are sharing the same market space is right on, and very difficult to address. One of the hardest things I try to do is to explain to evangelicals just what emergent is; to explain to moderns what postmodern is. It’s a different language, in a sense. The other part of the problem is that the people who say those things are often the people who engage in black/white thinking. If something is outside the categories they understand as right, then it is of course wrong.
I can sympathize with anyone’s concern that people might be “grazing” from the spirituality buffet and not getting a fully balanced and nutritious meal. But when they are unwilling to engage in questioning and admit the possibility that God might be offering something new and different from the traditional fare, I fear the gap is too wide.

This is a great post. One of the best here in a long time, imho. Thanks, Nic! Hope to read more of your thoughts soon.

Peace,
James

Nic,
great stuff as always.

It’s fascinating to me that Jesus had hoards of people following him every where he went. So much so that he had to sneak away on a boat in order to get some alone time. In my experience, and I bet that of most others, people don’t hoard around assholes.

Jesus had so many around him because he showed compassion. Also, the message of the Kingdom was something that rang true for many – it was a drink of cool water on a hot day, as the woman in Samaria learned – Jesus was certainly “palatable” to her.

Thanks for sharing your hungry heart.

You have to be careful about making compromises with your faith approach, otherwise you’ll find yourself saying that you resolve to become all things to all people so that some few might be saved. How unbiblical!

Seriously, though, I think that the best thoughts in this post stem from helping us see that when you take a “marketing” approach to the gospel, and you begin to judge faith by how many people buy your product, you destroy what you claim you’re trying to serve. It’s even worse when you presume to judge others through that particular lens.

Thanks Laryn, Maggie, James and David for those comments, and for artfully keeping the food metaphor going.

Chad
Seeing how you have been dealing with fearful fanaticism online this week has cheered my heart.

I completely agree that it is the compassion of Jesus which continues to draw us, rather than these other things – fear or correctness.

The idea of a feast as a chief metaphor describing the Kingdom is resonating strongly. I hope we can have one before too long.

Nic,
One day you and I will have to find our new friend at the buffet in heaven, share a meal and have a good laugh.

peace, brother.

1 Corinthians 2: 1-5

And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony[a] of God. 2 For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 3 I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. 4 And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human[b] wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

Much what is articulated under the rubric of “Emergent” seems to renounce the good news of the crucifixion as blood propitiation for our sins, and to deny the power of that to save souls from eternal damnation. Pure & simple. Please show me otherwise.

Michael,
Thanks for the scripture. I love these verses!! For me they resonate a strong “emergent” ethos, which is one that relates to a “weakness” or “humility”in Christ as also expressed in Philippians 2.

Be blessed
Andrew

MIchael,

When you say “renounce the good news of the crucifixion as blood propitiation of our sins” you are, as perhaps you realize, saying that unless the crucifixion means solely and only “blood propitiation for our sins” (something that ironically enough, the text you site does not say) than it ceases to be “good news.”

Emergents that I know confess quite loudly the good news of Calvary. They also add in the Good News of the Incarnation and the Good News of the Resurrection. Throughout the past 2000 years all Christians have agreed that Jesus is the bearer of salvation. They have not always agreed, however, on HOW that salvation was wrought.

This all to say that the”good news” we have to share is far more robust than just Good Friday (although it certainly includes that). When Paul says he resolves to know nothing but “Christ crucified” he is saying a loaded phrase – one that most certainly does not mean Paul cares nothing about resurrection or the life of Christ or anything else (like church order and love and bearing fruit and humility, etc). Wouldn’t you agree?

peace.

“This pernicious fantasy of modernity, an excessive overconfidence in our ability to perceive the absolute, is something that remains a stumbling block in creating a Christian spirituality that can take us forward beyond the decaying carcass of Christendom.”

Too true. And yet, somewhere, despite our paradigms, Truth does exist. Whether Modernity or POV, at some point one must dig until one hits the bedrock of absolutes, at some point there is a level of irreducible complexity that has to addressed, a point where 1 + 1 is always 2. So I have no problem telling folks that I am a 5 pointer, and happily do so, but I can also sympathize here. Presumption in modern Calvinistic circles is rampant but it isn’t a matter of Modern Thinking, it’s just a matter of arrogance. Our paradigms will never transcend the truth of who Jesus was and what he did. But the attacks on style and form need to give way to a reaching hand across the isle in search of Christ’s truth, the truth in his Word. You can’t just go looking to pin the blame for a crumbling Christianity on someone else, particularly when you’re likely culpable in creating the decline. After all, if you believe that you truly are salt and light in the world, you don’t have the luxury to cast blame on the darkness for being excessively black.
Now all that said, folks in my theological sandbox are concerned about how emergents view the atonement. Redemption to us just doesn’t make sense if there is nothing tangible to it – if Jesus didn’t die in our place then what benefit do we tangibly see when we are sin stained and unable to save ourselves. I think that would be the underlying basis to any “palpable” charge, and I’d have to say that I have seen examples within Emergent circles that at face value do deny Christ’s sacrifice for us – in terms of what it pays for, gives us access to and not just what it may represent symbolically. I’d say that position is not a position based on modernity or POV, but a position that’s based on letting the Scriptures hit you at face value.

Peace to all,
Brad

Andrew
That’s is well discerned – Michaels verse in fact comes to life in that light.

I do think however that his original intention was to suggest that emergents, in asking new questions and potentially complex ones are therfore forgoing the simplicity of the gospel.

That is erroneous thinking, in my opinion, coming too quickly to the conclusion that newness = complexity = rejecting the simple gospel = rejecting atonement.

Micheal, I suggest you uncouple this train of logic and investigate further. In my experience there are not many emergents who reject atonement, its just they revision it, as they see the one theory approach as unidimensional.

Chads comment #11 puts it well.

Also see my investigation into atonement on http://soundandsilence.wordpress.com/2009/03/14/revisioning-atonement/

Chad
Love the idea of a more robust good news.

