The Areopagus Journal
The latest issue of The Areopagus Journal recently arrived at my home. I was asked to write a book review for this publication, and you’ll find my review of Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind in this May-June 2007 issue. The Areopagus Journal is the journal of the Apologetics Resource Center. (Areopagus refers to Mars’ Hill and is taken from Acts 17:19 in which Paul is engaging in the apologetic enterprise with Greek philosophers.)
The theme of this issue is “Troublesome Movements in the 21st-Century Church.” Several movements are reviewed, including the emerging church, the church growth movement, the apostolic and prophetic movement, and Federal Vision. I found Craig Branch’s discussion of the emerging church to be one of the best, most succinct and straightforward discussions of this movement around. As far as I know, the articles are not available online, so you will have to subscribe to read them.
According to Branch, there are three major errors found within much of the emerging movement. He finds that its proponents repeatedly fall prey to the either/or fallacy. This fallacy which goes by other names (including the fallacy of the excluded middle or the false dilemma fallacy) involves a situation in which two alternative statements are held to be the only possible options, when in reality there exist one or more other options which have not been considered.
The first major error, Branch claims, regards epistemology, or their views on knowledge and truth. A false dilemma is presented in which emerging church leaders reject all forms of foundationalism, naively claiming that we must either choose between having absolute certainty in our knowledge and beliefs (which is unattainable) or having no certainty and be unable to claim any knowledge at all. There is a third alternative, that of non-classical foundationalism which do not insist that knwoledge requires absolute certainty.
The second error concerns the emerging church movements views on Scripture. Many deny the inerrancy of scripture, claiming that it reflects human cultural concepts. This stems from the view that the traditional evangelical view of innerancy stems from the modernist quest for certainty. Branch correctly points out that inerrancy is not a result of modern thinking, but is the Scriptures own stated view of itself. Branch states:
I appreciate the word picture given by a non-radical and balanced emergent leader, Mark Driscoll, when he describes the postmodern desconstruction of the centuries old doctrinal consensus of traditional Christianity as a “house” that is being torn down. He writes that “descontruction without a rebuilding plan leads to homelessness… This sense of homelessness pervades those who have undertaken t to desconstruct God, Scripture, gender, sin, the meaning to life, and anything else they can find.”
The third major error is rejection of the evangelical emphasis on the substitutionary nature of the atonement of Christ, “seeing the cross and the gospel as primarily relational and missional rather objective and proclamational.” Again, Branch maintains that the either/or fallacy is at play here. One must not choose one or the other. One can maintain the propositional truth of the cross and the atonement, yet also being very missional in one’s practice.
We are not forced to choose between orthodoxy and orthopraxy. These are not exclusive categories. The true church will strive to hold to right doctrinal truths and to live out those truths in this world in the correct manner.