Well, I’ve just returned from the Scottish Highlands and for three days I’ve been mobile-less, blog-less but not book-less! My holiday companion was this book by Kevin Deyoung and Ted Kluck Why were not emmergent (by two guys who should be).

Whats it all about?

As you can tell the book is about the emergent church it mixes personal story and theological reflection and ultimately argues that the emergent church is neither biblical nor helpful in the long run.

“I share a few pages about myself only to demonstrate that you can be young, passionate about Jesus Christ, surrounded by diversity, engaged in a postmodern world, and reared in evangelicalism and not be an emergent Christian. In fact, I want to argue that it would be better if you weren’t.”

The book is a strong critique against the philosophy and practice of the emergent church. In particular it explores the idea of ‘journey’ within the emergent church movement and compares their postmodern version with journey as it is understood in the bible and classical Christian literature such as Pilgrims Progress by John Bunyan. In effect the guys argue that the biblical concept of journey has a destination (heaven) whereas the emergent journey is more introspective and often just journey for journeys sake.

They also look at rebellion and its place within emergent culture and compare it with the need for submission to God and His word as true rebellion. They explore the bible and critically engage with the emergent philosophy that proposition is bad. They show this to be a faulty philosophy by demonstrating that the bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is full of proposition.

Among other things they examine and reject the accusation that evangelicalism is a product of modernity and ironically show that postmodern emergents are more modern in their philosophy and practice than they realise.

One of the key things they do is to expose certain foundational elements of Christianity which are missing from emergent Christianity. Things such as the authority, reliability and inerrancy of scripture, the Holiness of God, the judgement to come, salvation through Christ alone, justification by faith alone not to mention the sovereignty, majesty and knowability of God. These key areas, as well as many more, are at stake, sometimes neglected, and at times out rightly rejected by postmodern emergent Christians.

The book is full of humour and irony, they are humble in their approach, they outline the strengths of the emergent church and will often expose some striking contradictions where they are encountered within the movement.

What I found helpful

I found most of the book very helpful, in may ways their story is my story, in other words I am in the same age group and come from the same culture as many emergents yet I am not emergent. The book in many ways made me glad to be an evangelical no matter how naive that may appear to others. I loved their simplicity, the book deals with theology but its not heavy. Its simply a case of ‘lets examine the scriptures’. 

What I also found helpful was their assessment of the key problems with the emergent church.

“I am convinced that a major problem with the emerging church is that they refuse to have their cake and to eat it. The whole movement seems to be built on reductionistic, even modernistic, either or categories. They pit information versus transformation, believing versus belonging and propositions about Christ versus the person of Christ. The emerging church will be a helpful corrective against real, and sometimes perceived, abuses in evangelicalism when they discover the genius of the “and” and stop forcing us to accept half truths”.

Weaknesses of the book

The weakness of this book, for me, was the final chapter which was titled Epilogue: Listening to all the churches in Revelation. I found this weak for several reasons.

  1. It seemed very rushed, for the only chapter which was dealing with biblical passages directly the exegesis was very rushed and artificial. This is sad considering the book was arguing for thorough treatment of scripture.
  2. The book was like an enjoyable journey up a mountain with awesome views and scenery and the final chapter was like arriving at the summit and falling off a cliff. It abruptly stopped and seemed to lack the wonder and excitement of the previous chapters.
  3. The gospel corrective offered in the final chapter was way too narrow! If the emergent church and modern evangelicalism have lost the central components of the gospel i.e wrath of God, Atonement, propitiation, eternal judgment etc the writers of this book certainly identify and correct that problem but they add another. The gospel they describe is not full enough nor does it do justice to the revelation of the New Testament.

Is the evangelical gospel sufficiently faithful to scripture?

I really was disappointed after reading the final chapter when the summary of the gospel was about ‘dying well’. After describing well the glorious facts of the gospel this very narrow interpretation is given;

“Resting in all of this helps us do what all the mysterious paradoxes and postmodern uncertainties never could-it helps us die well”

Now I agree that this is an essential aspect of the gospel and I agree that it is neglected by both emergents and modern evangelicals. However, this is not the only aim of the gospel! This is the evangelical version which has actually contributed to the poor spiritual condition of the evangelical church today!

This is the ‘I’ve got my ticket to heaven mentality’. This really frustrated me. The gospel is so much more. Yes eternity with God and ultimate glorification is our destiny and aim. But the reality is that the death and resurrection of Christ has immediate benefits and responsibilities for our lives here and now.

“Christ in us the hope of Glory” was the missing aspect of Deyoung and Kluck’s gospel. In fact I think it is this missing aspect which has led to the demise of the evangelical church in the west. The gospel is not just about the cross and sins forgiven. The gospel is about reconciliation, the resurrection of Christ and the indwelling Holy Spirit. The miracle of regeneration, the inward sanctifying work of the Spirit of God. The glorification of the church which begins on earth here and now!

I think that the fact that the gospel which the guys presented in this book is too narrow may well be the reason why emergents and modern evangelicals will continue to ignore its message. This is sad because I believe the book offers a true corrective on the essential elements of the gospel which have been neglected and abandoned but they themselves have not gone far enough in the revelation of God. 

This is a good book, it corrects current trends is faithful to scripture but it reinforces the limited gospel interpretation which many modern evangelicals have. Lets just say I’m looking forward to Adrian Warnock’s book on the resurrection being released. I have a suspicion that his book will touch on some of these issues. In other words the gospel is not just about getting your sins forgiven so you can get to heaven when you die. The gospel is also about living in the power of the resurrection here and now.