Good point too that we can tend to reduce the meaning of atonement: unless we’re constantly informed and reformed by the Spirit, we shall simply accept the default view – Penal Substitution, as the whole truth. So in the name of fidelity, we betray it.

Brad
Oh truth exists alright, and I say this as a postmodern. And that truth exists wholly in God.

But, God’s truth is wrapped in mystery. The sin of modernism is to “solve” this mystery rather than entering it.

That is why I struggle with the term “absolute”. Its very Greek and very Moderistic.

I’d opt for the more Eastern language of Moses or Job, in saying “Oh Lord, you are that you are” or “You are the maker of heaven and Earth”. I could not say, “Oh Lord, you are absolute”, it just sounds all wrong, like I’m talking to a planet or a concept or something. I will not address my Dad as “absolute”.

But I agree that redemption must express itself tangibly, and not be a mere idea – here we think similarly.

Nic,

God is indeed a mystery. I don’t deny that. God is who he is, the I am is the I am, and we’re offered an eternity to find out how deep the rabbit hole goes.

“I could not say, “Oh Lord, you are absolute”, it just sounds all wrong, like I’m talking to a planet or a concept or something. I will not address my Dad as ‘absolute’.”

The I am is the I am, though. Unlike any other dad, He is sufficiently self-sufficient and we move and have our being on account of him. And as Paul said of Him, nothing comes into to being apart from him.

But we agree that God isn’t a planet or a concept and that it’s dumb to think of him that way. Ironically, the Father being in Spirit, and in eternal existence, is more permanent and real than any person in our finite realm. But that doesn’t make him unknowable and it doesn’t mean the lesser truths he’s revealed to us are any less true just because he’s written them down and given them to us. He’s given us his Word to tell us little bit about who he is. We can look at Creation, but the centerpiece of any revelation has its root in the Revelation (not the last book, but the whole volume that describes the Godman). It’s here that we can take solace that he is the most permanent person. It’s here that we can look at the magnificence of what he’s created and realize that it’s but a shadow of true reality, while still accepting that it truthfully and accurately reflects the One True God.

Brad

Brad
Well put, I agree with all you wrote. I especially like “we can take solace that he is the most permanent person”.

Thank you.

Andrew,

I think the “weakness” is all. It is through coming to understand it (i.e., the weakness) as an irreducible attribute of ourselves that we can acknowledge and own it before God, knowing that He has known it all along. Then the crucifixion is not some abstract penal substitution for someone grudgingly acknowleding they will never be perfect, but resentfully suspecting that that is the feature of a “rigged” game, but (& this is what is totally overwhelming and, might I say, saving) what the triune God did for me through His son, the Lamb, long before I could ever know I would need it and could ever ask for it (even supposing one could be that audacious). It is through this hermeutic of weakness that John 3:16 is a real testimony of what has happened in one’s own life and not some platitutde.

Chad,
What I mean is that when “the crucifixion” becomes entirely a metaphorical phenomena whose objective correlative is subsumed in notions or conceptual commitments such as the necessity of “putting to death bad habits,” or “eliminating the negative patterns of thought that operate to thwart one from acheiving one’s potential” or “the community accepting the fatal falsehood or partiality of adhering to received or hierarchically determined truth or wisdom” or (more baldly) “getting out of one’s comfort zone,” it (i.e., crucifixion) is not-most importantly-simply triviliazed, it is robbed of its centrality in salvation, or it is indicative of a theologically bankrupt notion of salvation. I am not only going to die, but I do die a little more each day. I prefer to believe that because I became overwhelmingly aware of what the Triune God did through the voluntary abdication of divinity by His Son, the Lamb and his assumption of humanity and his obedient life and sacraficial death on the cross that I, as Paul writes in Corinthians, am both dying in the flesh but being transformed in the spirit AND being delivered daily to death that the life of the Lord Jesus might be made manifest in me that (to both paraphrase and jump around a bit in the Corinthian texts) grace might abound to a groundswell of Thanksgiving as pictured in Revelation.

I don’t die “to the old-”sinful self” so I can find the “sweet spot” in my personal interests and pursue what makes me happy as if life were a matter of getting to be a smarter and smarter shopper, but I die, perhaps only metaphorically, that I might begin to be both transformed by being delivered to death daily and manifesting (not announcing)the regenerative life of Christ. Paul says you are a fool of the worst sort if you do not believe in the resurrection and he put his credibility on the line for it on Mars Hill and suffered the attendant ridicule for it—-as in the Corinthian equivalent of “y’all come back, hear?” “Seed picker, come back tomorow and ramble on a little more this is a fascinating if indigestible stew you cook up.”
For me the question for much of what I hear in the “Emergent” dialogue is not whether Emergent thinking posses a more “robust” view of good news but whether it’s “good news” is so difuse as to slide into contentlessness. In terms of the range of Good News I would settle for the blind seeing, the lame walking, the deaf hearing, the hungry being filled, the imprisoned and the oppressed being freed, the orphan being parented, the naked being clothed, and the knowledge that not one, not even my worst enemy is going to be lost to eternal life together with God, the Father & Mother, the Lamb and the Holy Spirit—finally being so slain in the spirit that I am always falling down saying, Worthy is the Lord.

Nic,
I am a little puzzled why you believe that I think Emergent’s questions might turn out to be unwarrantedly complex by virtue of their newness, as well as how you arrive at the conclusion that I am probably trapped by an algorithmic pattern of thought sketched as “newness = complexity = rejecting the simple gospel = rejecting atonement.”

I am not suggesting anywhere that simplicity is an attribute or marker or sign or vestige of authenticity or truth.

I am delighted to hear you say this is not the case. I do not need to arrive with you on some consensus statement that we assert is a credally correct formulation of the work of atonement on the cross (even though I am sure some brothers think that if only I consulted the right proof texts such a statement would write itself: beware your imminent fate if you see writing on the wall-nec paz?)
Peace. If your aim is to engage and that not just applied to those who already think these thoughts, you have obviously succeeded.

