Why We’re Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be)
Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck
Moody Publishers, Chicago, 2008, pp. 256.
Were you aware that Brian McLaren passed through Australia in October on a speaking tour? Me neither. I only heard about it when one of my friends invited me at the last minute to listen to him speak. (I couldn’t join him.) As far as I can tell, McLaren’s visit raised no commotion here in Sydney—no commentary, no blogging, no Twittering. Nothing.
Don’t you find that interesting?
In America, his visit would be big news to more people. But for many Australians, his visit is not the least bit interesting. Neither would it be interesting if Doug Pagitt, Steve Chalke, Spencer Bourke or Dave Tomlinson were to visit. You may be interested if Rob Bell visited. But you’ve never heard of the others.
Or maybe you have. You know those names, and they cause you great concern. Your concern arises because you’ve heard of the Emergent church and you have not liked what you have heard—or at least the parts you understood. It’s not that what they were saying was hard to understand; it’s just that they’re engaged in a slippery ‘conversation’, and to quote Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck in Why We’re Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be), “Defining the Emerging Church is like trying to nail Jell-O1 to the wall” (pp. 16-17).
DeYoung and Kluck write what is effectively a primer for the movement (not that it is a movement). So if you want to hear some snippets of the conversation (especially the worst bits), if you want to identify the main ‘conversation partners’, or if you would like a solid but brief critique, this is your book.
What makes this book different from other critiques is that both authors claim that they are the kind of guys who should be Emergent. That is, they are not just the ‘old guard’ who ‘don’t get it’, and they are not ‘moderns’ who misunderstand postmodernism; they breathe the same air as the Emergent crowd, they are Gen X, they like U2 and they wear the requisite ‘hip glasses’. But they are not Emergent, and here they tell you why.
The two authors penned alternating chapters in order to achieve separate goals and to avoid trying to write with one voice. This is a wise choice. DeYoung comes with solid Reformed credentials, and his chapters are more robust and theological, whereas Kluck writes anecdotally. Kluck in particular is the guy who should be Emergent: he writes in an Emergent kind of way (he tells stories, satirizing his subjects with self-deprecating humour, he admits he doesn’t know much, and he appeals to experience). He is more Donald Miller and less Don Carson.
The bottom line of both DeYoung and Kluck’s critique is simply that the Emergent church conversation doesn’t stack up against the Scriptures. When you put the conversation before the fire of the New Testament, much of it gets burned up—the new and interesting bits, anyway. They claim that the new conversation ends up looking like old Liberalism.
That said, they acknowledge that the Emergent church emphasizes good things. They love Jesus, and read their Bibles. They stress right living, and seek humility. They rightly critique the consumerist Megamall, Megachurch, Starbucks kind of churches. They keep Christianity from being an arm of right-wing American politics, and their desire for Christians to view the kingdom as wider than simply ‘me and my salvation’ is right on. That is, they know their ‘bathwater’.
But DeYoung and Kluck show that there may be some ‘baby’ thrown out with that ‘bathwater’. Firstly, the Emergent church are big on the search for God. Kluck says, “[I]t’s really cool to search for God. It’s not cool to find him” (p. 32). But the truth is God has found us in Jesus Christ. Secondly, the conversation is startlingly negative about human ability to make true propositions about a mysterious God. But the truth is that that we can know God and speak true things about him. Says DeYoung, “It would be nice if [the Emergents] shared their convictions about something other than community, Kingdom living and mystery” (p. 151). Thirdly, the Emergent church are big on right living in community. This is good, but the gospel says that it is Jesus’ right living that redeems us, not ours.
The Emergent Church appears to be an American phenomenon, with a touch of interest in the UK and very little curiosity in Australia. (Maybe the ‘movement’ will come with more force in the future.) It is clearly a reaction to a particular brand of conservative Christianity in America. They eschew the pro-Bush, pro-Israel, anti-art world. They eschew the culture of neatness that appears inauthentic. They eschew the churches that use the Bible terribly (which is ironic, of course).
The truth is, so do I. In many ways, American Protestant Christianity was always going to have this conversation. But I agree with DeYoung and Kluck: the Emergent solution is not the best solution.
Endnote
- Jelly.
