Critiquing Emergent/ing. Again.

There's a new article "On the Square" at the First Things Web site - the article is also in my "Sharing" widget if you're looking there. Kristen Scharold tackles the Emergent/ing Conversation and a book, Why We're Not Emergent, that critiques it. I agree with much that she says about the movement: There are fundamental problems here. But I'd also like to add several thoughts. It is easy in such short spaces to brush too broadly - as I am sure I am also about to do.

First, the movement is large and varied. There are many who are bent liberally and many who are bent conservatively. There are those who question all the dogmas of the Church and those who embrace as fundamental the great creeds of the Church. This movement consists mostly of young men and women who love Jesus and want to love people better. It also consists of some who have left the Church and, therefore, Christ though they are still largely unaware of it. Therefore, given its variety, it is difficult to cast a blanket over the entire movement.

Second, I was reading this morning of how the Holy Father has called bishops to see and reflect upon "the ecclesial movements and new communities [within the Church] as a gift of the Holy Spirit." The pope also exhorted the bishops, "I ask you to go out and meet the movements with much love." Now, these quotes are in reference to movements that rise up within Catholicism, that rise up to meet the Day. But there are similarities and differences with Emergent/ing. The similarities are that the Holy Spirit moves in his people and takes on different expressions, but it is the same Spirit. And in Emergent/ing there is much that the Spirit of God has done and is doing. I don't want anyone to miss this truth. The differences, however, are more and can be more serious: (1) There is a dearth of teaching embraced in Emergent/ing, no tradition that many in Emergent/ing are loyal to. Much of it is towering arrogance dressed up in humility. Sometimes there seems to be no loyalty at all but to the current wind. This "scarcity" of belief is why so many Evangelicals reject the movement - it is not, however, that those involved don't have beliefs or ascribe to doctrines, it's that they believe being a Christian is bigger than what one believes - the focus is elsewhere. And I would agree that following Jesus is more than a checklist of beliefs. But it certainly entails one's beliefs, and doctrine is certainly necessary - if you lose the doctrine, you've lost Christ. (As an analogy, there can be no friendship with me if you believe that I am a homosexual woman who is a Buddhist. Your beliefs do not keep me from still loving you, but it makes you unable to truly love me because you do not know me.) (2) They have rarely been embraced by the traditional communities they spring out of. I believe that if there were a greater reception of these men and women by their communities, a more open ear, rather than grim dismissals, the Emergent/ing movement could move as it was meant to. And while I suspect this acceptance has happened in places, some find Emergent/ing impossible to accept because some of those involved in the movement have also rejected the doctrine of their various traditions in favor of differing doctrine and, in some cases, none. I do not believe that the Emergent/ing movement is the direction the Holy Spirit wants Protestant Christians to move in, but I believe he is very active within it as he has done good work through many involved - just as he is present and working in traditional Evangelical communities. There are things in the Emergent/ing movement that the traditional Evangelical community can and should learn from. And there are things within traditional Evangelicalism that Emergent/ing must learn from.

Anyway, to recap, I wish the movement had a better anchor and I wish they were better loved. I pray that it will and that it will be. There are precious people who love our Lord deeply who consider themselves Emergent/ing. But I also hope and pray that they will be led back to the Church, the ecclesiology, (and, that is to say, Christ) that they so desperately need.

One needs a boat anchored to push out from or he loses the boat.

From St Vincent of Lérins's Commonitory, 5th Century

A General Rule for distinguishing the Truth of the Catholic Faith from the Falsehood of Heretical Pravity

.....

But here some one perhaps will ask, Since the canon of Scripture is complete, and sufficient of itself for everything, and more than sufficient, what need is there to join with it the authority of the Church's interpretation? For this reason,—because, owing to the depth of Holy Scripture, all do not accept it in one and the same sense, but one understands its words in one way, another in another; so that it seems to be capable of as many interpretations as there are interpreters. For Novatian expounds it one way, Sabellius another, Donatus another, Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, another, Photinus, Apollinaris, Priscillian, another, Iovinian, Pelagius, Celestius, another, lastly, Nestorius another. Therefore, it is very necessary, on account of so great intricacies of such various error, that the rule for the right understanding of the prophets and apostles should be framed in accordance with the standard of Ecclesiastical and Catholic interpretation.

Moreover, in the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For that is truly and in the strictest sense "Catholic," which, as the name itself and the reason of the thing declare, comprehends all universally. This rule we shall observe if we follow universality, antiquity, consent. We shall follow universality if we confess that one faith to be true, which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity, if we in no wise depart from those interpretations which it is manifest were notoriously held by our holy ancestors and fathers; consent, in like manner, if in antiquity itself we adhere to the consentient definitions and determinations of all, or at the least of almost all priests and doctors.