Michael,
As per your post 19 I couldn’t agree more. I guess what I am baffled by is why you think emergents would say any differently.

Since I cannot see what you are seeing, perhaps you can share with us what it is you have heard emergents saying about the atonement (not just what, but who) so that we can have some context? And bear in mind that not all emergents think the same about these things.

thanks,
Chad

Michael,

As to your comment 18. Thanks for this, I could not have said it better myself.

You have touched on my personal favourite theme – weakness.

Be blessed
Andrew

Nic –
I love this statement: Marketing is a matter of Mammon, while the Enterprise of God is often about losing market share, being unpopular, perceiving the potential in small “mustard seed” beginnings, and forgoing worldly profit for the eternal reward of obeying God and loving the world.

For me, I must admit that one of the cautions I have with regards to the emerging/emergent ideas is that there seems to be a rapid willingness to disconnect from all that has happened before.

We must remember that we have come from somewhere. As you know, the gospel did not start in the 21st century. It has been carried out for 2,000 years. Granted, there have been some mess-ups, even atrocities. But Jesus did ultimately promise that Hades would not overcome the church. He is faithful, even when we are not.

So I am a bit wary of what seems to be the emerging/emergent willingness, almost passion, to discard all that has gone before. We have a cloud of witnesses before us. We need to faithfully consider what they have said and taught, even in its imperfections, as they too were directed by the Spirit. To not do so would probably be just as arrogant as you claim the anti-emergents are being.

Chad,
I think we will have to settle for the fault being mine. As you get older you accumulate a lot of nuances in your frame of reference…some really helpful, some not. Partly why this website/blog is so good for me, because Iget to read and ask questions and get answers that really help me think. Thanks

From a purely Biblical perspective, the bottom line seems to be that Jesus attracted some and repelled many. Most followers abandoned Him once His message became “severe” for them to swallow (Jn. 6:66). The free food and wine was great but the parts about death to self and all that other “theological and religious” stuff was not a big hit with the modern crowds!

Yes, God is love, but love is much more than forgiveness peppered with hugs and kisses. Love includes discipline as well as compassion. Love includes correction as well as compliment. Love encompasses righteousness, morality and self-sacrifice as well forgiveness, mercy and grace.

It seems quite obvious to any genuine student of the Bible that the mission of the church in all generations is to become an irresistible influence in the community in which God has placed us – yes, make use of the latest technology and all manner of relevant methodology in order to reach pre-Christians.

Yes, ditch OUTMODED tactics and styles that are no longer working or relevant to the 21st century mind etc. But never…ever…do this… at the expense of the Biblical message; the message AS IT STANDS; without sweetening it up in order to make it more appetizing for those who dislike the bitter parts…and there ARE bitter parts (Hell, torment, antichrist, Tribulation, suffering, persecution, Fatherly chastisement, loss of reward for believers etc.)

Salt is a preservative as well as a seasoning and the church is to protect and maintain the message intact – AS JESUS HIMSELF AND THE APOSTLES DELIVERED IT – ours is not to dilute or re-interpret it so the modern generation can stomach it – What about Revelation 22:19? Having said that – the gospel is a wonderful message of grace and truth as well as one of warning, of harsh judgments to come for all detractors -(we can’t just dismiss that part….can we? – at what risk?) –So, I humbly suggest that the church do its best to strike that delicate balance and remember…not everyone is going to WANT Jesus – Didn’t He say FEW will find the narrow path??

“If there is one thing I have learned in pastoring for nearly 2 decades it is that we must be wary of siding with preference over scriptural revelation. What we WANT Jesus to be and what He actually SAYS about Himself might be tow different things.

Yes, God is love, but love is much more than forgiveness peppered with hugs and kisses. Love includes discipline as well as compassion. Love includes correction as well as compliment. Love encompasses righteousness, morality and self-sacrifice as well forgiveness, mercy and grace.”

All true and all things the modern American Church has miserably failed at doing.

“So, I humbly suggest that the church do its best to strike that delicate balance and remember…not everyone is going to WANT Jesus – Didn’t He say FEW will find the narrow path??”

Yes, but we shouldn’t use this as a club for people protesting the same stale, old traditions that has people leaving the church in droves. Emergents are asking questions and are rebuking the apathy and indifference so many leaders refuse to do anything about. Though I don’t necessarily agree with all their protests, I am deeply sympathetic to why they are protesting and refuse to hold hands with the Church of Ephesus as they try to simultaneously navigate around the Church of Laodicea.

Patience and hope is warranted, even if we don’t theologically see eye-to-eye.

Brad

Brad, I could agree with you to overlook theological differences if Emergents had a passion to see souls saved, but they don’t, for the most part. Most emergents are deeply antagonistic to evangelism. Terms like “seeing souls saved”, “born again”, being “converted”, “winning people to Christ”, “meeting the Lord”, “recieving Jesus as savior”, even, “becoming a Christian” are rejected as imperialistic Christianity, the old paradigm. It’s scalp counting, marketing, an obsession with numbers and as Nic Paton calls it, “individualised salvation”. This is simply an excuse to refuse to go out into the highways and byways and compel them to come in.

Emergents like to call themselves missional, but it is not Jesus or Paul’s mission. Paul did not travel around Asia Minor dispensing free legal counsel, building schools, digging wells, organizing rallies against injustice in the Roman colonies and railing against consumerism. He introduced people to Jesus and then laid hands on them to recieve the Holy Spirit. Luke is careful to record that the first preaching of the gospel (by the newly Spirit empowered “fisher of men”) netted 3,000 souls. John is constantly alluding to the numbers of people coming into the kingdom through the word of their testimony and the blood of the lamb in Revelation.

