Renewing the Church in Emerging Culture:
In argument of a biblical doctrine of the Christian’s relation to culture and an assessment of how this perspective must transform the practice and form of the American Church—with special emphasis on an evaluation of the useful and un-useful contributions of the “emerging church” towards this end
Aaron Hodson
Dr. Scott Swanson
BTS 370
April 21, 2008
One of the most profound things that I have learned in the study of religion as an undergrad in Biblical and Theological Studies is that to study any religion, but specifically Christianity, is to study the gradual development of theology and doctrine. The importance of this observation is in what it reveals about the adaptive and developmental nature of Christian doctrine; more specifically that in the study of Christianity one does not find a fixed, clear, and once for all solved system of belief, but instead the gradual formulation of various doctrinal issues relating to faith and practice as they have been developed over a very long period of time, only formulated as the need for clarification arose. This reality reveals an ironic paradox to the Christian student, for while to be a biblical Christian one must believe that “all Scripture is God breathed and profitable for teaching that the man of God may be equipped for every good work”[1] and that he has been given “all things that pertain to life and godliness by the divine power of Him who called us”[2]—meaning that all the truth needed to walk the walk and all answers to any doctrinal matters that God would hold one to be faithful to has been completely and fully revealed once and for all in the completed Cannon of His Holy Word—he also cannot help but observe within historic Christianity that many doctrinal and cultural issues have been debated over and over in different ways by various Godly and faithful men who have come to quite different interpretations of the supposedly all pertaining and clear teachings of Scripture.
Should it then be concluded that the Scriptures are not true or authoritative on all matters of faith and practice or that Christians cannot come to any agreement about that which they have supposedly been given clear and authoritative teaching on? Surely not! Indeed if one is to be a Biblical Christian then such conclusions cannot be accepted. If the Scripture claims that within it is contained everything that the Christian needs for the walking out of the faith in this world, than this must be the case, and the misinterpretations of some and confusions of many does not negate this. The paradox is resolved than in the position that Scripture does indeed contain a final and relevant solution for every matter that may arise within the Church as result of changes within culture and society, but God hath so ordained to not make all of these answers explicitly clear and that some things may only be found through careful and diligent study in accordance with the questions and needs that He allows to arise in different seasons within history. In this position it is affirmed that all the revelation needed for a life of godliness has been given in the completed Canon of Scripture, and there is only one authoritative interpretation of this revelation, yet none the less man’s formulation and application of this authoritative and complete revelation always has been and always will be in a constant process of revision and refreshment according to the needs, questions, and misconceptions, of the current culture as they arise.
Following these presuppositions the purpose of this essay is not evaluate a specific doctrine as set forth previously by the Church, but to question and evaluate a serious problem emerging in culture today within and without the Church—while not altogether new—that has not previously been addressed or acknowledged in any serious way within the creeds or confessions or by any previous generation of Church leaders. The issue put simply is that the culture is changing, the realities of Christendom are gone and Paganistic and Atheistic worldviews are quickly taking its place in the public sphere; along with this the ideals and beliefs of the Church are becoming less and less relevant to and understood by the emerging culture, and the Church has miserably failed to recognize such changes or to do very much about them. George Barna in a resent statistical analysis in 2006 of generational changes—in relation to perspectives of Church and religion—highlights this well. Dividing the generations of the past century into five groups[3] these statistics show that each generation moving from oldest to youngest has by percentage diminished in regular Church attendance, become less involved in church activities, has less value for “personal quite times” and reading of the Bible during the week, admit to spending less time in prayer, are becoming less likely to consider faith as very important in there life, and have become less likely to believe that “God is the all-powerful, all-knowing, perfect creator that rules the world today.”[4] Such statistics support the contention of many pastors and leaders that the Church is one generation away from losing the faith, as traditional assumptions about God, morality, truth claims, community, and various other things are being detrimentally questioned and abandoned by the next generation of churched and un-churched people alike.
My thesis is that the solution to this problem is that two different matters of doctrine in regards to the Christian and the Church need to be clarified and than applied in practice as they have not been previously. The first matter—and purpose of this paper—has to with redeeming the Church’s lost understanding of the age old question as to how the Christian is to relate to culture. The second purpose of this paper is to give a brief biblical formulation for how the Church as an institution should be affected in its practice and form by such a vision.
