Reclaiming the Center: Confronting Evangelical Accommodation in Postmodern Times
368
Reclaiming the Center: Confronting Evangelical Accommodation in Postmodern Times
368eBook
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Overview
Reclaiming the Center is a valuable contribution to the study of contemporary evangelicalism. It is a guide for how evangelicals can move forward with wisdom and discernment without succumbing to the spirit of this age.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781433517259 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Crossway |
| Publication date: | 11/09/2004 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 368 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Millard J. Erickson (PhD, Northwestern University) is distinguished professor of theology at Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon. He is a leading evangelical spokesman and the author of numerous volumes, including the classic text Christian Theology.
Paul Kjoss Helseth (PhD, Marquette University) is professor of Christian thought at Northwestern College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and the author of numerous scholarly articles.
Justin Taylor (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is the executive vice president of book publishing and book publisher at Crossway. He has edited and contributed to several books, and he blogs at Between Two Worlds—hosted by the Gospel Coalition.
D. A. Carson (PhD, Cambridge University) is Emeritus Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He is a cofounder and theologian-at-large of the Gospel Coalition and has written and edited nearly two hundred books. He and his wife, Joy, have two children and live in the north suburbs of Chicago.
J. P. Moreland (PhD, University of Southern California) is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Biola University. He is an author of, contributor to, or editor of over ninety books, including The Soul: How We Know It's Real and Why It Matters.
R. Scott Smith is Assistant Professor of Ethics and Christian Apologetics at Biola University in California. He is the author of Virtue Ethics and Moral Knowledge. Dr. Smith has lectured and presented numerous times on his specialty, postmodernism, and he is also the secretary-treasurer of the Evangelical Philosophical Society.
Stephen J. Wellum (PhD, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is professor of Christian theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and editor of The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology. Stephen and his wife, Karen, have five adult children.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
AN INTRODUCTION TO POSTCONSERVATIVE EVANGELICALISM AND THE REST OF THIS BOOK
Justin Taylor
IN THIS INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER, my aim is not only to introduce the rest of this book, but also to sketch the broad contours of postconservative evangelical theology. I will first provide an overview of postconservatism and its proponents. I will then provide an overview of and a justification for our response.
POSTCONSERVATISM
Deciding whether postconservatism is a "movement" or simply a "mood" is rather unimportant for our purposes. What is important — and what is by and large no longer questioned — is that a significant shift is taking place in some segments of evangelicalism. The proponents of this perspective have assumed various labels with varying connotations — postconservatives, reformists, the emerging church, younger evangelicals, postfundamentalists, postfoundationalists, postpropositionalists, postevangelicals — but they all bear a family resemblance and can be grouped together as having a number of common characteristics. They are self-professed evangelicals seeking to revision the theology, renew the center, and transform the worshiping community of evangelicalism, cognizant of the postmodern global context within which we live. They desire a "generous orthodoxy" that would steer a faithful course between the Scylla of conservative-traditionalism and the Charybdis of liberal-progressivism. At the risk of oversimplification and for the purposes of this introduction, I will refer to Stanley Grenz as postconservatism's Professor, Brian McLaren its Pastor, and Roger Olson and Robert Webber its Publicists, summarizing in what follows their basic perspectives and contributions. My purpose at this point is primarily description, not analysis.
The Publicists: Olson and Webber
Postconservatism — in its broad conception — involves not only methodological proposals for the discipline of theology, but also historiographical and sociological analyses of the evangelical movement. Roger Olson and Robert Webber have been significantly involved as advocates and promoters of post-conservatism. The term postconservatism itself is most often associated with Olson, who claims to have coined the term in a 1995 article entitled "Postconservatives Greet the Postmodern Age." He identified two loose and often warring coalitions within North American evangelical theology: the traditionalists and the reformists. The traditionalists, he argued, have a mindset that "values traditional interpretations and formulations as binding and normative and looks with suspicion upon doctrinal revisions and new proposals arising out of theological reflection." The reformists, on the other hand, have "a mindset that values the continuing process of constructive theology seeking new light breaking forth from God's Word." Whereas traditionalists view the church as a bounded set, with strong boundary identification as a sign of authentic evangelical faith, reformists see the church as a centered set: the boundaries are open and undefined, so we should focus upon the center — usually identified as the oft-cited Bebbington quadrilateral: "conversionism, the belief that lives need to be changed; activism, the expression of the gospel in effort; biblicism, a particular regard for the Bible; and ... crucicentrism, a stress on the sacrifice of Christ on the cross."