Revival is sweeping through Cuba through personal evangelism, China went from 1 million to 60 to 80 million in 50 years through person to person evangelism, people are coming to Christ in record numbers in Africa, South America, Indonesia, even Sri Lanka. This rejection of the call to evangelism concerns me, however this theology contains within it the seeds of its own destruction. The Albigensian heresy of the 12th century ran its course in one generation, largely because they did not believe in marriage and reproduction. Watchman Nee, the saint of China, called us to be reproducers of reproducers. I fear that some in the emergent conversation are just making people more comfortable on the decks of the Titanic. I agree with Nic that perhaps Emergents have a different vision of God and Gods purposes, and that is why the meal they serve tastes so fundamentally different.

“It’s scalp counting, marketing, an obsession with numbers and as Nic Paton calls it, “individualised salvation”.

Yes, and they have a point. You can look at all the hands raised, cards signed and number counts from the altar calls and sadly laugh when you compare it to real fruit.

“This is simply an excuse to refuse to go out into the highways and byways and compel them to come in.”

As opposed to being plastered all over the Internet with a far larger, deeper reach?

Brad

Sadly laugh? I saw my mother raise her hand and go forward to an altar call. I saw my father 1 month later raise his hand and go forward to an altar call. That was 30 years ago and they have led many others to salvation since. That started a chain that led all four kids to the Lord who led 10 grandchildren to the lord. I led most of my friends to the Lord. I am now part of a prayer team that responds to people who have raised their hand to an altar call.

Sadly laugh?! Jesus gave the parable of the seed and the sower. Some seed was snatched away, some took root but died in rocky soil some bore 30 fold, 60 fold…that is aways going to be the nature of evangelism. How many of the 3000 remained in the faith at the day of pentecost? Who did the head count of 3000? It was in response to Peter’s declarations of propositional truth that thousands were born again that day. “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” “What must I do? Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

Rick,
I disagree with you. You may find a few emergents here and there who fit the bill that you describe, just as I can find a good handful of people who are “counting scalps” and it’s all about numbers. So lets not rest on our broad brush strokes, ok?

I consider myself evangelical and I have a passion for evangelism However, I am trying to restore that term to its proper place and usage. The thing I am “antagonistic” against is evangelism techniques that place the evangelical in the drivers seat. In other words, it places your salvation in my hands and reduces salvation to fire insurance. This is the “counting heads” motif, one where we are only interested in translating people from one eternal destiny to another. This, I would argue, is NOT evangelism nor is it being evangelical in the biblical sense of the word.

I am an evangelical because I recognize that I have GOOD NEWS to share to the world. What is that good news? It is NOT (as many assume) that if you make the right choice today then you can go to heaven because of Jesus. That isn’t Good News for the world – it’s only good news to the lucky few who hear and the lucky few of those who agree with me.

No, the Good News is that Jesus Christ is Lord of the universe and is the first fruits of what God is going to do for the entire cosmos. My invitation is not one that assures them a disembodied life in heaven some day after they die but an invitation to be part of what God is already doing in the world through Christ.

You will notice that none of the evangelism in the Bible had anything to do with heaven or hell. It wasn’t about saving souls for some eternal destiny. It is about announcing that the blind can now see, the lame can walk, the slaves are freed. It is about announcing that Caesar (USA, money, careers, relationships, drugs, TV, cars, etc) is not Lord and cannot and will not give life but trust in Jesus and Jesus alone. Being evangelical is about inviting people into a life that is true and a reality that is already true about them, whether they acknowledge it or not.

peace.

Chad, Jesus was pretty clear when He gave us the great commission “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.”

So how about this message for your first evangelistic rally: “The sun will become dark, and the moon will turn blood red before that great and glorious day of the Lord arrives. But everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” “Peter’s words pierced their hearts, and they said to him and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” Peter replied, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.” These people wanted to escape the fierce judgement of God by having their sins forgiven. Fire insurance. 3000 people were saved in one fell swoop.

The Jewish leaders were upset that Peter and John were promising life after death for new believers.
“These leaders were very disturbed that Peter and John were teaching the people that through Jesus there is a resurrection of the dead. They arrested them and, since it was already evening, put them in jail until morning. But many of the people who heard their message believed it, so the number of believers now totaled about 5,000 men.” Seems like the eternal life promise netted another 2000 in one day.

The hope of heaven was the heart of the gospel. As Paul says “Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have to all the saints, For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel”.

And I’m glad you brought up healing in the context of evangelism. There is nothing more dramatic or awe inspiring as when a blind person is healed or a deaf person hears or a crippled person walks by the power of the name of Jesus as Peter and John found out. That is one of the reasons the gospel is growing so rapidly in Africa, South America and Indonesia. People are being healed today of cancer, heart failure, diabetes. Physical healing is the way Jesus said we would know the Kingdom of God is here. I was healed of Congestive heart failure 10 years ago as someone laid hands on me and prayed in the hospital. It sure surprised my cardiologist.

I am puzzled by your comment that the gospel is “not if you make the right choice today then you can go to heaven because of Jesus. That isn’t Good News for the world – it’s only good news to the lucky few who hear and the lucky few of those who agree with me. No, the Good News is that Jesus Christ is Lord of the universe and is the first fruits of what God is going to do for the entire cosmos.”

Are you saying that only the lucky few will hear about going to heaven because of Jesus, but that the good news is that everyone will be restored because Jesus will restore the whole cosmos? If so, I agree, why evangelize if everyone gets saved in the end. But of course, that’s not what the Bible says. Emergents are all about changing the meaning of words and understand evangelism as promoting liberation theology, anti-consumerism, anti-capitalism, promoting socialism, gay rights, corporate greed, everything except what the Bible teaches.

Michael (#20)
If I am wrong in my assumptions, I stand corrected.

I’d like to affirm that the “more robust gospel” is a fuller vision of what Jesus intended.

We must acknowledge the risks: the emergent position can appear to be erring on the lesser gospel, if we fail to appreciate the amount of deconstruction necessary for arriving a this fuller position. Theres a lot to undo in order to rebuild.

ScottL (#23)
Thanks for sharing your cautions. You are correct that some people react to the evils of what came before aka throwing the baby out with the water.