In introduction to the first issue we look to the work of H. Richard Niebuhr, who more than fifty years ago now, perhaps recognized the beginnings of these previously referenced statistical trends in his highly influential work, Christ and Culture, and stated the issue thus, “A many sided debate about the relations of Christianity and civilization is being carried on in our time…[though] it is helpful to remember that the question…is by no means a new one…and the various struggles with this question have yielded no single Christian answer…[yet it should be remember that] Christ answer to the problem of human culture is one thing, Christians answers are another.”[5] Such statements note the fact that although these questions may not be new, there seems to be an ever widening dichotomy between the Christian’s faith and practice that cannot—but all the more needs to—solve them. They also reveal a serious gap between the “Christians” worldview towards culture and that of Christ Himself. It interesting to note that while Niebuhr’s work has been considered by some as “one of the most influential works of the past century” continuing to dominate the theological conversation on this subject, yet five decades later, to use the words of Leonard Sweet, “we are still asking: Is the ‘lived culture’ of Christian faith shaped by criteria intrinsic to itself or in a mutual exchange with the culture?”[6] In other words, is the modern perception of a “Christian culture” accurate, and if so, how is it separate from the secular culture or are both Christians and non-Christians alike living in the same culture and merely using and interpreting it in different ways?
The significance of this question in regards to the ever-widening generational gap being created between the emerging culture and the traditional Church is this: with disappearance of the illusion of Christendom—by this I mean that the world in which we live is no longer dominated by a “Christian” culture—the most resent generations, Christian and Pagan alike, are very much apart of the same culture and as a result do not connect with or understanding the conflicting ideas of “Christian culture” such as it has been presented by the present day Church. Traditional and postmodern worldviews are clashing as to what is means to be a Christian in the context of emerging culture, and the Church’s answers have not helped to solve the problem. By far most churches in
In further development of this first question it must be considered why the Church is where it is in relation culture. One answer would be that whatever the Church’s failing in this regard it cannot be ignored that there is a paradox in the very nature of the Christian’s calling that makes the proper response to the issue of the Christian and culture a complicated one. On the one hand Christ has called to his followers to separate themselves—to some degree—from this world, not being conformed to its patterns or living in its man centered idolatry, and to be a holy and separate people, devoted solely to Christ and his kingdom.[7] While on the other hand the Christian is called by the example the apostle Paul “to be all things to all peoples,”[8] and he is told that to “to the pure all things are pure”[9] and that “all things are yours in Christ,”[10] and most compelling of all there is the example of Jesus who mixed into the secular culture of his day—enjoying God’s good gifts like wine and food and celebration along with everyone else, and going to parties and hanging out with the rift-raft of society—so much so that he was accused of being a drunkard and a friend of tax collectors and sinners.[11] Would not most any Christians acknowledge that Christ in his life and death is our ultimate example for all matters of faith and practice? Truly he has called us to walk as he walked and to suffer as he suffered, but I do not think that many Christians in today’s Church (in
But what is the Biblical worldview of the culture? Is the Christian to believe that the world is only an evil and lost place that the Christian must traverse to the save the lost and complete his own sanctification through denial of all things not heavenly? Or is all of creation full good things to be enjoyed by sinner and saint alike, given because of God’s kindness and mercy and meant to mirror the heavenly realities of which they are a taste—though perhaps only seen in a mirror dimly because of the shadow of sin on this world—, though are in the process of being renewed as with all of creation these things groan and long for their freedom from the slavery to corruption?[12] Aside from ones answer to these questions there is certainly not an easy answer to how the Christian is to be a faithful disciple of Christ and fulfill the great commission in purity as a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, while yet still living in a sinful world whether redeemable or not is certainly very corrupted and tainted by the effects of sin.