Our holy and God-bearing Fathers

A quick note on the Early Fathers of the Church. For some of us, they are the end of our arguments, our resistance, against Mother Church. Many converts to Catholicism and Orthodoxy are such because of the testimony of the holy Fathers. But their writings are only writings and, as such, are open to interpretation and misinterpretation as easily as the Scriptures. And they, perhaps, even more so, for they have not the authority of the Scriptures. What I mean to say is that everything an early Father said or wrote or preached is not necessarily orthodox. So while we accept most of their teachings, all of it is still received as right teaching only through the authority of the Church. (As a fundamental example, they are Church Fathers because the Church has recognized them as such.) I have seen the Fathers used to justify all kinds of beliefs; not as often as the Scriptures merely because they are known to a lesser extent.

We rely on the Church and what the Church teaches us. Certainly the Church does not tell us how to think on every issue, but as it concerns many doctrines of the Church she gives us guidance. She sometimes tells us what we must believe; she sometimes tells us what we may not believe. In this way, she saves us from error.

For me, the Fathers were a powerful testimony to the shape of the Church - what it was meant to be, what it looked like from the earliest days. And that shape is shamelessly Catholic, shamelessly Orthodox - sacramental and episcopal (small e): One holy catholic and apostolic Church. The Fathers speak of sacraments and bishops, they give us liturgies. To me, therefore, the Fathers were instrumental in my understanding of authority and of the Church's authority. But, and here is my point, just as they are necessary to the Church, so too is the Church necessary to the Fathers.

Pagels Read Judas, Colbert Don't

I'm not sure if the name Elaine Pagels means anything to you or not. But she and Bart Ehrman (former Wheaton grad, now unbeliever) seem to be the leading textual-criticism darlings of those who would contest the gospel and therefore the veracity of the New Testament Scriptures. They say that the early Church fathers censured/buried any of the early writings that didn't agree with what they were teaching - as if antiquity itself is reason enough for our acceptance of these writings (Why should we accept John's gospel over Judas's? they would ask).

Indeed, the early fathers did bury these texts. This is one of the reasons why we submit to the authority of the Church - she alone has and has had the authority to decide what is orthodoxy and what is heterodoxy. It is because of her, guided by the Holy Spirit, that we have the New Testament canon as we have it.

HT: Mike Aquilina, and a trail of others

The Question of Unity and the Emerging Conversation

I was attracted to the "emerging conversation" before becoming Catholic because it was, as far as I could see, a way toward unity - among other things - especially those on the conservative side of the broad spectrum known as "emerging." But I have begun to wonder whether unity is a goal of those who consider themselves emerging Christians - and how large of a goal it is.

I would like my own conversation: A push toward the ordination of women and toward a flattening (or elimination altogether) of authority structures within churches is antithetical to unity. Now perhaps you may unite some Protestant denominations. But in the meantime, the majority of the church will be shoved aside by you - the Catholic and the Orthodox traditions.

At the end of the day, regardless of how much the emerging conversation gets "right," it will get unity wrong. It will continue to foster denominational splintering.

Perhaps it sounds as if I am saying your only viable road is Catholicism or Orthodoxy. Trust me, it is not what I am intending to say - though that will and ought to be the road for some. What I am intending to say is that to advocate for these kinds of issues - issues that will not change in the Catholic Church - then you advocate against future unity. Advocating for women priests is a forked road, not a merging one.

(I would like to pause for a moment and remind everyone that I can be a priest in the Catholic Church no more than a woman can be. Though it seems like it to some, these issues are not about power or control, but about truth.)

I know many who consider themselves "emerging." It is not my desire to say, "It's my way or the highway." It is not about my way at all. But I want to remind my brothers and sisters that the law of believers is love. And unity is a fruit of love. However, once a group attempts to restructure, rethink in such a way as to deconstruct what the Church has always taught, then it ceases to strive for unity and begins walking down the path of heterodoxy. (And this same spirit is found within those who call themselves Orthodox and Catholic.)

So I would implore you not to do so. Just as I would implore you not to procure abortions for your pregnant teenagers or bless domineering men or celebrate lust.

Perhaps this post will seem overly abrasive. If it is, it is only because this group of men and women remain my family, in many respects, and seem to me to be a beacon of hope in Protestant Christianity. I think of you the same way still. Your concern for the poor, the oppressed, and the lost is praiseworthy. But if you wish to change things, consider fully what it is you are attempting to change - and please do not burn any bridges. And forgive me my bluntness.