A Brief History of the Emergent Church (Part 4)

Continued from Monday

The first emergent church died out in the Sinai desert after 40 years on a journey never getting anywhere with a 40 year "conversation" full of questions and devoid of answers. The subsequent generation did a post mortem on post modern and decided that doing what God says could be a good idea after all. As the new generation crossed the Jordan into the land of milk and honey the rotting carcass of postmodern thought lay in the Sinai desert. The emergent movement was down but not out and by the time of the Messiah's arrival there was a "new kind of emergent" waiting to reveal himself.

When Jesus Christ arrived on the scene the tyranny of the Roman empire was well and truly entrenched. Post modern thought had seemingly died out in the Sinai. Israel had abandoned the idea of God being conformed to man's ideas. But a Roman governor by the name of Pontius Pilate was only too willing to embrace the theological suicide of post modern thinking.

As the climax of redemptive history drew near Pilate would utter words that would ultimately become a core doctrine of the doctrineless emergent movement in the 21st century. Pontius Pilate presided over the criminal proceedings as the spotless and perfect Lamb of God awaited His sentence. The Roman Governor was oblivious to the sovereign ordained plan that was transpiring before his eyes. Pilate gazed on the God-man Jesus Christ and asked the question "what is truth?". Pilate never realised that the Truth was standing directly in front of him. Jesus Christ Who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life was marching to Calvary to endure far more than a Roman army could inflict on Him - God's just and Holy wrath.

So here we are in the 21st century. Beards have given way to soul patches, sandals have given way to Birkinstocks, and colliseums have given way to coffee. But beneath this nothing much has changed. As the Brian McLarens and Rob Bells of this world clutch in the dark as they search for "truth", Scripture stands before them plainly stating the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

So what is the point of this satire? It is here to serve as a reminder that the "new truths" being served up by the post modern gurus are nothing more than old lies. As Spurgeon once said:

"We ought not, as men in Christ Jesus, to be carried away by a childish love of novelty, for we worship a God who is ever the same, and of whose years there is no end. In some matters "the old is better." There are certain things which are already so truly new, that to change them for anything else would be to lose old gold for new dross. The old, old gospel is the newest thing in the world; in its very essence it is for ever good news. In the things of God the old is ever new, and if any man brings forward that which seems to be new doctrine and new truth, it is soon perceived that the new dogma is only worn-out heresy dexterously repaired, and the discovery in theology is the digging up of a carcass of error which had better have been left to rot in oblivion. In the great matter of truth and godliness, we may safely say, "There is nothing new under the sun."

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