Henry R. Van Til in his book The Calvinistic Concept of Culture offers some helpful historical and theological insights in regard to these various views that point towards the biblical formulation which this paper seeks. He notes that some of things putting the Christian at odds with the world include, the various scriptures stating that the Christian is not to be of the world, and that the world lies in the power of the evil one, and “the world knows not God, [and] neither the children of God (1 Cor. 1:21; John 17:25; 1 John 3:1, 13) but it hates the children of God (John 15:18-19; 17:14).” Therefore some conclude that the world must be opposed and overcome in faith by the followers of the Christ.[13] Besides this “Christianity is definitely the religion of cross-bearing” which is very much at odds with the world’s presuppositions about life, and both apostles James and John warn of loving the things of the world and state that whoever makes himself a friend of the world is an enemy of God.[14]
But there is another side to Biblical Christianity that cannot be ignored. It is that though the world may lye in the power of the evil one, it “is the object of the grace of God, and as His creation is savable.” This is a theology that understands that the world is the Lord’s and all it contains and as such is redeemable just “as God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself”, for He died to reconcile all things into himself, for “through Christ all things are reconciled to the Father so that finally the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ.”[15] In this picture of redemption the saint looks ahead to the promise of the new Jerusalem and sees that redemption is not just about a spiritual transformation but more radically it is also the promise of the physical transformation of the body and all things into the perfection and wholeness to which they where first ordained in creation. But even this is not the whole biblical picture of redemption. As highlighted by Van Til, “the expectation of future glory and the joy of complete redemption has its counterpart here and now in its implications for the present life of the believer.”[16] What are these implications? They are the realty that while the Christian is certainly called to a purity that separates him from the sinful practices of the world and makes him known by his fruits, obedience to the gospel does not create the false dichotomy often accepted by the Christian, where the Church becomes the sphere of religion and truth while the world is viewed as the area of all things profane which need to be brought under its umbrella of grace and purity.[17] No, instead a biblical picture of redemption perceives the Lordship of Christ in every sphere of life and seeks to transforms all of them by His power.
Such an understanding is what the Reformation fought to renew within the church as it sought “not merely to cleanse the church and deliver it from doctrinal errors, but is also sought the restoration of the whole of life…for the reformers (at least Calvin anyway) the natural was holy as well as the spiritual…Christ was for them, a cosmic Redeemer, the one who through whom all things are restored to the Father.”[18] Bottom line, the biblical Reformers sought not for subjugation of all things worldly to a Christian worldview, but instead for the restoration of all things skewed by sin into the law of God for which they were intended. The consequences of these two lines of thought are overwhelming important in relation to how they affect the Churches attitude and form. In the first—the common perspective of today’s Church—the world is seen as lying under sentence of death and final judgment, and as a place from which the Christian is metaphorically and spiritually fading farther and farther away from as he is sanctified and brought closer to heaven and the kingdom of God. The implications of such a perspective on the Church’s relation to culture, is that a great chasm is created between the elect and the dammed and all possibility of relation and commonality is lost. As a result the message of the gospel becomes abstract and is in a complete dichotomy with what is natural and what is required. That is say it is no longer good news, it only judgment—not just of sin as it should be, but everything experienced in this world. And such does not seem a biblical conception of the goal of the gospel, for Christ himself said the he came not to condemn the world but to save it—granted elsewhere the scripture is clear that he who is a slave of sin is condemned by it, but neither truth can be taken alone. In the scripture it is quite clear that God has condemned the sin of the world but not the world itself, and Christ came to restore the world and to save his people from their sins.
The implications of the second worldview are much more consistent for in it is understood that culture may be godly or ungodly and while the sinner must be redeemed to understand the truest truth, beauty, and goodness in this world, there is still much good and beauty to be found in the natural world and even in godless culture. And by seeing all of it as under the Lordship of Christ the Christian and the Church is enabled together with the unbeliever to “enjoy all things that are beautiful and follow after that which is good,” together fulfilling the creation mandate to subdue and populate the earth and together enjoy the gifts which God has mercifully given to all men. And when the believer can have such commonality with the unbeliever than his witness is not lost, and he is able to walk through the world seeing all things for the good that God has left in them and using all things as a witness to this good God, showing the lost where these things fall short in and of themselves to life to found in Christ alone, who is better than all life and who by his transforming power brings all things under his rule and reign to our enjoyment and His glory.[19]
There are some within the church who have grabbed a hold of a vision much like this one, as they see the very same problem and have answered it not just buy formulating a new doctrine or worldview for the Church but by radically transforming the actual Church gathering itself. This group is diverse and prefers different titles and could fill many pages all there own—and have—but generally they have come to be known as leaders of the Emergent or Emerging Church, many of whom have resurfaced under the leadership of Brian D. McLaren and others in something called The Emergent Village Network. The Emergent Village is network of young and creative pastors carrying on a dialogue in which the traditional assumptions of the Church in regards to evangelism of the lost, the local worship gathering, and the Christian’s proper relation to culture are being challenged.