But I’d suggest this: the obsession with noverlty is a feature of the modern worldview as much as it is a feature of the postmodern. In the case of modernity, progress is seen as ultimate, and the myth of progress rules. We see this every day in the commercial sector.

In the case of postmodernity, because there is less emphasis on an overarching narrative, and things are more relativistically conceived, things can change radically without anyone caring.

But the biblcial worldview, it would appear, needs to find the balance between novelty and tradition. If anything postmoderns are far more interested in traditions paved over by modernity, such as the medieval creation mystics or the desert fathers.

Brain McLaren puts a great spin on this when he said at the recent Amahoro conference:
“One of the things that needs to be shed is the assumption that … the Christian faith is primarily something that is handed to us from the past … I’d like to suggest that the journey of following Jesus is primariy something that is given us from the future.”

So maybe its not so much an issue of past vs present, as past and future in balance.

frank (#25)
As far as I am aware, emergents ARE seeking what Jesus says. What they are doing however is questioning the framework of interpretation we bring to the Scriptures.

I thank you for your passionate plea to view love from a broader POV. I agree that love is not the sentimental “hugs and kisses” quality you speak of.

But from my “emergent” angle, I am in awe of the Inclusive God. It is the revelation of Inclusion at the heart of His message that has “saved me” from what I held before – exclusive, limited atonement – and opened new vistas for worship and mission.

We can take this futher (“Jesus attracted some and repelled many”, “narrow path”) as I am very interested in a robust theology of Inclusion, and none of us is above reproach.

Brad (#26)
Thanks for yor call to patience. We can only be strengthened by talking, and seeking what is in common, even while we know we are different.

rick (#27, 29, 31)
You bring up an important issue, why don’t emergents see or get “souls saved”? As a (unfinished) postevangelical this still remains a bit of a mystery to me. I’d love to see more radical expressions of metanoia. I’d love to see a picture of emergent evangelism in practice.

But at the same time, many emergents are deeply interested in new approaches to and practices of salvation.

Our modern evangelical view of individualist salvation as primary may be quite twisted by modern notions such as individualism or consumerism.

“why evangelize if everyone gets saved in the end” is a question many ask when universal salvation is brought up. It’s answer is simple, “To bring them salvation.” The fact that God has a plan to save all does not mean that we can now sidestep that plan. Woe to those who choose a cheap universalism. The biblical view is for me about a costly universal salvation. Unless we die, we shall not taste life. The message is the call to die to self, and live to God.

And as a personal opinion, I have read Watchman Nee and suffered considerably from taking his teachings to heart; I think his deeply dualistic assumptions, a wierd mix of eastern asceticism and westerm individualism, MUST be questioned, (although his piety seems above reproach).

When I now think “salvation” I think more about God’s grand plan to restore all things (including individuals). I can’t at this stage say how evangelism looks with this premise, but I am keen to know.

Oi, you emergent restorationist evangelists, how do YOU do it?

Nic –
Yes, I think this statement of yours is very important – But the biblical worldview, it would appear, needs to find the balance between novelty and tradition.

This is a hard balance. But as long as we stay humble and accountable to the body of Christ, we can be more assured that we won’t blind ourselves.

Still, as you might remember from our previous conversations a few months back, I really struggle with the emergent acceptance of inclusivism.

“Sadly laugh?”

Rick, you took an argument against Emergents built on sweeping generalities, I responded in that vein and now you’re clubbing me over the head with it based on your individual experience. I hope you can see the shift and how one might interpret it as fallacious and unfair. I’m not trying to diminish how God can and did work in your family in such a situation, but if you want to argue at a global level you have to stay and play there or make the necessary concessions and then move on.

Again, the so called altar call has produced little fruit against those claimed to be genuinely regenerated – and we have an apathetic unloving church as exhibit A. Peace.

Brad

Nic,

At some point (maybe a future post?), I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts as to whether or not universalism is a representative view of Emergents at large and responses to the following questions:

Wouldn’t universalism simply bolster the sinful view Paul railed against, “Let us eat, drink for tomorrow we die.” If we are saved anyway, it seems a pretty high price to pay to leave our comfy homes and lives of sin just for a noble cause. After all, pragmatism usually wins out over truth – even when that truth is undeniable – and if I’m just saved anyway, what use is it to be all that concerned about the Gospel when at the end of the day, it’s not all that important whether one understands it or not.

The second question is simply a follow up:

Why did the New Testament authors spill so much ink over fighting sin when at the end of the day, Jesus’ death pays for those sins?

Brad

Atone and ScottL
I address you together as you both indicate your struggles with an idea of universal salvation.

I came to this view after almost 3 decades of struggle with scripture and tradition, periods of fundamentalism, charismatic, liberationalist, and quasi-agnosticism. Its been a long journey. But I feel a certain thrill that all this intense questing is starting to make sense.

So you should indeed struggle – there is no other way. You should question. Deeply, and with all your hearts.

Is UR (Universal Restoration) a typical emergent view? I don’t think so. There are only a handful of emergent people I am aware of who intimate that Salvation could be Universal.

The banner (from a western christian POV)flies more obviously in the Unitarian sector, and from what I know Unitarians are otherwise quite conservative, and those I asked had never heard of emergence.

Inclusivism, in my understanding, is the outworking of the belief that God is willing/able to save all. If so, I envision all as potential family. The shape of worship and mission is very interesting from this angle.

Because it is universal, does not mean however that it is a fait accompli. No, Salvation needs to be worked out, by preaching, by loving, by mission.

To respond to the greatest force in the cosmos – the Love of God – with apathy or fatalism is the worst possible response. Jesus repeatedly talks of workers doing the work.

I hope this starts to answer your concerns. My own journey is detailed in and around these writings: http://soundandsilence.wordpress.com/?s=universal

Forgive me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this Emergent view somewhat wrapped up in the vagueness of mysticism? I would even label it an offshoot of existentialism, but the irony there would be that Emergent theology (is there even such a thing?—I ask that in all honesty) puts so much emphasis on the community. So let’s call it a collective existentialism, in which what matters is the experience of the moment, the grasping of the realized potential to live out in the present one’s overwhelming sense of the mystical encounter with God.

