Life After College, Emergent Explained, and Online Dating Opinions: Episode #12
by Motte Brown on 04/11/2008 at 4:16 PM
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Roundtable -- 5:35
We had the pleasure of hosting three Focus on the Family Institute students for The Boundless Show this week. Jolene, Jenna, and Grant are all recent grads and talk openly about their upcoming transition from college to career; and from the comforts of their parents' home (and insurance) to their own.
Culture -- 15:55
The Emergent Church has always been a bit of an enigma to me. Not anymore. Tom Neven, Focus on the Family's Youth Outreach Director and Boundless contributor, joins our culture segment this week with an in-depth discussion on the beliefs behind the emergent movement. Here's one of those beliefs from an emergent leader that'll pique your interest:
I must add, though, that I don't believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish contexts. ... I don't hope all Jews or Hindus will become members of the Christian religion. But I do hope all who feel so called will become Jewish or Hindu followers of Jesus.
Listen to the show to find out who said it and what it means.
Inbox -- 35:50
By far the show that's generated the most feedback was Online Dating Mavens. In this Inbox, Lisa goes through the varied responses we received and offers additional insights. Some of the stories she reads give us a look behind the curtain of online profiles at the real people who've found success or have been frustrated by it.
That's about it. If you have questions you'd like us to answer or discuss, please write us at editor@boundless.org.
And as usual, you can get to The Boundless Show via either iTunes or Feedburner (our RSS feed).
1. Josh M said the following at 5:31 PM on Apr 11:
Lisa did well with the students in the beginning, but I think there was some loss in not having the banter between all or most of you there.
One question caught my attention during the discussion of the emergent church. Lisa asked what would be someone's experience if they went to an emergent church for a month. Tom responded by going back to what has been written by the various "leaders". It struck me as a bit odd that we can't speak with personal experience on a part of the church that is so focused on how Church should feel.
2. BDB said the following at 6:57 PM on Apr 11:
How funny - clearing copier jams is "reality?" Reminds me of a cartoon that described "white-collar crime" as slinking away from the copy machine after jamming it...
Several times growing up, my father made the comment that after he graduated from college, my grandfather told him, "From now on, when you visit or home, you are a guest." So, I told my dad that after my college graduation - he thought it was funny. But the idea does force one to buck up...
3. Nicole said the following at 9:50 PM on Apr 11:
Is there anyway to get transcripts of this? My sound card has issues on my computer and doesn't work.
4. Christina (in green) said the following at 10:35 PM on Apr 11:
I was very concerned about the lack of doctrinal solidarity and apologetics and lack of logic (as Tom explained it) in the Emergent church.
The comments about the Trampoline vs Bricks reminded me very much about the foolish man building his house upon the sand vs the wise man who built his house upon the rock.
Feelings don't play much of a roll in Christianity except in so much as edifying our faith and our beliefs. But we are called to have faith and believe even when there are no feelings present, when there are doubts, and when it just doesn't feel real.
5. P&P said the following at 5:39 AM on Apr 12:
Speaking as a media person, this fell a little flat. The round table with the students was nice, but the emergent church segment fell flat. I felt like I was back in college! it was more of a lecture than it was a discussion. Maybe adding another voice to the segment to explain things (as suggested in post 1) would have made for a more interesting topic.
Thankfully Lisa has the charisma to carry the show comfortably and she did a great job with the letters section, but having more voices makes the show more engaging.
6. Mark Brunson said the following at 3:13 PM on Apr 13:
In reference to ideas on including Buddhist, Hindu, etc., believers in the Christian religion at all while remaining in their religion and not completely converting to Christianity is plainly and simply fallacy. God says in His Word, "there is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved." How could one possibly believe the Gospel to be God-breathed and faultless if they don't believe you need to totally be committed and believing solely in Christ and no other god to be a true and faithful believer in God? I don't mean to make this sound attacking, I just want people to really think about this short article, and stop being so utterly accepting of someone's wanting to keep their old beliefs with the new. In Colossians 3, Paul speaks of coming to Christ in the sense that you have to "put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge, according to the image of Him who created him." Obviously, we need to talk to people about Christ and not totally alienate them, but when they decide to become a Christian, we have to make it clear that to become Christ's child and be born again, we have to be done with all other spiritual beliefs that conflict with Christian ideals. Thank you for bringing up this topic; I had been hoping to get some insight into the emergent church.
