Emergent people tend to wear me out. Not all of them, of course, but only the vast majority, i.e., the ones who run around talking about things they don’t understand and possessing all the qualities of a dog except loyalty.

Here’s what touched off this rant:

Scot McKnight wrote a wonderful rebuttal of Spencer Burke’s A Heretic’s Guide to Eternity, especially rejecting Burke’s contradictory universalism, denial of the Trinity and Personhood of God, and lack of an orthodox gospel. The post above is the fourth in a series on the book and, while all are worth reading, it can stand alone without having read the previous posts.

So far, no rant.

Then I read Andy Jackson’s response and – whoosh! – up goes the blood pressure! Andy says, to begin with,

First, No one should use Burke to condemn everyone in the Emergent movement. Condemnation by association is not right.

First, why is it that everytime an emergent author gets nailed for poor or heretical theology, all the drones start squawking, “Oh, no! Not us! We’re as innocent as lemmings doves!” Well, it seems to me that if you hang out in with charlatans, praise charlatans, and gobble up the books written by charlatans, you’re asking for condemnation by association.

Now it is true that Jesus hung out with outcasts (such as prostitutes) but it didn’t pervert His theology and He didn’t distance Himself from them when they were attacked. Neither, however, did He defend their philosophies or theologies: He sought to change them. Big difference. Critical difference. And I can’t recall Him associating with charlatans, although I do seem to recall Him going off on a rant or two against them.

Just once I’d like to hear someone in the emergent movement – excuse me, conversation – stand beside one of their own authors instead of running like scared little puppies when the big dogs arrive at the fight. Or, at the very least, admit that their leaders are heretical at this or that point and that the conversation needs to change its tone, direction, and assumptions. Getting an emergent to criticize another emergent is like getting a liberal to criticize a liberal – or a conservative a conservative. Actually, it’s more difficult, I think.

Andy does go on to say,

Second, Emergent leaders should continue in their conversation, but also realize that they have biblical leadership responsibility for those they influence. God will hold all biblical leaders accountable for our teaching and ministry. In other words, our ministry effects people.

Third, Recognized Emergent leaders need to ’show their cards’ as it relates to Burke’s theology. We need to hear what key Emergent leaders think, and provide correction. Hopefully, it will start with McLaren.

Second, using the word “biblical” with regard to emergent leaders is akin to the trite Jello and a tree metaphor. Besides, surely God won’t judge them because He just wants everyone to get along with one another: Muslim, Hindu, Catholic, Jew, Protestant, atheist. After all, He’s a generous kinda God, isn’t He? Calling for emergents to adhere to biblical standards is too broad: they tend to pick and choose which standards they want to accept.

Third, Burke is one of the “key Emergent leaders,” being the inspiration of the emergent The Ooze website. So we’ve heard what a leader has to say. Does anyone seriously believe that McLaren will say anything negative or corrective about Burke? If there is but one fatal flaw (this is optimistic: their fatal flaws are legion) it is the total unwillingness of emergents to clean up their own houses.

But my point is this: don’t jump on the emergent bandwagon if you’re going to jump off as soon as it starts to stink. Have the courage to take a stand – somewhere, anywhere. Either get with them – which in this case means leaving orthodox Christianity behind – or get away and stay away from them. You can (as I have) read their books, publicly reject their theology (if you can call it that), and pay attention to their at-times valuable insights into problems in the church.

It must be recognized, however, for all the wonderful exposure of problems they might offer that they have zero solutions that will benefit anyone beyond this lifetime. Denying the Godhead, espousing pantheism, and making the gospel unnecessary is no solution at all; in fact, it is worse: it is snake oil, i.e., it is no solution packaged as the only solution and sold to people dead in their sins.

Addendum: Andy at Smart Christian responded to this post here; I sent him the following email which I’ll reproduce here for anyone who’s interested or has voyeuristic inclinations.

Andy:

“First, a suggestion: you might consider leaving comments open when you mention someone by name in one of your posts. That would allow people like me to clarify a thing or two at your site as well as mine (I’ll be adding a post script shortly).

“Second, my beef is with fence-straddlers, as I tried to make clear (but may have failed). Taking a stand does not mean totally abandoning the emergent group: my role model would be John Stott (I think it was John Stott) who stayed with his own denomination for years and years even though he had serious theological disagreements and concerns. As long as they didn’t depart from the gospel message, he said, he thought he could do more good on the inside than on the outside. But he never hesitated to speak out or write against the errors in his denomination.

“So that’s the main point, although it may have gotten lost in tangential thoughts and ideas.

“Finally – and this is what I’m going to add at my post – my rant was triggered by your post but not aimed at you. Your post was merely the proverbial “last straw” that caused me to break. Sometimes I think emergent churches should meet at a Waffle House, since that’s what they seem to do best – waffle.

“So, sorry if the attack seemed personal; it wasn’t meant to be.”

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