Don’t get me wrong, the encounter is vital: it is what drives us toward our goal. But I am concerned that Emergent thought has left little room for a goal or destination; for that entails a path, and a path assumes parameters. Are there boundaries clearly marking out the territory? Is there a danger zone, where one might traipse off into darkness where no ray of hope can break through?

The Gospel is about realizing God’s future in the present, sowing the seeds of the Kingdom now in anticipation of the day when God’s Spirit covers the earth as the waters cover the sea….but part of that mission is to challenge the world, and individuals within it, to recognize and repent of their shortcomings, and to turn to the Way that leads to life. (If life is going to be anything real and definitive, it has to have markers that set it apart from other modes of reality, or non-reality; so there will be some things that are compatible with life, and some things that are not, and the decision about what behavior, or what decisions, fall into which camp, is not arbitrary, but inherent in the unchanging nature of the Godhead.)

While fundamentalism and right-wing evangelicalism has harped on about sin and hell and all that, rather at the expense of the “metanarrative” in which God calls humanity up into fellowship with him and makes them instruments within his Kingdom-project, it seems the Emergent church has reacted so strongly as to focus on the more “vibrant”, positive aspect of the Gospel message.

For there are two sides: the building of God’s new world in the present, and the salvation from sin. Scripture holds the two in a fine balance. Postmodernity’s distaste for absolutes certainly, I think, plays into the Emergent, neo-orthodox, spiritualist, “realized eschatological”, whatever, emphasis upon potential and opportunity—it’s not about what you’re saved from, it’s what you’re saved to, in the infinitude of the “now”, that really matters. I would hold that it is both. And the evangelical image of God as being a monarch proclaiming strict Truth and even implementing wrath (though I allow that much of the imagery of wrath in Scripture probably results from an ancient worldview; but should we really expect God, as the ultimate Other, to be all hugs and giggles?—not safe but good, to quote Lewis, that’s the God of Christ), the God you align with Republican greed and imperialism, is in my view half of the God that comes across in Scripture. The other half, of course, is the love, the yearning for relationship, the joy in creation, the suffering Deity, the all-encompassing personal Spirit.

But, if we’re going to talk about anything definitive or objective at all, let us realize that the “narrow framework”, if you will, of God’s person, that those cantankerous fundies rave so about—while broader than all realities the human consciousness might ever dream up—is that innate nature of the Deity that determines his loving qualities and his devotion to a good, orderly cosmos in which humans serve as his partners in the creative process.

At any rate, what I see in this blog is disconcerting evidence of yet another “reactionary” movement within the Christian household: a group of “enlightened” dreamers, commendably set on the ideal of a world drenched in the glory of God, whose earnest love for neighbor, earth and God drive them to radical mission and servitude, zealously dismantle the mighty stones of tradition, seeing in them the cold apathy of self-satisfied ritual; and having torn down those walls to get out into the fresh air of morning, then proceed to offer a message of hope to the world based upon the name of Jesus, but ultimately realize that, in their eagerness to break with the strictures of their sadly lame heritage—which, after all, needs but a revival from within, not a rupture in its chest—have actually broken up the foundation which gave shape and structure to their inherited message in the first place. (Don’t think I’m trying to say that American evangelicalism is identifiable with Church tradition, as though the Southern Baptists and Reformed folks were the torchbearers of the long heritage of faith—but they are more in line with “orthodoxy” and the established consensus of Christianity worldwide, doctrinally at least, and so in rejecting those denominations one may very likely lump with them the whole institutionalized church.)

So the name of “Jesus” becomes a shallow tag-word to lend some numinous authority to a generic exercise in humanitarianism, worthwhile in its own right, but not actually advancing the Kingdom; for it is in the faith tradition that we enter into the communion of saints, and it is in that communion that we become the body of Christ, built upon the apostolic doctrines which serve to remind us just who we are talking about. And it is that body that works a marvelous transformation in the current darkened age, a transformation that begins in the heart and gradually empowers the mind to conquer the base instincts of sin (anybody can be moral, and that’s not the point of Christianity; but the real point of Christianity cannot be realized until real objective morality is at least striven for by Christians), a transformation to be fully revealed in glory when our Lord Jesus Christ appears once again, bringing the powers of heaven with him. It is in this biblical scheme (presented articulately and passionately by N. T. Wright) that the false dichotomies of “declaration over conversation, absolutes over contextualised truth, the literal over the metaphorical, the rational over the mystical, the individual over community, the conservative over the creative, the historical over the cosmic”. I concur that American conservative religion has followed that unfortunate pattern. But that is no justification for merely flipping the mirror and indulging in the relativity of the opposite side.

Those principles you outline are not in conflict—perhaps you do not see them as such, but were merely making the point that one half of the picture is being promoted over the other. But I think if in your bitter resentment toward the “simple-minded” right-wingers to whom you respond in this blog, you scrap every last bit of “established Church”-iness that smacks of what the conservatives uphold, you will come to strip the Gospel of its bones as the “modernist” school has stripped it of its heart. True success for the Gospel cause will come through building one another up through coherent dialogue within the bounds of the established faith community. It may seem easier to abandon the stupid Bible-thumpers altogether, and all the lifeless, indifferent ritualists of “high” church traditions with them, but we are all united under the name of Christ and must strive for understanding as precisely a family.

If I have misunderstood your motives or strategy, please correct me.

God bless, and peace.

ECJ
Mississippi

Have any of you guys read That Hideous Strength by CS Lewis. I feel like whole pages of dialog are being lifted here. It’s uncanny, but I hear several of these conversations here repeated on the pages of CS Lewis novel. I just re-read it last week and it really seems prophetic.