Mark Driscoll, one such pastor—though more outside of this general group—expresses a good example of the kinds of questions being ask by the Emergent’s in his book The Radical Reformission where he says in a discussion on the sin of light beer that, “while we are called to abstain from sin, that does not mean that we must abstain from culture to do so…heresy happens when the truth is taken too far, as in the case of drunkenness, and or is not taken far enough, as is the case with prohibition… confusion about the gospel is truly the root of this issue.”[20] He goes on to give a humorous illustration of the tendency to apply such illogical extremes, in words of Luther who once ask, “Do you suppose abuses are eliminated by destroying the object which is abused? Men can go wrong with wine and women. Shall we then prohibit and abolish women?”[21] While such a response is obviously extreme Luther and Driscoll make a good point that separating ourselves from culture in the pretense of not being of the world has nothing to do with the denial of sin at all but more with separating ourselves from all things which many in culture may and often do make sin of. By doing this the Christian places himself in a position not only no longer of the world but also is no longer in it. Driscoll quite accurately recognizes that the biblical goal “is not to avoid drinking, singing, working, playing, eating, love-making and the like. Instead our goal must be to redeem those things through the power of the gospel [where they have fallen short in secular culture] so that they are used rightly according to scripture, bringing God glory and his people a satisfied joy. [To this end] we must throw ourselves into the culture so that all that God made good is taken back and used in a way that glorifies Him.”[22] What does this actually look like? First it doesn’t mean that the gospel is watered-down whatsoever, as Driscoll also points out, “to love our neighbors we must call them to repent of sin and be transformed by Jesus” but we must also “meet them in their own culture” just as Jesus did when he walked this earth.[23] We do this by boldly partaking in all things—according to the strength of our individual conscience and not in violation of any clear commands from God’s word[24]—valued by our culture, with excitement and with caution but all for the sake of sharing the gospel in a langue they can understand and with a love they can see. As Christians we should be avidly familiar with the art, music, films, traditions, conversations, values, and whatever other narratives through which our culture expresses and receives its values, and we should discerningly use the good and partial truth in all of these things to point them to the fullness of truth, beauty, and goodness found in the glorious person of Jesus Christ alone.
This leads to the second issue of this paper, namely, how should the Church itself as an institution, be affected in its practice and form as expressed in the regular and special gathering of believers by such a vision as has been set forth. To put it another way, what should and must and can and cannot be changed in the actual local gathering of believers—what many think of when they think of the Church—to adapt to the ever emerging changes within culture and to respond relevantly and creatively with the truth of the gospel, while yet still remaining faithful to Biblical necessities?
Many within the Emergent movement have taken the position that practically all must be changed of traditional Church worship and nothing need remain if the Church is to emerge with and be effective in reaching the emerging culture. An example of such a radical revision of the traditional conception of the local church gathering is an emergent group in
What is to be concluded of these methods for witness and other conceptions of the purpose of the Church? Is such a radical and transforming vision of not just the Church’s relation to culture, but also of its need to change almost everything about its traditional form to be considered as a consistent and biblical response to the emerging changes in culture as outlined in the first half of this paper? To answer such a question first it must be clarified as what is a biblical vision of the purpose of the local gathering of believers, and then it may concluded how this is or is not to relate to the radical and Christ transforming vision of culture as already outlined.