7. Andrew Randazzo said the following at 5:26 AM on Apr 14:
Happy Blogger Appreciation Day! I appreciation your site and the ministry you have through your writing. Keep it up, and God bless!
(http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/04/14/today-is-blogger-appreciation-day-unofficial/)
8. anu said the following at 6:19 AM on Apr 14:
I'm not sure about Hindu, but its definitely possible to be Buddhist and Christian. Buddhists don't pray to Buddha, they just follow his peaceful teachings which are really generic, i.e. don't lie, commit adultery, etc.
9. Amir Larijani said the following at 7:18 AM on Apr 14:
I empathize with many folks who are attracted to the Emergent Church movement: there is much in the mainline Protestant and evangelical ranks that is fundamentally broken.
On the other hand, I'm with Christina on this one: the doctrinal stability of the Emergent Chuch movement is an area of concern.
10. Sarah P. said the following at 7:56 AM on Apr 14:
I find fascinating the reaction against the "monolithic" evangelical church that is underway. Books like Blue Like Jazz and, much more so, The Shack, reveal what's happening. And then there's the more quantifiable data from UnChristian. I think that the seeking for political power really has undermined much of evangelicals' credibility with non-Christians.
Not sure what to do with all that yet.
11. Joshua said the following at 8:37 AM on Apr 14:
In response to #8 (anu)
I know there are some ideas from Buddhism that Christians can learn from, just like there are from most religions (what if all Christians took God's Word as seriously as most Muslims take the Qur'an, for example?). But if one is seeking enlightenment, or seeking to be awakened to the Buddhist concept of reality, isn't that seeking something aside from the God?
No, Buddhists don't worship Siddhartha Gautama, or any other of the Buddhas, but they usually take a pretty detached-from-God approach to things, not to mention the reincarnation thing, both of which are pretty contrary to the Christian Scripture.
12. Laura said the following at 3:42 PM on Apr 14:
Great show! Missed the Hungry Years segment, though. :-)
I appreciated the analysis of the emergent church. Sounds sort of like Oprah's New Earth classes.
13. david beldon said the following at 3:28 PM on Apr 15:
Not to try and bury everyone in more podcast or to steal the thunder of the speaker (i thought he was great). But my pastor did a very great lecture series at Covenant Seminary in St Louis. It is pretty good. Here is the link if you are interested.
I think some of the appeal of the emergent church is that it recognizes the value of community, honesty and sincerity from the pulpit, a recognition of the mystery of God, that the practices of church can be done differently and that elements of this world can be redeemed.
This lecture series is really good and really informative if you get the chance give it a listen.
http://www.journeyon.net/search-results/?keywords=emergent&show_results=N%253B
14. Eliza said the following at 10:09 AM on Apr 16:
As a big fan of emergent church concepts (and people like Brian McLaren), I was definitely skeptical of this podcast. To my surprise, it started off quite nicely :). I thought the definition the speaker gave of a younger generation reacting against the logical, mechanical mentality of the older generation was a good one. At least, that's exactly how I would define it. I DO appreciate the emphasis on the mystery of faith. I was disappointed, however, that the speaker immediately equated the "mystery of faith" with "inspirational speeches". That's an unfortunate (and, IMO, false) connection.
I think the biggest characteristic of the emergent church is their desire to avoid boiling everything down to a simplistic set of principles. Jesus, after all, was not a scientist and did not give us step-by-step instructions for anything. Except on maybe how to pray. If anything, he seemed to do his best to obscure issues! (How very "eastern" of him.)
It bothers me that those who appreciate concrete, black-and-white answers to things think that those who appreciate life's complexity are "illogical" or less intelligent. I just don't think a lot of things that the Evangelical Church takes for granted are as obvious as it thinks they are. That doesn't make me wishy-washy.
I also don't think that Emergent throws out doctrine in order to pander to a postmodern generation. IF they do end up questioning/throwing out certain dogma, it's probably after a good deal of thought on why that portion of that "creed" is so rigorously held to. Yes I want to take up Christ's cross daily, but not Jerry Falwell's cross or George Bush's cross or John MacArthur's cross. Or even Calvin or Luther's cross. Jesus Christ is the one sure foundation. All others are, as they say, shifting sand.
As far as being Hindu/Muslim/Buddhist and a follower of Jesus goes, this has actually been a discussion in the Missions world for quite a long time, under the name "Insider Movements" or, more classically, " contextualization". Although the circumstances were more benign to us, Hudson Taylor himself was intensely criticized in his day for ingratiating himself too much into the culture he was reaching. I don't think this issue is really "emergent" as much as it is just an effect of globalization.