Postconservatism is to conservatism what postliberalism is to liberalism: both desire to move beyond their forebears while retaining some of their positive qualities. Postconservatives and conservatives hold in common the Bebbington center, but the "old guard" of evangelical scholars is obsessed with battles over inerrancy, higher criticism, and liberal theology. In this way conservatives and liberals are unlikely bedfellows in their obsession with the modern mind. Conservatives are sliding headlong toward fundamentalism, unaware of the promises and possibilities of postmodernity's unexplored terrain.
The postconservatives, on the other hand, have seized the opportunity to reform, reshape, and revision theology. They are eager to engage and learn from nonevangelical theologians, healing the divisions caused by modernity. They see the essence of Christianity not in doctrine but in a narrative-shaped experience. Sources for theology include not only the Bible, but also Christian tradition, culture, and the contemporary experience of God's community. Postconservatives are open to open theism, have a hope of near-universal salvation, and place a renewed emphasis on synergy in the divine-human relationship. They are willing to rethink the language and concepts of Chalcedonian Christology, viewing Jesus' divinity in relational terms. They are impatient with triumphalism, epistemological certainty, and theological systems, judging that traditional evangelicalism is "suffering from a kind of hubris with regard to truth-claims."
In a recent article, Olson identifies the following characteristics of post-conservative evangelical theology and its theologians: they (1) are thoroughly and authentically evangelical; (2) embrace a vision of critical and generous orthodoxy; (3) believe in experience rather than doctrine as the enduring essence of evangelical Christianity; (4) express discomfort with foundationalism and embrace critical realism; (5) have a strong interest in dialogue between diverse groups of theologians; (6) have a broad and relatively inclusive vision of evangelicalism; (7) have a relational view of reality, including a relational vision of God's being; and (8) have an inclusivist attitude toward salvation. Postconservatism's one major unifying motif — its one universal interest — is a "commitment to ongoing reform of evangelical life, worship and belief in the light of God's word."
This is all set over against Olson's understanding of "traditionalism" or "conservatism." He cautions that just because someone adopts a particular label does not mean that the person fits all of the characteristics he is identifying. He is "dealing with ideal types and not individual persons or institutions." Nevertheless, some general characteristics can be described:
A conservative evangelical places such value on the status quo that he or she is closed-minded with regard to theological creativity and innovation even when they are fueled by faithful exegesis and believing reflection on God's word. ... 'Fundamentalism' is being replaced with the label 'conservative evangelicalism' while retaining fundamentalistic habits of heart and mind. When a person proclaims himself or herself a 'conservative evangelical', more often than not it indicates commitment to strict biblical inerrancy, a fairly literalistic hermeneutic, a passionate commitment to a perceived 'golden age' of Protestant orthodoxy to be rediscovered and pre-served, and a suspicion of all new proposals in theology, biblical interpretation, spirituality, mission and worship.
For Olson, the differences between the two pictures he has painted are rather stark. The postconservatives and their proposals are "liberated," "bold," "vibrant," "interesting," "new," "relevant," "committed," "faithful," "fresh," and "fascinating." The traditionalists are "old guard," "obsessive," "reactionary," "highly rationalistic," "rigid" "naysayers" with a "scholastic spirit" who love nothing more than "gatekeeping," "control[ling] the switches," and "patrol[ling] the boundaries."
Robert Webber joins Olson — though certainly framing his discussion in a more charitable and irenic fashion — by distinguishing between twentieth-century evangelicals and twenty-first-century evangelicals. However, he divides twentieth-century evangelicals into two camps: the traditional evangelicals (1950–1975, led by Billy Graham) and the pragmatic evangelicals (1975–2000, led by Bill Hybels). The emerging set of leaders is termed the younger evangelicals (2000 and beyond, led by Brian McLaren).