Elias,
I am working through some of that myself and recently wrote a post about being FundaMergent. I would welcome feedback from fellow emergents or otherwise.

http://chadholtz.wordpress.com/2009/07/02/why-i-am-a-fundamergent/

Nic,

I’m guessing you’d rather not see this meta descend any farther afield than it has but to clarify my earlier questions, how would your flavor of UR reconcile passages such as the following:

The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.” – John 3:36

Thanks for indulging this and feel free to point me elsewhere if need be.

Brad

Elias (#41)
You seem to view mysticism as a bad thing. Scott Peck suggests that it is the mature expression of spirituality, and this is my belief too.

As for existentialism: well there are atheistic existentialists like Camus and Satre, but there are theists too and Christians amongst them: Martin Buber and Nikolai Berdyaev come to mind. Berdyaev is particularly prophetic in my understanding.

I’d not say emergent christianity shoots off from existentialism, but those guys were certainly instrumental in pulling us in the west back from the crazy materialistic, rationalistic scientism that gripped the 19th Century.

My last contribution to your thoughts: As far as the goal is concerned, God is that goal. I agree that can be vague. But only as vague as our understanding of Jesus. I am excited about Jurgens Moltmans assertion that Eschatology is not the end of things,but the beginning. And if that exchatology is one of hope, then we have a sure foundation.

I’m sorry to stop there; I’m exhausted. But thanks for your thoughts.

Brad
I do not have a problem with Jesus being the key to Life. Nor do I disagree that judgement remains upon those who do not choose this Life.

What I do believe however is that God is able to ultimately win all over via his love. If this is not so, and some will never be reconcilled with God, then love is not the most powerful thing, but free will is.

That’s just my quick provisional response to this obviously difficult scripture.

The best book on this is Thomas Talbotts “The Inescapable love of God”, see my review http://soundandsilence.wordpress.com/2008/12/15/the-inescapable-love-of-god-by-thomas-talbott/

Sorry to be so short, and thanks for conversing.

“What I do believe however is that God is able to ultimately win all over via his love. If this is not so, and some will never be reconcilled with God, then love is not the most powerful thing, but free will is.”

Thanks for indulging me. John 3:36 still seems like a pretty big road block. If the wrath of God will ultimately rest on no one then it seems strange for John to include the quote in his Gospel when everyone is ultimately won over.

I’ll check out your review. Thanks again

Brad

Brad,
One thing that fascinates me about the “wrath of God” in Jewish thought is that it is not an active vengeance but rather God’s removing of his hand to allow the natural to have its way. If God truly does hold all things together and if Christ has gathered up “all things in him” than God’s wrath is allowing someone to bear the consequences of a life chosen outside of God.

Now, this does not mean it is eternally the case. God’s desire is that all will be saved. God’s wrath being upon someone need not be forever. And as always with God’s judgment (or wrath) it is for a purpose – that those judged might repent and realize the error of their ways.

Seen in this light it is a rather hopeful, reassuring verse. For God’s wrath or judgment to remain upon those who forsake God is a testament to God not abandoning them but proding them to repent.

Just my two cents.

Chad, regarding “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.”

So you’ve made a case that “God’s wrath remains” actually means that God’s wrath doesn’t really remain. And that God’s wrath remaining is a good thing. How do you deal with the previous clause, “whoever rejects the son will not see life?” Rejecting the Son has a future consequence…will not see life.

Jesus reprises this statement later saying “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.”

Rather than do violence to the meaning of John 3:36, I think it would be more honest to either say, I don’t understand this or I don’t accept this statement because it doesn’t fit my theology.

Rick,
I don’t have the hang-ups you appear to have over that particular verse. When viewed canonically I find it fits very well with the breadth of God’s story.

For instance, if I were to take your meaning literally than I would have to assume Jesus was saying with a sarcastic smirk, “If I be lifted up I will draw ALL people to myself” or Paul was not really serious when he penned that through Christ God has reconciled ALL THINGS (that would include all humanity) to God’s self. If reconciliation means friendship and peace than how does God’s wrath remain on you or I if you and I are included in “all things”? What a beautiful mystery, eh?
And that is only the tip of the ice berg.

For the record, I wholeheartedly affirm that those who reject Jesus reject life. But this is not to say that this is an eternal state of affairs nor does it insist that my paltry will and feeble desires trumps the will and desire of God to see all saved.

We tried to reject God before and God said NO! to our rejection on Easter morning.

peace.

By the way: Same Brad as Atone, just a different name going forward.

“Now, this does not mean it is eternally the case. God’s desire is that all will be saved. God’s wrath being upon someone need not be forever. And as always with God’s judgment (or wrath) it is for a purpose – that those judged might repent and realize the error of their ways.”

Chad, first, thanks for the note. This is, of course, pretty speculative as I’m racking my brain for verses that might lend some strength to this position. The idea that he will ultimately get really mad and scare people into heaven on Judgment Day is really at best an argument from silence.

To me it follows reason that if sin offends an infinite God in an infinite realm that its final punishment would also have an infinite quality attached. I understand that the “wrath of God” was something that was merely temporary pertaining to the correction of ancient Israel, but we’re given no guarantee that eternity will follow the same course. In fact, the Scriptures lend otherwise.

“Seen in this light it is a rather hopeful, reassuring verse. For God’s wrath or judgment to remain upon those who forsake God is a testament to God not abandoning them but proding them to repent.”

Either way, I find that God’s promises are just plain hopeful. But this prodding to repentance seems strange if there is no tangible punishment for those who reject Jesus Christ. And Jesus did mention, more than once, that there is no forgiveness for the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit whether in this age or the one to come. Now why would he issue such a fearful warning if there is no teeth to it? That’s the kind of question, the answer to it anyway, that keeps me from treading into a fuller consideration of UR.

If it means anything, I don’t think God is trying to scare us into heaven but to point us to the futility of the law and to his open arms of grace by faith in Jesus.

Brad

Brad
You articulate many of the concerns, complexities and doubts that dog the UR position.

But I weight these against the concerns, complexities and doubts of the “Endless punative separation” position, and I am comforted. I do not want the false comforts of “inerrancy”, but that of faith in a loving just God.

