Zeal For Truth

Note: This is the last planned article in the series

A common criticism of the Emerging Church is that they deny, or underemphasize, the penal substitution theory of atonement. Penal substitution basically states that Christ was punished in our place, thus serving justice and allowing God to forgive people.

Emerging Church on Penal Substitution
It is incomplete: In response to such statements, some in the Emerging Church object that others overemphasize substitutionary theory of atonement and ignore other important aspects of atonement. Such a view is too narrow an understanding of atonement and of Christianity in general, they allege. For instance, Brian McLaren has written this on the subject:

I think the gospel is a many faceted diamond, and atonement is only one facet, and legal models of atonement (which predominate in western Christianity) are only one small portion of that one facet. … So, rather than focusing on an alternative theory of atonement, I’d suggest we ponder the meaning and mission of the kingdom of God.

It is Not Historical
Those seeking a wider understanding of atonement often support their position from church history. They would point out that penal substitution was not the preferred understanding of atonement for the Early Church. There was a mix of ideas about atonement in the Early Church, but most held to something much closer to Christus Victor that penal substitution. Penal Subistution did not become the major view until the 11th century, when it was popularized by Anselm.

Emerging Church on Atonement
I have not read anywhere where an Emerging Church leader has denied the truth of penal substitution. As seen above however, some think that it fails to do justice to the complete biblical picture of atonement.

A few emerging Church leaders have written favorably about the Christus Victor view of atonement. Jason Clark (an Emergent U.K. leader) writes:

In essence Christus Victor is the explanation that atonement is about the incarnation of Jesus into this world, and of participation and sharing in the suffering of humanity, taking them to the cross, so that God triumphs over evil and all of creation is restored and recreated.

He states than some later theologians misrepresented this view and turned it into the ransom theory - which states that Christ’s death served as a ransom to Satan. The point of Christus Victor however, is that Christ defeated sin and death.

That is not to say that anyone is teaching Christus Victor as the sole (or best) theory of atonement. The idea is still that no single theory can do justice to atonement. Besides the two already mentioned, other theories of atonement that are biblically sound and need to be included to have a complete picture of atonement include: recapitulation theory taught by Irenaeus and the moral influence theory taught by Abelard.

Overall, I’d say that for all sides this is largely a debate among theologians and book writers, and not so much on the “man on the street” level.

Narrative theology is the idea that “Christian theology’s use of the Bible should focus on a narrative representation of the faith rather than the development of a set of propositions deduced from the data of revelation.¹” Theologians in the Neo-orthodox and Post-liberal traditions developed it in the 20th century.

The Bible is seen as the story of God’s interaction with his people. This does not mean that the Bible doesn’t make propositional truth claims, but that the primary purpose of scripture is to record the relationship between God and his people (and how we today can continue in this story) more than detailing a systematic theology. One result of this, is that narrative theology is less likely to pull verse out of context to support doctrinal positions.

Narrative Theology in the Emerging Church
Perhaps the most obvious influence of narrative theology in the Emerging Church is the distrust and relatively low regard for systematic theology that many have. This is because systematic theologies tend to say more than what scripture actually says, and sometimes produces a very logically consistent theology that doesn’t do justice to the nuances in scripture.

Another influence of narrative theology is that it strengthens the value of community. In modern times, people have to often made Christianity into an individual faith, but the Bible’s story of God’s relationship to his people reminds us that community is essential.

The last influence from narrative theology I wish to mention is an increased attention to the story texts in scripture, especially the Gospels. As other groups (unwittingly) emphasize the propositional parts of scripture, especially the Pauline letters, many in the Emerging Church tend to focus more on the gospels. One important aspect of this, is the much greater attention paid to Jesus’ teaching concerning the Kingdom of Heaven than it typically receives from Evangelical circles.

Several Emerging Church leaders were raised in Fundamentalist churches. This includes Brian McLaren, who has admitted that as a result of his experiences, he is harder on Fundamentalists than he is on other Christian groups. More generally, there is no doubt that a reaction against Fundamentalism has played a role in the development of the Emerging Church.

The Fundamentals
Originally, Fundamentalist referred to those in the early 20th century that sought to defend what they viewed as the fundamentals of the Christian faith against attack from Christian liberals and modernists. Precisely what the fundamentals were varied slightly, but they generally included most of the following: the inerrancy of scripture, the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, substitutionary atonement, the bodily resurrection of Christ, the historical authenticity of miracles and the imminent return of Christ.

On these doctrines the Emerging Church ranges from people like Dan Kimball, who is in essential agreement with the list, only preferring words such as “infallible” and “authoritative” instead of “inerrant” and preferring to leave the specific timing of Christ’s return as an issue on which disagreement is acceptable (which would place him squarely with many conservative Evangelicals) to people like McLaren, who also doesn’t like using “inerrant” (seeing that as a term resulting more from modernistic philosophy than from scripture itself), rejects the idea that substitutionary atonement is the sole way of picturing atonement (more on this in a future article) and has been highly critical of premillenial dispensationalism. However, no Emerging Church leader has, to my knowledge, rejected the virgin birth, the deity and bodily resurrection of Christ or the authenticity of miracles.

But by rejecting Fundamentalism, I don’t mean what is commonly called theology, but the legalism, separatist tendencies, mean-spiritedness, and conservative political activism, that has too often typified it.