To me, Emergent is characterized by DEEP thought, DEEP faith and DEEP incarnational theology. Of course, there are superficial things about every church, and hopefully maturity will continue to make the weaknesses about the emergent church apparent.
15. Christina (in green) said the following at 12:41 PM on Apr 16:
Eliza,
To some extent, I'm in agreement with you.
But I'm not in so much agreement that I would ditch theology and apologetics (all deeply grounded in sound logical argument) for wishy-washy faith (which is what this sounds like).
However, I'm all in favor of genuine, open, honest, and REAL faith (which is why I've been fascinated by the emergent church).
I'm not certain if that's what you were getting at when you mentioned how Jesus tended to obscure issues (which I really don't think he did). There is a REAL need for people to be able to defend their faith. Just because Contextualization has been around for a while, doesn't mean that it is right.
There is a need to stand up and proclaim that Jesus IS the only way and be able to defend that in light of many faiths that do actually have some things right. Its not about rejecting people, but it is about rejecting false teachings and deceitful lies.
And...I'm not quite certain that this would be correct...
I also don't think that Emergent throws out doctrine in order to pander to a postmodern generation. IF they do end up questioning/throwing out certain dogma, it's probably after a good deal of thought on why that portion of that "creed" is so rigorously held to.
However, that is also a problem no matter what church you go to and only further testifies to the fact that we ALL need to be well-versed in scripture and hold our church leaders accountable.
I really don't think the author of Blue Jazz was really thinking critically when he wrote his book, which calls into question many dogmatically held beliefs found in the creed.
16. Eliza said the following at 1:59 PM on Apr 16:
Christina (in green),
Thanks for your response:). I'm not at all in favor of ditching theology and apologetics! The emergent church actually has quite an intense group of thinkers and philosophers. The difference between (using generalistic terms) postmodern and modern apologists is that they are answering different questions. To the modern skeptic, people like Josh McDowell spent pages "proving" things like the resurrection of Jesus or the reliability of scripture, and he (and others) did a very good job. Personally, I have never had an "intellectual" problem with the provability of certain aspects of the Christian faith.
But to the postmodernist, all of those alleged "proofs" are 1) just as suspect as all other "proofs" that have been debunked by science (as we learn, we are constantly proving ourselves "wrong", or at least ignorant), and 2) don't get to the core issue. That core issue is, I think, different for everyone. But it has more to do with knowing God and loving him and our neighbors and living rightly than it does about being intellectually convinced.
I don't think that Donald Miller of Blue Like Jazz was writing critically either, because that wasn't his point. The most poignant part of that whole book was the "confessional" part. To me, that is the clearest exhibition of postmodern Christianity ever. The students entering that confessional didn't need some proof of Jesus's God-hood--that's not possible anyway. What they needed to be convinced of his reality. And of course, the most shocking (and real) thing to an unbeliever is a Christian humble enough to actually apologize to them ;).
Personally, I gobbled up modern Christian apologetics, and it left me empty. You can think for a million years and you can never actually prove God. You cannot think your way into a logical heaven. If you could, there would be no room for faith. And so accepting that fact and continuing to choose to come in faith...that is emergent.
17. david beldon said the following at 10:41 PM on Apr 16:
I think all that really matters is Jesus. I care what other church are doing because they affect people. What really matters is who how we view Jesus. Jesus told us that he is the way the truth and the life and no one come to the Father except through him. The Emergent church and especially Brian Mclaren has challenged the idea that there is no another way to heaven beside the substitutionary attonement of Jesus dieing on the cross for our sins. Without believing in that Christianity falls apart at the seams. It leads to challenging the authenticy of scripture and the utter depravity of man. The reason I believe in heaven is because Jesus told me about it. That is it. He is where my hope is. Logic has is place but in the end it rests on faith as well.
Emergents love to have conversations and challenge everything. I think Christians have done and do a lot of silly things that Jesus never intended us to do, but the Bible is very clear on a lot of things (sometimes painfully clear to me) and we need to recognize that. Remember where one the of first conversations that challenged everything was in the Garden of Eden between Eve and the serpent. It didnt turn out so well..
18. Christina (in green) said the following at 7:07 AM on Apr 17:
Eliza,
I loved apologetics because it edified my faith...as a rather logical and creative person, feelings and faith and nonsensical belief come naturally to me, but the logical side needs some reason to follow the rest of me there...