We see through a glass darkly. Let us at least strain our gaze with more than one eye.

I value your happy calvinism.

Brad, Atone, Happy Calvinist (isn’t the last an oxymoron?) :D j/k

Thank you for the respectful and humble responses. I don’t get that too often when this subject pops up.
You ask some good questions and I wish I had good answers. I am fairly new to the UR scene (the last year or so) and have much to learn. I appreciate the chance to dialog on it at any time.

One thing I should say is that my view of Scripture is a bit more fluid and organic than most. Much of scripture I read as an ongoing conversation that we are invited to take part in and be part of and to propel forward. I think this is one of the reasons Acts ends so abruptly :)
The strident language often employed by Jesus and his contemporaries is normal in the Jewish prophetic tradition. I see them as a sort of family squabble where hyperbole is not out of the question. The “doom and gloom” are not predictions of what will happen but rather warnings to the “church” of what could happen if they do not remain faithful to the one true God. All this to say that I interpret these warnings within the grander narrative of God’s tireless and relentless pursuit of us. God’s desire is that all will be saved and I place my hopes and trust in God’s desires for Creation over and against my own desires or even those of people in rebellion. In the end I believe God will get everything God wants. To say otherwise puts me in the driver’s seat. If you are a Calvinist this should sound rather familiar.

You say: But this prodding to repentance seems strange if there is no tangible punishment for those who reject Jesus Christ.

I hear you. I had a parishoner in my church ask me just this past Sunday, “Well if there aren’t any consequences to sin and everyone gets into heaven than why bother? Why not just do whatever I want?”

I reminded him of his nephew who does live that way. He’s in rehab for the second time, alienated from his family, lost his job and friends and has no prospects for the future. If you ask him he will tell you he’s in hell. Sin mot certainly has consequences and a life apart from Christ is not “abundant life” but shallow, pointless, hollow and untrue.

I don’t proclaim the Good News of Jesus because I believe I need to save people from some eternal, disembodied hell. I proclaim the Good News because it is just that- Good News for all the world. You don’t have to go on living this way. Today you can be part of something beautiful – the renewal of all things through Jesus, and be as Paul called us, “co-workers” with God.

peace to you,
Chad

Nic,
“I do not want the false comforts of “inerrancy”, but that of faith in a loving just God.”

I don’t blame you. But I haven’t given up on the idea (and I don’t imagine that you have either) that truth and love are any more mutually exclusive than love and justice.

Chad: “Brad, Atone, Happy Calvinist (isn’t the last an oxymoron?) :D j/k”

Yeah, I take the joke as it was intended. Angry Calvinism is all the rage these days, it shouldn’t be.

Chad: “The “doom and gloom” are not predictions of what will happen but rather warnings to the “church” of what could happen if they do not remain faithful to the one true God.”

Yeah, but then God had go and fulfill his prophecies in real, tangible ways consistent with how he said he would fulfill them. :o) For instance, take just take the hundreds of prophecies that speak of Jesus coming, his ministry and death. Were they veiled for centuries? Sure. But when revealed they fit so consistently with the original prediction.

“I hear you. I had a parishoner in my church ask me just this past Sunday, “Well if there aren’t any consequences to sin and everyone gets into heaven than why bother? Why not just do whatever I want?”

There are a great number of people who gladly put themselves through “hell” here on earth and happily do so. Sin is deceitful, but its not without pleasure. I’m sure you know we Calvinists believe that we are hopelessly wired to love sin, so much so that the essence of our nature is completely saturated with daily cravings and desires for irremovable sin – save the blood of Jesus. Though most of us have the sense to see its destructiveness, we still often rebel and will continue to sin all our lives. But it’s that bent (nature) that will be cast into hell and if that bent becomes the identity of the one who shows up before God, then Scripture strongly indicates that there’s going to be hell to pay – literally.

But the Good News is still good, even more so. Because now we know that a God who has every right to cast us into hell offers a means of escape and not just mere escape but a Kingdom of eternal joy.

Brad

Chad, we would know so little about hell except that Jesus spoke so frequently, explicitly and graphicly about it in 15 different passages. It was His subject, not Paul’s or Peter’s. He was constantly warning people about the judgement to come after death and talking about damnation in 7 other passages. Passages like “But anyone who blasphemes the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. This is a sin with eternal consequences.” or speaking of our mission to proclaim the gospel “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” I know that I have heard many emergents talk about the God of the Old Testament being a violent and vindictive portrait and that Jesus fully reveals him. Well….Jesus is very very explicit about judgement. It is one area where He leaves very little room for interpretation or mystery. And he mentions it frequently.

Whereas UR is a theological construction depending on interpretation of some fairly non-explicit passages of scripture. This kind of very subjective doctrine making is usually what emergents accuse fundamentalists of doing. And I believe that it robs evangelism of much of it’s impetus. Nic Paton, another UR Emergent, raised the question, “You bring up an important issue, why don’t emergents see or get “souls saved”? As a (unfinished) postevangelical this still remains a bit of a mystery to me.”

I don’t see it as a mystery. Though I am not a 5 point guy, I think Brad is right. It is the history of the Unitarian Universalist church.

I first heard about Emergents yesterday. Today I researched your beliefs and I am blown away by how far away from the word of God it is. It is scary to read what you have done with the glorious gospel of the Lord Jesus. Paul was so right in 2-Tim 4:3-4.

Maks, on the 14th August your first heard about “Emergents” and on the 15th you came to the conclusion that they are scarily far from the word of God.

The speed at which you operate is mindboggling to say the least.

But are you really sure you have in that 24 hour period researched all you need to know? Because it just doesn’t sound right to me.

The Scipture you have flung over into the emergent pit might just as well be “directed” at the evangelical fraternity.

If you feel that anything is “not doctrinally sound”, then what about doing as Paul suggests in verse 2: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.

Nothing is beyond discussion.

Peace to you Maks.