To answer this first question—namely, what is the purpose of the Church and how is this to correspond to the local worship gathering?—we look first to the confessions. The Heidelberg Catechism states that “the Son of God from the beginning to the end of world, gathers, defends, and preserves into Himself by His Spirit and Word, out of the whole human race, a Church chosen to everlasting life, agreeing to true faith…”[29] and of this Church the Westminster Confession of Faith helpfully summarizes that the Church is be understood in terms of that which is visible and that which is invisible—all who attend the physical Church being members of the visible and all who are truly saved being part of the invisible.[30] The Belgic Confession likewise gives helpful scriptural exposition to show that among the visible church there are some true and some false Churches. Many theologians have argued in various ways for certain biblical marks which must be held by a true Church by which it may be identified as such. Edmond P. Clowney helpfully outlines the three marks developed by the Reformers as they “sought to use biblical standards in the organization of the Church.” These marks to be applied by all true Churches are: “the true preaching of the word, the proper observance of the sacraments, and the faithful exercise of Church discipline.”[31] Whether one considers each of these as a necessary marks or just as proper elements of more true Churches the New Testament is clear that they must exist in a true assemble of God.
Along with following at least these Biblical practices if one is to call themselves a truly Biblical Christian Church they must also have a Biblical definition for the purpose of the Church. Wayne Grudem summarizes such a definition in his Systematic Theology explaining the purpose of the Church as a three-fold matter, which includes the worship of God, the ministry to believers, and ministry to the world. In regards to the worship of God the Scripture is clear that we are to praise Him in the assembly and are to lift our hearts in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs making melody with our hearts into the Lord because He is good and worthy to be praised, and in his light we see light and are eternally satisfied as He is glorified in our joyful expressions of admiration of his infinite and superior worth above all things.[32] As to the ministry to or edification of the saints the scripture is also clear that this is a primary purpose of Church in general—along with worship of God and evangelism—and perhaps the primary purpose of the local gathering of believers along with the direct exaltation of God.[33] Lastly in regards to ministry to the world the specificity of the Great Commission cannot be ignored, it is the calling of all members of the Church to evangelize the lost and give witness of the good news which they have received.[34] Grudem says that fulfilling the Great Commission is the “primary ministry that the church has toward the world,” which is consistent with the explicit commands of the N. T. as already mentioned.[35] However, the question that still needs to be answer if each and how much each of these things is to be fulfilled, but when and where.
While a brief analysis of certain clear scriptural guidelines in regards to the purpose of the Church generally and the local and regular gathering specifically there is strong argument to support that the vision of the Mosaic and other similar emergent churches is not consistent with a scriptural vision and therefore in some senses these groups of meeting believers could not rightly be consider as true churches. Because perhaps certain aspects of there worship—such as preaching or evangelism—might to inline with the biblical mandate on the whole, the vision of many of these emergent groups while sincere is out of balance. They are asking the right questions and trying to change the right problems in order to be more faithful to Scripture, but in so doing have created yet another false dichotomy by making the issue one of which ministry—that is, the exaltation of God, the edification of believers, or the evangelism of the lost—is to be focused on most, instead of asking when, where, and how each biblical calling of the Church is to be carried out faithfully.
As in the case of the Mosaic they have created a vision so focused on Evangelism that they have failed to make a biblical distinction between the believer and unbeliever and by so doing have also failed to have a primary focus in the worship service to be the edification and building up of the saints, that they in turn might be equipped to go and evangelize. By doing this their intent on faithfulness to creative evangelism is not wrong nor their creative means of employing it, but by failing to faithfully practice the worship and glorification of God and the edification of the saints in the worship and the preaching they have vitally deviated from the biblical vision for the gathering of the Church. An example of this is the language used of being fellow journeyers—intended to break down the common barriers between the saved and the unsaved often exuded by hypocritical Churches—on the road of sanctification which they think of in terms of being common road both shared by saved and unsaved alike, which is true in so far as it is only grace that we are saved and everyone is on a journey in regards to faith in many ways; but where this lack of distinction fails to be accurate is that the Bible is clear that God’s children are brought into a communion with Christ that sets them apart from the world in a special way and identifies them as his children who are given repentance and are washed from their sins, and it is only upon this repentance—which places its whole trust and faith in Christ—that we truly are on God’s journey, if you will. In light of this it must be concluded that much of the emergent vision of the Church existence is not biblical; for while the Church is more than just an “institution” it so happens it is still an institution, and one that has been commissioned and empowered by Christ for a special purpose—namely, for the building up of the saints in Christ and for the bringing in of the rest of God’s kingdom, and in both of these things to glorify Him by enjoying Him forever.
