Authentically Emergent

In Search of a Truly Progressive Christianity

Smith

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781532640414
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Are Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, and Rob Bell "yesterday's news," as many evangelicals seem to think? Truth and the New Kind of Christian (2005) tried to provide a balanced assessment of McLaren's and Jones's views. But, they seem to be right about much more that is affecting evangelicals than was realized then. Also, that book misunderstood one of their core claims: everything is interpretation. Moreover, their views have developed over the years, e.g., ethically about colonialism, its influences, and how we should live now. They also have advanced several further claims about the gospel and traditional doctrines.To what extent should Christians embrace their views? Are these the ways to go forward toward a more authentic Christianity, one that is morally better, and a better fit, for our times?Like Truth, this book gives careful attention to their thought. It also offers its own portrait of major shaping influences on Western, Americanized Christianity. But, there remains a root issue that keeps the Western church, whether progressive emergents or evangelicals, in its "Babylonian captivity." It is liberation from that root that will lead to an authentically emergent Christianity.

1

The Development of Emergents’ Thought

Introduction

Brian McLaren writes as a concerned Christian thinker, former pastor, and speaker/activist who is deeply concerned that Western Christians have been so co-opted by the influences and values of modernity that they do not even realize how the way they live out the faith has become “modernized.”23 He also has pointed out to me that he is more concerned with ethics (orthopraxis) than right doctrine (orthodoxy) or philosophy. For example, why have particular views helped foster and sanction the use of violence in association with the gospel?

I am less concerned to argue for or against foundationalism [a view in epistemology] than I am to ask questions like these: why did so many Christians of the modern era—whom [sic] I assume were as sincere, intelligent, pious, and honest as any of us, likely more so—find it so easy to participate in colonialism, racism, slavery, environmental irresponsibility, mistreatment of women, militarism, and a careless attitude toward the poor? Why did their theologies make them concerned about scores of rather petty issues while ignoring these larger issues, or even worse, while defending the wrong side of these larger issues?24

He has emphasized the importance of orthopraxis as the point of orthodoxy, and so he is not as concerned with generating a “right” system of beliefs (which would seem to him to be a modern project) as much as he is with helping us to live faithfully as Christians in our contexts.25 Indeed, in A New Kind of Christianity, McLaren expands these to a more holistic set of emphases of orthodoxy, orthopathy, ortho-affinity, and orthopraxy.26 Of course, that does not mean he does not have theological views that shape and inform his ethics. Indeed, in A New Kind of Christianity, he reaches even further back in history than the modern era, to trace the roots of those issues.

One of the main emphases that surfaces in McLaren, Jones, Pagitt, and Bell is the importance of relationships, something that McLaren sees as being undermined by the modern emphasis on the autonomous individual. This ethical emphasis ends up influencing many aspects of his thought; for instance, the importance placed upon living in community and living out the “one anothers” of Scripture. Another facet is the emphasis placed upon embodiment, which is crucial for our living out these relationships. Yet another influence is the “turn to relationality,” which has implications for what kind of things we are. For instance, should we understand ourselves in the more “conventional” way, as being both body and soul, or in a way that is more holistic in terms of our relationships? Of course, this will have implications for what God is like, so that we can be in relationship with God.

My focus here will not be on McLaren’s, Bell’s, Pagitt’s, or Jones’s specific, applied ethical exhortations as much as their shaping influences, to help us understand the whys behind their thought, and then to assess them constructively later. To do that, I will try to summarize McLaren’s understanding of the story of Jesus when it has been stripped of its distorting influences, to get to his radical, “secret” message, one that is set in its Jewish narrative context. In that process, I will explain his view that Jesus’ kingdom comes in nonviolent, non-coercive, and non-controlling ways, which will have implications for his views of Christ’s work on the cross, hell, and more. I will look at his notion of “purposeful inclusion” and just what enables one to be a member of his kingdom. Along the way, I also will bring in Pagitt’s, Bell’s, and Jones’s respective views to help flesh out their understanding of these kinds of topics. I will take these steps to show why they come to their particular ethical emphases.

But, I should note that I am not trying to force their views to fit into McLaren’s framing story. For some time now, McLaren has been developing an extended explanation of how Christianity in the West has gotten into a mess, as well as a recommended set of solutions for how to go forward now as Christians. He thus provides a way to examine in some specifics, but also in broad terms, why many think we now need to embrace a new kind of Christianity, beyond the traditional evangelicalism that these men have left. So, his views provide a way to see touch points with what Bell, Pagitt, and Jones also are saying, yet with their own distinctives.

Deconstructing the Story: Finding the “Secret Message” of Jesus

McLaren wisely wants to consider carefully the contexts in which Jesus lived and taught, and this leads him to an exploration of the political, religious, and social dynamics and dre...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Development of Emergents’ Thought
• Chapter 2: Another Story
• Chapter 3: Some Key Contributions by Emergents
• Chapter 4: Assessment of the Emergents’ Thought, Part 1
• Chapter 5: Assessment of the Emergents’ Thought, Part 2
• Chapter 6: A Faithful Way Forward
• Bibliography