Legalism
One issue for concern is Fundamentalism’s (real and/or perceived) legalism. Absolute prohibitions against such things as drinking alcohol, smoking, and dancing have often marked Fundamentalism, but are soundly rejected by Emerging types. Not only are they seen as fostering a poor “rule-keeping” approach to Christianity, the rules themselves are non-Biblical or even at times anti-Biblical.

Separatist Tendency
Traditionally, Fundamentalists stressed separation from the world. This began to decline after the rise of Neo-Evangelicalism beginning in the 1950’s. It’s influence can still be seen in Fundamentalist and conservative Evangelical circles, by people who only listen to Christian music, insist on sending their kids to Christian schools or in home schooling them, only supporting Christian bookstores, etc. A rather hardline stance can be seen here [link plays music]. I think I’ve covered in other impulses why the Emerging Church rejects this view.

Mean-Spiritedness
From the despicable actions of extremists like Fred Phelps, to mainstream Fundamentalists, such as the recently deceased Jerry Falwell (who made statements saying groups such as “pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians” helped the September 11th attacks happen and labeling the people of a gay church as “brute beats”), the public face of Fundamentalism has often come across as hateful. Homosexuals in particular appear to be a group that Fundamentalists have a problem, following the old adage of “hate the sin, love the sinner.”

Besides such mean-spiritedness, those in the Emerging church take issues with how Fundamentalists harp on certain sins, in effect making some of them to be qualitatively worse sins than others.

Conservative Political Activism
Starting in the 1970’s, Fundamentalists started to make a strong impact in American politics, marking a departure from their traditional separatism, under which politics were often ignored. With the rise of such groups as the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition, Fundamentalists, along with many Evangelicals, made a large impact on politics indeed. Fundamentalist have in fact become so entrenched in political causes, that many have come to see political, and not religious issues, as their defining characteristics.

Other Christian groups, including many in the Emerging Church, have worried that this political emphasis can lead to a synergistic religion, wherein love for God and country, as well as Christianity and conservative politics are blended. Some have called for Christians to have a “purple” politics, in which they are not united squarely with either conservative or liberal politics. It is a concern, though, that some in the Emerging Church, such as Brian McLaren, may be in danger of combining Christianity with liberal politics.

How Christians should act politically in a democracy is not an easy question, but I do think it would be a step forward if we could stop making assumptions about people’s spiritual life based on their politics, which unfortunately happens far to often.

Emerging churches tend to place a high value on community. For the many dictionary enthusiasts, I’ll point out that it is definition 3b I’m using: “Sharing, participation, and fellowship.” According to Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger in their book, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Communities in Postmodern Cultures -

Emerging churches destroy the Christendom idea that church is a place, a meeting or a time. Church is a way of life, a rhythm, a community, a movement.

Emerging Church types recognize that it’s not possible to live a true Christian life apart from sharing life with a group of people who are seeking to live in the way of Jesus. Emerging churches often meet in small groups, not only to have Bible study and prayer, but also to just spend time together in general.

Small groups are not new to the American church scene, and not all emerging churches have them. However, Emerging churches tend to have small groups more often and place more emphasis on them than other churches do, often to the point that it’s in the small groups where “church” really takes place. This demonstrates the trend in some Emerging churches to de-emphasize the importance of the Sunday morning service (the center, if not the sole, event of many churches). This is done in order to focus more on other events throughout the week, such as the previously mentioned small groups and activities that seek to connect the church with the non-believing communities they find themselves in.

Community is not just something that is merely surface level, but it seeks to be authentic, allowing people to be honest and open about themselves and the problems they are facing. In some churches, especially those influenced by prosperity “gospel,” people find this difficult to do. Emerging churches highly value this type of transparency.

This sense of community is not merely important for the sake of the people of the church, but it is also the best witness to the non-believing world. As Lesslie Newbigin put it:

How is it possible that the gospel should be credible, that people should come to believe that the power which has the last word in human affairs is represented by a man hanging on a cross? I am suggesting that the only answer, the only hermeneutic of the gospel, is a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it.

The study of church history has drawn more interest in recent years. This has likely been enabled by the increase in ecumenical feeling that has served to help legitimize the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches, and to an even greater extent the Early Church, in the eyes of American Protestants. The study by American Protestants of church history before, had too often ignored 1400 years of history (from the end of the New Testament to Martin Luther).

The Emerging Church in particular has a strong interest in church history. A common claim by those in the Emerging Church is that church practices, and even some theology, have been influenced by modern philosophy and values. In an attempt to free themselves from that, many have be drawn to the study of church history.

Perhaps the best example of this is the recently deceased Robert Webber. Weber coined the term “ancient-future” to describe his interest in recovering ancient Christian practices as the way forward for the Church. Although I am not sure that Weber self-identified himself as belonging to the Emerging Church, there’s no doubt his work has been influential in that circle.

The most obvious changes as a result of the historical impulse in the emerging church is the liturgical form of worship and the use of art in worship that marks some emerging churches. There is also a renewed interest in the “spiritual disciplines,” things such as mediation, fasting, and solitude.

This increased historical interest is by no means unique to the Emerging Church. It can also been seen in certain quarters of American Evangelicalism, although it is soundly rejected by most Fundamentalists. Be sure to check the series Bryan has going that discusses the importance of studying church history.