Emergent Reading 7: The Secularization of Christianity

For a while now, I have been frustrated by the inability of many within the body of Christ to communicate with one another in a healthy way. I have often thought that conservative Christianity, particularly amidst the Reformed persuasions, has been plagued by a theological beligerance that makes it impossible to have constructive dialogue. I have always thought of it as this odd, theologically in-bred community that is more interested in congratulating each other about the integrity of their theological conclusions as opposed to engaging in any type of meaningful theolgical and practical dialogue with the wider church. At the same time, I have often looked at the Emergent contingent of the church as this group of people who seem bent on changing the trajectory of the church toward a more culturally sensitive and practical form of Christian action, specifically, although perhaps not exclusively, by allowing free and constructive dialogue to occur regarding the church's engagement with culture.

Perhaps there is a degree of truth in this dichotomy, but since I have begun reading John D. Caputo's book, "What Would Jesus Deconstruct" (Baker Academic, 2007), my preconceptions about the Emergent movement have been radically altered. First, what I mean is that I have come to realize that the Emergent movement is no more open to discusssion than the conservative status quo who the Emergent ranks continually criticize. The only difference that I can see, based on Caputo's representation of the position of some of the more radical members of the Emergent movement, is that they are simply more disengenuous than they are beligerent!

The Emergent movement, as I said before, portrays itself as a group of culturally sensitive people who deliberately choose not to land on theological issues; 'for one to land on these issues, only mires the practical, missional character of the gospel in antiquated, pre-modern theolgical constructs.' The result, they say, is the death of the church's ability to represent the gospel within culture.

Now, it seems to me, based on Caputo's representation of deconstruction and the Emergent perspective (which is endorsed by major figures like Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, etc.) that the rejection of traditional theological questions and categories is based more on an underlying rejection of virtually every common Christian position taken with regard to the life of the church and culture. The idea literally seems to be, as Brian McLaren suggests by the title of his most recent tour "Everything Must Change."

For example, Caputo makes a series of claims:

1. He rejects the Bible as an authoritative revelation; the Bible, he claims, 'is an archive, not the arche.' The Bible, in other words is an interpretation among interpretations of early Christianity, and that anything approaching a literal reading of the Bible is idolatry! (pg. 104)

2. He suggests contradictions exist between Jesus and the apostle Paul in order to elevate the role of women in ministry in the early church. He could have just used credible academic Scholarship, like the work of Wayne Meeks, to suggest the question, as opposed to an emotional, and rather uniformed, insensitive reading of the text. This is not to say that I agree with Meeks, but at least his work displays a sensitivity to the material to be examined. In the end this seems to be a radical misunderstanding of the complementarian versus egalitarian debate on the issue(pg. 104-105).

3. Caputo feels free to indisciminately employ vague references to historical-critical criteria without considering the implications of his use of such tools. For example, Caputo feels obliged to employ a critical criteria known as double-dissimilarity. This criteria basically states that a given event in the gospel accounts of Jesus can only be authentic if it does not resemble, or have an affinity with either Jewish culture or the early church. Caputo used this too in the context of upholding the role of women in ministry. What he does not realize is that when this methodology is used, particularly by groups like the Jesus Seminar, virtually nothing is left of the gospels themselves. We are literally left with only a few scant verses, and Jesus is portrayed as a wandering, cynic philospher, who had a faulty eschatological view that led to his execution. The ironic part of this is that Caputo then has no Jesus, or biblical text to deconsruct. There is no kingdom of God and there is no point of worrying about the course of the church because the whole thing is the basically the biggest farce in history. My advice to Caputo here is don't try to play the role of a historical-critical scholar because your gonna get burned. (pg. 104)

4. Caputo calls 1 Thessalonoians 4:15-17, where Paul speaks of Christ's return- his descending from the clouds, as an instance of "pre-copernican cosmology", that has "lost its punch" in our modern world.(pg. 106)

5. Homosexuality would be endorsed by Jesus if he were to return right now. (pg.110)

6. Genuine revelation in the Bible must be discrened amidst the time-bound prejudices and social constructions. (pg.111)

Now, in fairness, I have to once again grant Caputo that many of his political assessments of the Christian right are incisive and quite helpful descriptions of the Christian political agenda. But even here, the problem lies in the fact that he does not account for the underlying theological reasons for these problems within the ranks of the church. He has no accounting for how people change. Instead of sanctification via the Holy Spirit and Scripture, Caputo calls for a rationalization of sanctification via deconstruction.

Ultimately, I give caputo a degree of credit for landing on some positions, which is rather uncharacteristic of the Emergent movement. In the end, in light of many of these positions, it seems clear that the reason the Emergent folk have not been willing to define themselves is because the categories that mainstream Christianity uses ot assess one's theological persuasion is not considered valid to them. The result is an implicit beligerance shrouded by an evasiveness put forward as a commitment to dialogue. As with the conservatives, the dialogue is sharply limited to certain implicit parameters, which, if one disregards or crosses them, that person is marginalized from the conversation. Perhaps this passive-agressive nature is just as abrasive as the conservative persuasion they indict. If that's the case, perhaps some of the more moderate Emergent sub-groups may want to consider who resides in their ranks. I'll take the beligerant conservatives over the beligerant, disingenuous Emergents.

Despite my obvious reticence, I want to avoid hypocrisy with regard to dialogue, so I have recently picked up couple of Derrida's books in order to get a more robust explanation of deconstruction, which I will be reading after I enegage Peter Rollins' last book "How Not to Speak of God"

More to come...