According to Phil Johnson it is. He cites a few examples of heretical theology being promoted by individuals in the “Emerging Conversation” as evidence. He concludes:

“I'm not proposing that we literally bust out the meat chubs and go to work against the Emergent heretics. But I do think it's time to stop all the gratuitous deferential language and drop the pretense of being "brothers and sisters" to people who profess to be Christians while rejecting Christ's exclusivity and doubting or denying other essential tenets of gospel truth.”

As much as I tend agree with Phil Johnson, I think there are a number of problems with this post. The foundational problem is that he uses emerging and emergent interchangeably. This mix up leads to another problem- he broad brushes those who claim both labels as heretics.

A few months ago I wrote a post clarifying how I think we should use the emerging/emergent terminology. “Emerging” refers to any church or Christian who takes into consideration the cultural context in which they minister, regardless of spatial or temporal location. In other words, a church does not need to be North American and dealing with postmodernism in order to be “emerging.” The early church was just as emerging as many churches are today. Since this label is so diverse in its theology and praxis, it’s not helpful to broad brush it as good or bad.

While on one hand the “emerging” category is quite broad, “Emergent” is comparatively quite narrow. It refers to a specific group of individuals and churches within the contemporary emerging church that have formed an organization to promote certain ecclesiastical changes within the North American postmodern context. This Emergent organization (Driscoll points them out as “Revisionists”) is primarily led by Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, and Doug Pagitt.

So where do Phil Johnson’s examples fit in? Well, they are emerging theologians, but that doesn’t help us determine whether or not they’re heretics. Spenser Burke is the only one I know who has been associated with the Emergent organization. In these cases I think it’s more appropriate to call these people liberal theologians. The segments of popular and academic theologians who are embracing postmodern deviations from historical Christianity are simply today’s liberal theologians. If calling someone a heretic is helpful, I think this is a better place to use it. Burke uses “heretic” as a label to be proud of, citing that Jesus and Martin Luther were called heretics by those in authority at their times. However, the examples of good heretics throughout history are quite small in number compared to those who were truly bad.

There’s a third problem I have with Johnson’s post. By making the sweeping generalization he does, he shuts the door to the good points being made by those in the emerging/emergent conversation. Some points are correct and helpful. Instead of isolating ourselves from the conversation as he suggests, I think we would be wiser to engage the conversation so we can grow from the good points while discerning the bad. Isolation doesn’t help us, and it drives them away further.