But I am not certain if apologetics was designed for people who already had a deep faith in Christ. It was meant for those that still questioned...that were too logical to merely accept what could be seen as a foolish whim to jump into a fantasy world.
Being an engineer, I spend a lot of time and connect rather well with people who thrive on logical argument...they won't believe if I give a sound logical argument, but they are more open to potentially accepting it as truth if I do.
And as far as other types of apologetics...is THIS what you mean?
19. Amir Larijani said the following at 10:10 AM on Apr 17:
David Beldon says:
That is all well and good, but to address that issue one must address (a) which Jesus is the real Jesus? and (b) how do we know?There are feminist variations, Eastern/New Age variations, various Protestantized and Catholicized variations of Jesus. An ultra-liberal group--the Jesus Seminar--has their own version of Jesus.
To address the question of the real Jesus, we have to come to agreement on certain core principles. In particular the premise that the Biblical Jesus is the real Jesus.
I know that sounds elementary, but you'd be surprised how many nutjobs--even among the Protestant ranks--cannot come to agreement on that fundamental principle.
Even within that paradigm, reasonable people will differ, as we all have certain characteristics of Jesus that we will emphasize more than others. (The worker at a soup kitchen, for example, will emphasize Jesus' compassion for the masses whereas Paul Coughlin might recognize Jesus' boldness in the Temple.)
But agreeing on the core principle--that the Biblical Jesus takes precedence over "what I feel in my spirit"--is paramount.
20. CrochetDiva said the following at 2:30 PM on Apr 17:
Amen, Amir!
And if the "hangup" a former Buddhist or Hindu or Muslim or whateverheis has about a new allegiance to Christ is "donning" the label Christian and if he wants to keep some ties with his former "culture," then that new convert needs to be challenged as to what true allegiance to Christ really means. And the discipler of that new convert would be the one to help him know (as the new convert seeks God on the question and prayerfully reflects on what God reveals) which aspects of his former life he can retain (like wearing some types of clothing or eating certain foods) and which aspects he must doff because keeping to them would be stumbling blocks in his new walk of faith.
21. BDB said the following at 2:58 PM on Apr 17:
Eliza (#16) wrote:
>>You can think for a million years and you can never actually prove God.<<
Have you read Simon Greenleaf's Testimony of the Evangelists? He applies the Rules of Evidence to the Gospels - they would be admissible as testimony in court!
22. Eliza said the following at 4:19 PM on Apr 17:
I submitted this before, but I think it got marked as spam because of all the links. So I took some out.
************
Christina (in green),
I think there will always be a strong need for that kind of scientific and mathematical apologetics. It certainly has its place. But I don't think it works for everyone, even (or perhaps especially) a secular postmodernist.
I think the link you gave is more an example of the "old style" kind of questions I was referring to above. Here are some examples of questions I personally have, and think that other people in a post-Christian culture would echo:
- Why does the God who is allegedly just, loving and merciful command in scripture the genocide of entire ethnic groups, including women and children?
- Why would this same God command stoning as a punishment for crime, an execution more akin to a lynch mob scene than just deserts?
(By the above questions I don't mean your regular "why do bad things happen to good people". Rather, I mean, "why does God seemingly condone and promote hate"?)
- If knowing God is actually transformative, why is there no overwhelming evidence of transformed Christian lives? Sure there may be individual anecdotes about how God helped people overcome personal struggles, but with 2.1 billion Christians in the world, it seems like we would have eliminated hunger, poverty, pollution, and perhaps war by now. It seems like these Christians are kidding themselves about knowing the same God and being "transformed" by him.
Generally the answer to the first two questions is that God is good and we don't understand his ways. However, as thinking beings, what God calls "good" and "loving" and what we understand to be "good" and "loving" must be at least close to being similar. Otherwise, there is no way for us trust that what God says is for our "benefit" actually is. Perhaps what God imagines is for our good will actually destroy us. It didn't do a whole lotta good for Israel.
Another answer to explain God's disproportionate wrath is that we don't understand the depths of the putridness of our own sin. You're right--I definitely don't understand it. It seems to me that Sunday School classes are quite an effort to convince kids about how much God hates their bad behavior. It sounds like the kind of brainwashing any religion could do.
Anyway, these are just a few of the questions that the emergent church really confronts and addresses in a way that the Evangelical church has not. At least, not in my experience. And I appreciate it for that!
