I’ll warn you advance: this is one of those posts likely to get everyone upset. My intention, however, is to offer two helpful critiques in an effort to make certain discussions better for everyone. I think blogging too often degenerates into sniping, and I’ve tried not to do that lately, but occasionally sniping needs to be done (if I must call it that). To be generous to by Emergent brothers, I’ll critique my Reformed brothers first.

This year was the second year I’ve attended the ETS annual conference. As usual, it was a blast. Not just in buying 50 books (though such fun is not fiscally wise), but in learning from a such diverse group of scholars and getting opportunities to interact with them. Unfortunately, I must qualify diverse.

For some reason the bulk of distinctively Reformed scholars (men known primarily for defending Reformed theology) were not present this year, and frankly, this bugs me. I’m referring to people such as Michael Horton (though present briefly last year, was not there this year), W. Robert Godfrey, John Frame, David Wells, J. Ligon Duncan, R. Scott Clark, Meredith Kline, Robert Strimple, D.G. Hart, and K. Scott Oliphint (to name a few). Maybe because I’ve only gone to ETS for two years, I’ve missed some rationale for why these Reformed academics seem to have isolated themselves from evangelical scholarship.

This is symptomatic of what I perceive to be a practice of sectarianism in Reformed scholarship today. I respect, study, and agree with most of what these men teach, especially when it comes to critiquing contemporary evangelicalism. The problem is that much of the time they seem more interested in pointing out errors than working toward correcting them. At best, they just have a bad strategy. Each year, ETS is full of professors and graduate students who are engaged in the cutting edges of various theological discussions. Some of them will be pastors; most of them will influence important church ministers. And yet the only two men I saw consistently each year from this group were Peter Jones and Vern Poythress.  Maybe I missed some, but the point is that if the Reformed academics truly want to make a difference in evangelicalism, they need to get out of their Reformed bubbles and present their arguments before their critics. I say this because I think they’ll be successful if they actually do it and the world desperately needs them to be successful in every way possible. So with all due respect, Reformed academics, please stop acting like sectarian fundamentalists and start attempting to make a difference in the academy. (Since ETS is in San Diego next year, I see no good reason why most of the Westminster Seminary faculty shouldn’t be there.)

EDIT: My language in this criticism was harsh (eg- "sectarian fundamentalists"), and I apologize to any who may have been offended. Subsequent discussion has shown my analysis of these Reformed scholars to be largely uninformed- I refer the reader to Dr. R. Scott Clark's comment below and his link to Dr. Sean Lucas's comments.

There’s a similar problem with those who traverse the Emergent circle. At ETS, Brett Kunkle of Stand Reason presented an excellent paper describing his concerns with emerging churches (the paper is here, my summary is here). Brett was excruciatingly careful in making the appropriate distinctions, quoting people in context, and conversing with the men he cited in order to provide a fair and accurate analysis. As with R. Scott Smith’s excellent book Truth and the New Kind of Christian (our Book of the Year for 2005), those in the Emergent “conversation” have generally responded in two ways…

Response #1: Avoid criticisms by claiming to be misunderstood. Instead of dealing with any of the points raised by Scott or Brett, the points are typically written off as being straw men, without any explanation or evidence as to how the arguments are straw men. This is Tony Jones’ “public” response to Brett’s paper (see his blog and the Emergent Village blog). I don’t recall seeing many leading Emergent voices actually engage criticisms that have been made of their teaching* (please feel free point me to any you can find). Response #2: Ignore the criticisms. Scott’s book and Brett’s paper have for the most part been met with silence. D.A. Carson’s book caused quite a stir, but it was mostly a stir in the vein of the first response. Scott and Brett went beyond what should be necessary to be gracious in order avoid that first type of response. And for the most part they did avoid that response, but instead they are generally responded to with silence.

This leads me to believe that despite all the talk about “conversation,” most of those on the Emergent side of things (especially leaders such as Jones and McLaren) are really only interested in publicly conversing with people who believe exactly as they do. At best, they are just as sectarian as the fundamentalists they often criticize, and the Reformed academics I criticized above. Of course, I side with Carson, Scott, and Brett, and so I’d like the Emergent folk to engage their critics in hopes that they’d make certain changes. However, most of us critics are open to being wrong about where we stand and the best way to show us where we are wrong is to actually engage us instead of dismiss us.

*Caveat- I should note that Doug Pagitt did a public debate with one of his critics (Bob DeWaay), and I have a great deal of respect for him doing that.

UPDATE: Tony Jones has posted a response to Brett Kunkle's paper. I truly appreciate that he did this as it provides readers with a good opportunity to compare the thoughts of each author and the character with which they're offered.

Brett Kunkle’s paper on the Emerging Church has been one of the most popular papers this year. It is available on STR's website.

In his preliminary remarks, Brett claimed that he is qualified to speak about the emerging church because he’s personally met with many of its leading voices, attended their conferences and lectures, read their books, and attends what many consider to be an emerging church. While he made some very powerful criticisms, he noted that he does not reject everything that is going on in emerging churches.

Brett raised three areas of concern in assessing the emerging church movement (a broad missional perspective of doing church) and Emergent Village (an organization promoting changes in mission and theology) specifically. In each area, he gave examples of questionable teachings of Emergent leaders (Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, and Doug Pagitt), noting that they do not speak for the whole movement, but are influential voices.

The first concern is concerning the cross. Brett cited quotes from McLaren’s work that question substitutionary atonement and promote ignorance of why Christ had to die. The second concern has to do with the authority of the Bible. Brett cited quotes from Pagitt that claim the Bible’s authority depends on the communities that use it. This makes the community authoritative rather than the Bible. The final concern has to do with the nature of truth. He again looked at remarks about truth from Pagitt that seem confused as to what truth is.

In the second part of his paper, Brett raised his most serious concern- that the door is wide open to unorthodoxy. He does not believe, for example, that Tony Jones is currently unorthodox. However, by putting “everything on the table” for reconsideration, they could easily go that route. He used Spencer Burke and his book, A Heretic’s Guide to Eternity, as an example of how unorthodox those in the emerging movement can get.