The Emergent Mess

In the religion section of today's Winston-Salem Journal there was an interview with Brian McLaren. McLaren is considered on of the mouthpieces of the emergent church movement, although those involved in the movement claim that there is no true hierarchy of leadership. In the interview, he is asked to expound upon the rising emergent movement that is becoming vastly popular in our church culture today, particularly with younger adults.

The interviewer asks McLaren several questions about the work and ways of those churches that are considered emergent, and then he makes a blunt statement before asking his next question: "On the theology behind the emerging church, you reject the idea that there's an absolute truth." The question that followed had nothing to do with the concept of truth, but McLaren's response to the above statement spoke volumes. He said nothing about it.

That's right, McLaren did not deny that he did not hold to absolute truth. In the emerging church culture, truth is like a trampoline (ala Rob Bell) and it's flexible and changing. But if that's the case, how can we know anything at all about God or His plan for lives? In an effort to move beyond what they consider stale theology and the churches that espouse it, emerging leaders have chosen to reinterpret the Scriptures. How arrogant! They claim that we can't truly know what the Bible or its authors were intending to say so they'll just make up an interpretation that seems okay to them. And if you want to interpret it differently then that's fine too. We aren't talking about whether or not to baptize by immersion or sprinkling either. We are talking about reinterpreting core theological doctrines such as the virgin birth, sin, and salvation.

The Bible is filled with absolute statements. Either Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and the only way to the Father or He's not. There simply is no other way to interpret that.