23. Eliza said the following at 4:21 PM on Apr 17:
BDB (#21),
I would be one of the first to tell you that evidence admissible in court has very little to do with truth. Unfortunately.
But I'll look into that book. I'm always curious about these things.
24. Christina (in green) said the following at 6:36 PM on Apr 17:
Eliza,
Those are not post-modern questions...those are questions that have been asked for generations upon generations.
Our generation really doesn't think THAT differently.
25. Tom Neven said the following at 9:53 PM on Apr 17:
Eliza (#22)
Those are good questions, but I would humbly submit that some of them are the wrong question, and others are based on faulty premises. One example. You ask:
You left out God's holiness and righteous judgment, among His other attributes. Study the cultures of the people who occupied the Promised Land before the Israelites conquered it. They were extremely wicked and practiced child sacrifice, among other things. Read up on the sacrifice of children to Molech. (Check out 2Kings 23:10 and the numerous warnings in Leviticus.) The Israelites, in addition to fulfilling God's promise to occupy the land they were promised, were also carrying out God's judgment on those wicked cultures.
I realize some of these issue are tough, and I don't mean to demean your questioning. It's just that when we pursue these things we have to go beyond just the surface question.
I would also question your use of "God's 'disproportionate' wrath." Disproportionate as compared to what?
26. Eliza said the following at 7:27 AM on Apr 18:
I agree. I don't think our generation is very different at all. I think the Emergent church does a good job of reaching many people who've been alienated by the Evangelical church. And its not as scary and dangerous as some people make it out to be.
That's all.
27. Eliza said the following at 10:49 AM on Apr 18:
Tom,
I agree that the evil of the Amalekites was horrendous. It totally makes sense that God would want to punish them. If he wanted, he could have chosen some kind of natural disaster to eliminate their temples and even kill people. Instead, he chose one group to perpetrate genocide on the other. The way in which he commanded this implies that their ethnicity itself was stained and irretrievable. And everyone, including infants, was "sacrificed" for the sins of the elders.
The reason that our understanding of God's "holiness" and "righteous judgment" bothers me is that it seems neither holy nor righteous. You can say that the fact that God himself commands something automatically makes it holy. But it seems to me that by actually employing the evil he so strongly condemns, he's being both hypocritical and, if possible, "unrighteous".
That is what I refer to when I use the term disproportionate wrath. Using cruelty beyond what is necessary. In this category I put the slaughter of children and death by stoning (regardless of the crime). There are other cases that I think are extreme punishments, but I don't know that they are cruel, whereas it would be hard to argue that these here are not.
Now, of course I'm not God, and I'm sinful, so who am I to determine what the difference is between discipline and abuse? Perhaps I have no way to determine these things because I don't understand God's ways. If that is the case--that there is no possible way for me to understand what God considers to be "just" or "loving", then it seems to me that there is no point in even trying. How can a god like that be trusted?
So there has to be some general agreement between us and God on what exactly "justice" is and "love" is. And oftentimes I don't see justice in God's judgments.
Anyway, none of this has to do with the emerging church. They're just thoughts I have. I'm working on the whole, "is God good?" thing.
28. BDB said the following at 11:23 AM on Apr 18:
Eliza (#23) wrote:
>>I would be one of the first to tell you that evidence admissible in court has very little to do with truth. Unfortunately.<<
Sure. We don't have telepaths. I was mostly thinking in terms of the type of apologetic work. Someone who understands the rules of evidence will appreciate what Greenleaf does, just as someone who has studied quantum physics is more likely to appreciate Intelligent Design apologetic analysis that focuses on the mathematical possibilities for creation and just how unlikely it was.
29. Naomi Shedd said the following at 9:47 AM on Jan 12:
Could someone please help me understand the difference between a "Seeker" church and the "Emergent" Church?
30. Cassandra said the following at 2:58 PM on Jan 12:
An extremely basic definition Naomi:
Seeker churches are churches that make their services "seeker friendly" by perhaps using an entertainment-based/consumer model for their services and may perhaps present more basic or positive messages in their services in an effort to entice new believers.
Emergent churches is a junk-drawer term that refers to a newer church that has perhaps rejected a traditional church model, and oftentimes embraces "liberal theology." However it's a confusing term because there are many "emerging" churches that are different than "emergent" churches which are simply young churches that perhaps embrace new technologies or arts to cater to a younger crowd. Not all new churches with funky names have bad theology. :)