Webber works through a series of perspectives (e.g., on history and tradition, theology, apologetics, ecclesiology, etc.), and shows how the traditionalists, the pragmatists, and the younger evangelicals approach them. Traditionalist evangelicals tend to have the characteristics of rationalism, denominationalism, and separatism. They want to retain Reformation distinctives, focus on church-centered programs, and use mass evangelism and printed materials for outreach. Pragmatic evangelicals focus more on therapeutic models and success-oriented apologetics, high-energy leaders, and interdenominationalism. They are interested in the innovative, focusing on outreach programs and using seeker services and broadcast tools for out-reach. The younger evangelicals, on the other hand, practice an embodied or incarnational apologetic, see the church as a community of faith, and are intentionally ecumenical. They take an "ancient-future" approach to tradition, whereby the future runs through the past. For outreach they look to "process evangelism" and interactive communication on the Internet.
"Younger" designates not only those "young in age," but also those "young in spirit." "The younger evangelical is anyone, older or younger, who deals thoughtfully with the shift from twentieth- to twenty-first-century culture. He or she is committed to construct a biblically rooted, historically informed, and culturally aware new evangelical witness in the twenty-first century." According to Webber, the younger evangelicals value tradition over ahistoricism; stories over propositions; a communally embodied apologetic over rational argumentation; and the visible over the invisible church.
The Pastor: McLaren
The primary focus of our book is on the academic aspect of the postconservative movement. In this introductory chapter, however, my aim is to give a broad overview of this mood and its movement. Therefore, it is important to look at Brian McLaren, an increasingly influential pastor/writer/speaker in the Emergent Church Movement. McLaren's developing perspective is impossible to separate from his own story or narrative. "Raised among the tiny Plymouth Brethren, shaped by the Jesus Movement, trained in the secular academy, impassioned by art, music, philosophy and nature — McLaren doesn't fit neatly into any evangelical stereotype." After teaching English at the University of Maryland and Montgomery College, he entered pastoral ministry full-time in 1986 as the founding pastor of what would eventually become Cedar Ridge Community Church in the Washington-Baltimore area.
As McLaren interacted with unchurched postmodern seekers and studied church history, he began to reexamine not only his changeable methods but also his "so-called unchanging message." He realized that his fairly standard "method-message system" was relatively new in comparison with the varied tradition of Christendom. As he searched for an unchanging message, an irreducible doctrinal core of "mere Christianity" held in common by all Christians at all times, he began to despair at the diversity of interpretations and proposals. His doubts about both his methods and his message continued to grow.
In 1994,at the age of 38, he faced a crisis of faith and a seemingly insurmountable dilemma: (1) continue practicing and promoting a version of Christianity that he had deepening reservations about, or (2) leave Christian ministry, and perhaps the Christian path, altogether. A process of wrestling and rethinking led to an alternative between hypocrisy and apostasy: learn to be a Christian in a new way. In the mouth of one of his fictional characters, McLaren summarizes his discovery:
What a relief to have a third alternative — to read the Bible as a premodern text, emerging from a people who believed that truth is best embodied in story and art and human flesh, rather than abstraction or outline or moralism. ... According to the Bible, humans shall not live by systems and abstractions and principles alone, but also by stories and poetry and proverbs of mystery.
McLaren's A New Kind of Christian, the first installment of his theological trilogy, was published in 2001. It is written in a narrative format as a philosophical dialogue between two fictional characters: Dan, a frustrated evangelical pastor, and Neo, a pastor-turned-high school teacher, who serves as McLaren's prototype for this new kind of Christian. The sequel, The Story We Find Ourselves In, was released in 2003, and another volume is forth-coming (at the time of this writing). A New Kind of Christian proved both popular and controversial. At the crux of his proposal is a call for us to break free from the bondage of modern categories. As an "emergent post-modernist," he advocates dialogue over debate, community over individualism, experience over proof. McLaren argues that evangelicals tend to think that the gospel is about how individual souls get into heaven when they die; emergent postmoderns point instead to Jesus' message about the kingdom of God, which concerns the here-and-now, not just heaven; community, not just individuality; all of creation, not just the individual soul.
Through McLaren's struggle over his dissatisfaction with the old kind of Christianity came four seminal ideas about the gospel across time and cultures that led him to believe that "our message (like our methods) must change from time to time and place to place in order to remain truly the gospel of Jesus and the gospel about Jesus."(1) The gospel is story. We need to be "depropositionalized" and realize that the gospel is narrative and story, not propositions, mechanisms, abstractions, or universal concepts. (2) The gospel is many-versioned, many-faceted, many-layered, and Christcentered. The story of the gospel lies embedded beneath multiple stories, versions, facets, and layers — all of which center not in a theory about Christ or an idea of Christ, but in Christ himself. (3) The gospel is cumulative. It did not arrive in a vacuum. It includes and continues the Jewish prequel, as well as the continued acts of Jesus by the Spirit throughout history. Jesus continues to work, the story continues to unfold, and the unchanging story continues to change and grow richer and deeper. (4) The gospel is performative and catalytic. The gospel is not just told, heard, and affirmed; it performs, catalyzes, and saves. The gospel, empowered by God's Spirit, brings about transformation among the community of faith in order that God's will might be done on earth, inaugurating the kingdom of God.
