Emerging Church: Learning From Gibbs and Bolger 2
***“Standing up for truth… has no appeal to emerging church leaders” (Gibbs-Bolger, p. 124).
Dan Kimball objects to the stereotyping of emerging churches and who can blame him? Effort to understand before critiquing is common courtesy; it is an act of doing unto others as we would have done to ourselves. In particular Kimball counters charges of emerging church doctrinal latitudinarianism: “All the emerging churches I know believe in the inspiration of the Bible, the Trinity, the atonement, the bodily resurrection, and salvation in Jesus alone.” The above quote from Gibbs and Bolger, while not justifying some of the more rash generalizations that one encounters, does help explain why concerns are being raised.
Scott McKnight says that Gibbs-Bolger “show that the center of the movement is about ecclesiology not epistemology.” It may be true that Gibbs-Bolger’s impressive marshalling of primary source material shows this and, more importantly, it may actually be true. But Gibbs-Bolger also tell us that the movement was shaped “at a time when there was growing ferment that not only the methods but also the message needed to change.” Then Todd Hunter is quoted thus, “We got the gospel wrong” (p. 49). Not epistemological? Pages 69 and following argue for epistemologically significant narrative approaches to scripture texts and single out foundationalism for special critique. Even in the introduction, an emerging church leader impatient with the generational focus of some church growth leaders is quoted thus, “I couldn’t really figure out why people were obsessing about a subgroup when an enormous epistemological shift was occurring.”
To my ears at least, Kimball and McKnight strike a very different notes than much that I am reading in Gibbs-Bolger.
Dan Kimball objects to the stereotyping of emerging churches and who can blame him? Effort to understand before critiquing is common courtesy; it is an act of doing unto others as we would have done to ourselves. In particular Kimball counters charges of emerging church doctrinal latitudinarianism: “All the emerging churches I know believe in the inspiration of the Bible, the Trinity, the atonement, the bodily resurrection, and salvation in Jesus alone.” The above quote from Gibbs and Bolger, while not justifying some of the more rash generalizations that one encounters, does help explain why concerns are being raised.
Scott McKnight says that Gibbs-Bolger “show that the center of the movement is about ecclesiology not epistemology.” It may be true that Gibbs-Bolger’s impressive marshalling of primary source material shows this and, more importantly, it may actually be true. But Gibbs-Bolger also tell us that the movement was shaped “at a time when there was growing ferment that not only the methods but also the message needed to change.” Then Todd Hunter is quoted thus, “We got the gospel wrong” (p. 49). Not epistemological? Pages 69 and following argue for epistemologically significant narrative approaches to scripture texts and single out foundationalism for special critique. Even in the introduction, an emerging church leader impatient with the generational focus of some church growth leaders is quoted thus, “I couldn’t really figure out why people were obsessing about a subgroup when an enormous epistemological shift was occurring.”
To my ears at least, Kimball and McKnight strike a very different notes than much that I am reading in Gibbs-Bolger.
posted by Mark DeVine at 5:47 PM
3 Comments:
Fair enough, though I'm not so sure the word "epistemological" is quite the point. How are the things you mention about "knowing" or "establishing as knowledge"?
Seems to me you are staring mostly in the face of the theological edges of the emerging movement.
However, there is an undoubted (pun) epistemic edge to some of the thinking, though clearly not all. (Witness Dan Kimball.)
It may well be that such matters are on the margins. Partly that is what I am trying to learn.
The quote from the intro may be a case of the emerging leader's elastic or just erroneous use of the word "epistemological."
The narrative section I refer to suggests profound epistemological consequences because it effects what might and what supposedly ought to be learned say, from the Gospel narratives. In addition, what some are supposedly learning through narrative approaches seems to require imposing alien intentions upon the gospel writers, e.g., that they set Jesus up as a model for an evangelistic approach.
But Kimball speaks very differently indeed.
While I might agree that the emerging movement (which I qualify as the umbrella under which Emergent lives) is more about an ecclessiological turn than epistemological I think that Emergent seems more concerned about epistemological issues. There seems to be a very direct and overt assault on foundationalism from the emergent crowd which seems difficult to say has purely ecclessiological underpinnings.
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