In conclusion this paper has attempted to show how the Church has terribly lost touch with the emerging culture, and for a long time there has been a conflict within Christianity because of the Church’s failure to see culture in a biblical way or to leave an example for the individual Christian as to how to relate to it; and the solution to this is that the Church embrace again a biblical understanding of God’s perspective of culture. This perspective in brief is that this creation is stills God’s and as such is redeemable, and not only this but Christ came not just to redeem from sin but to begin the restoration and renewal of all things such as He intended them to be before the corruption that sin brought into this world. The implications of this for the Christian is the realization that because the earth is the Lord’s and all it contains, and He made it good and is restoring it to this good, we can and must see the good that he has allowed to remain in all things and seek to redeem these things more and more in conformity with His will. Because of this the Christian can and must partake of and freely enjoy of all things in the culture possible, sharing in common all he can with the unbeliever and using all things as a witness to the fullness of the truth and beauty found in Christ alone. This paper has also attempted to show that the leaders of the Church must be actively involved in promoting this vision by adapting to culture and by creatively meeting its needs and using its language wherever possible, such as the
[1] 2 Timothy 3:16 (paraphrased)
[2] 2 Peter 1:3 (paraphrased)
[3]Seniors, born 1926 and earlier; Builders, born between 1927-1945; Boomers, born between 1946-1964; Busters, born between 1965-1983; and last but not least Mosaics, born between 1984-2002
[4] The Barna Group, Generational Differences. http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=Topic&TopicID=22. Accessed 4/20/08.
[5] H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (Harper & Row 1951) pp. 1-2
[6] Leonard Sweet, The Church in Emerging Culture: Five Perspectives. “Introduction: Garden, Park, Glen, Meadow” (Zondervan 2003) pp. 13
[7] 1 John 2:15-17; Eph. 4:17-24;
[8] 1
[9] Titus 1:15
[10] 1
[11] Matt. 11:19
[12] Romans 8:18-22
[13] Henry R. Van Til, The Calvinistic Concept of Culture (Baker Book House 1972) pp. 15
[14] Ibid. pp 15-16
[15] Ibid. pp16; 2 Cor. 5:19, Col. 1:20, Rev. 11:15
[16] Ibid. pp 17
[17] Ibid. pp 19
[18] Ibid.
[19] Reference to the
[20] Mark Driscoll, The Radical Reformission: Reaching out without selling out (Zondervan 2004). pp. 151
[21] Ibid. 151
[22] Mark Driscoll, The Radical Reformission: Reaching out without selling out (Zondervan 2004). pp. 152 [Emphasis added]
[23] Ibid. pp. 145
[24] Mark Driscoll provide a most help dialogue in his book on the issue of freedom of conscience, in chapter 4, pp. 104
[25] http://mosaic.org/about, accessed 4/23/08
[26] http://mosaic.org/faq/#faq3, accessed 4/23/08
[27] Ibid
[28] http://mosaic.org/faq/#faq1
[29] Harmony of Reformed Confessions,
[30] Harmony of Reformed Confessions,
[31]
[32] Psalm 107:32; Eph. 5:19 &
[33]
[34] Matt. 28:19; Luke 6:35-36
[35] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Zondervan 1994) pp. 868
Works Cited
Beeke, Joel R.,1952-;
Clowney,
Driscoll, Mark. The Radical Reformission: Reaching out without selling out.
Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine.
Niebuhr, H. Richard. Christ and Culture.
NASB. NASB Thinline Study Bible.
Piper, John. Desiring God.
Sweet, Leonard (General Editor); Andy Crouch ... [et al…] The Church in Emerging Culture: Five Perspectives.
Van Til, Henry R. The Calvinistic Concept of Culture.
The Barna Group, “Generational Differences” http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=Topic&TopicID=22 Accessed 4/20/08.
ESV Online. http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/ Accessed, 04/24/2008.
Mosaic. http://mosaic.org Accessed, 04/24/2008