Knowing the gospel means knowing the times. We live in a postmodern era — but what does that mean? McLaren distinguishes and defines three forms of postmodernist: (1) absurd postmodernism — which denies truth, reality, and morality — is virtually nonexistent and is used by modernists to scare people; (2) adolescent postmodernism — associated with relativist pluralism, consumerism, alienated European intellectuals, and political correct-ness — is dying; and (3) emerging postmodernism — the approach advocated by McLaren — is an attempt to move beyond both the reductionistic rationalism of modernism and the relativist pluralism of adolescent postmodernism. It is not fully definable, and may still be decades away from mature definition. McLaren argues that the people of faith will not only be instrumental in defining the term, but in shaping the era. This postmodern transition will likely be a 75-year or 100-year process.
McLaren certainly doesn't claim to have all the answers for how best to define, or how best to live, in this transitional age. He has emerged, however, as an influential voice among younger evangelicals.
The Professor: Grenz
Stanley Grenz has been at the forefront of scholarly work from a post-conservative perspective. His theoretical commitments and theological methodology are dealt with in some detail in the pages that follow, so I will provide here a broad overview by focusing on his Revisioning Evangelical Theology (1983), an early programmatic work on evangelical method. Nearly a decade later he collaborated with John Franke to produce Beyond Foundationalism, a full-scale work on theological method in the post-modern context that seeks to flesh out what was sketched and suggested in Revisioning. His recent appraisal of evangelicalism, Renewing the Center, is summarized in some detail in chapter 2 of our book.
Grenz's proposal involves revisioning evangelical identity and spirituality, and revisioning the task of and sources for theology, biblical authority, theology's integrative motif, and the church. He argues that our transitional age, with the death of modernism and the advent of postmodernity, "demands nothing less than a rebirth of theological reflection among evangelicals. ..." In Grenz's view, "to be 'evangelical' means to participate in a community characterized by a shared narrative concerning a personal encounter with God told in terms of shared theological categories derived from the Bible" (chapter 1). This means that evangelicals have now shifted from a creed-based to a spirituality-based identity. Spiritually rooted theology is the essence and ethos of the evangelical movement (chapter 2). What is the foundation for this new theological vision? Traditional evangelical theologians have seen propositional revelation as foundational material for the theological enterprise. But Grenz rejects this as the product of an outdated modernist mindset that ignores the social nature of theological discourse. Building upon but going beyond Lindbeck, Grenz argues that "theology systematizes, explores and orders the community symbols and concepts into a unified whole — that is, into a systematic conceptual framework." In other words, theology is the intellectual reflection on faith we share as the believing community in a particular context (chapter 3). Whereas traditional evangelicals tend to see Scripture as the only source of theology, Grenz argues that we must also draw upon the theological heritage of the church and the thought-forms and issues of our historical-cultural context (chapter 4). All evangelicals acknowledge the authority of the Bible, but they differ on why it is authoritative. Traditional evangelicals have stressed the divine to the neglect of the human side of the Bible, and Grenz argues that therefore the Spirit-Scripture link must be revisioned. The Bible is the product of and the vehicle for the working of the Holy Spirit. In other words, its authority lies not in the text itself, but rather in the Spirit speaking through the Scriptures (chapter 5). Grenz next turns to the issue of theology's integrative motif. The kingdom of God is an appropriate but insufficient candidate, for the content of the kingdom is left undefined. Its proper content, Grenz argues, is the community of God. With a view toward the already and not yet, the kingdom of God and the community of God function together as the proper integrating concept for theology (chapter 6). Finally, since the church is the proper con-text for theology, Grenz applies his conclusions on theological methodology to the doctrine of the church. He advocates an eschatological-process model of ecclesiology: the church is the eschatological community of love constituted by its destiny as the company of the kingdom that reflects its King.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Reclaming the Center"
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Copyright © 2004 Millard J. Erickson, Paul Kjoss Helseth, and Justin Taylor.
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Table of Contents
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS,
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS,
PART 1: INTRODUCTION,
1 AN INTRODUCTION TO POSTCONSERVATIVE EVANGELICALISM AND THE REST OF THIS BOOK Justin Taylor,
2 DOMESTICATING THE GOSPEL: A REVIEW OF GRENZ'SRENEWING THE CENTER D. A. Carson,
PART 2: TRUTH, FOUNDATIONALISM, AND LANGUAGE,
3 TRUTH DEFINED AND DEFENDED Douglas Groothuis,
4 THE PREMATURE REPORT OF FOUNDATIONALISM'S DEMISE J . P. Moreland and Garrett DeWeese,
5 LANGUAGE, THEOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE, AND THE POSTMODERN PARADIGM R. Scott Smith,
PART 3: THEOLOGICAL METHOD,
6 IS THEOLOGICAL TRUTH FUNCTIONAL OR PROPOSITIONAL ?POSTCONSERVATISM'S USE OF LANGUAGE GAMES AND SPEECH-ACT THEORY A. B. Caneday,
7 POSTCONSERVATISM, BIBLICAL AUTHORITY, AND RECENT PROPOSALS FOR RE-DOING EVANGELICAL THEOLOGY: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS Stephen J. Wellum,
8 POSTCONSERVATISM: A THIRD WORLD PERSPECTIVE Kwabena Donkor,
PART 4: EVANGELICAL HISTORIOGRAPHY,
9 ARE POSTCONSERVATIVE EVANGELICALS FUNDAMENTALISTS? POSTCONSERVATIVE EVANGELICALISM, OLD PRINCETON, AND THE RISE OF NEO-FUNDAMENTALISM Paul Kjoss Helseth,
10 PIETISM AND THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN EVANGELICALISM William G. Travis,
11 DEFINING EVANGELICALISM Chad Owen Brand,
PART 5: POST-POSTMODERNISM,
12 A REQUIEM FOR POSTMODERNISM — WHITHER NOW? James Parker III,
13 ON FLYING IN THEOLOGICAL FOG Millard J. Erickson,
What People are Saying About This
"When evangelicals confuse an improper passion for novelty with a proper pursuit of academic and pastoral relevance, the results can be distressing. I cannot express how grateful I am for the well-formed wisdom with which this book points to the abiding and decisive relevance for future route-finding of the old theological paths."—J. I. Packer, Late Board of Governors’ Professor of Theology, Regent College
"For those evangelicals who-like myself-are increasingly troubled by extravagant claims made by various evangelical scholars about the nature of the 'postmodern' challenge, as well as by earnest calls to develop new epistemological and theological perspectives in response to this challenge, the writers of these essays shed much light. This book is must-reading for everyone who wants to promote a clear-thinking evangelicalism for our contemporary context."—Richard J. Mouw, President, Professor of Christian Philosophy, Fuller Theological Seminary
"Here is a collection of intelligent, provocative, gutsy essays that dare to fly into the eye of the scholarly storm over evangelical identity. Though different perspectives are present even here, the underlying thesis is clear and worth heeding: the eager, and sometimes uncritical, embrace of postmodernist paradigms may be as premature as it has proven to be unproductive for the well-being of the evangelical church. One of the most important books of the new century!"—Timothy George, Distinguished Professor of Divinity, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University
"Provocative, timely, and controversial!"—Donald G. Bloesch, Professor of Theology Emeritus, Dubuque Theological Seminary
"Compromise and confusion stand at the center of evangelicalism's theological crisis, and a clear-headed and convictional analysis of the problem has been desperately needed. Thankfully, Reclaiming the Center has arrived just in time. . . . My fervent hope is that it will open evangelical eyes, humble evangelical hearts, and awaken this generation to the peril of accommodationism."—R. Albert Mohler Jr., President, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
"The authors of this well-designed volume provide a bold and well-argued response to what is sometimes called 'postconservative evangelicalism.' This important conversation regarding the essence, center, and boundaries of evangelicalism is here explored, interpreted, and assessed from a well-informed theological, philosophical, and historical perspective. . . . I heartily commend this volume and trust it will find a large readership."—David S. Dockery, President and Distinguished Professor of Theology, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary; President, International Alliance for Christian Education