Generalities Drive Me Mad – Jason Carlson’s diatribe against the Emergent Church

“Men are more apt to be mistaken in their generalizations than in their particular observations.”  So said Niccolo Machiavelli and after reading an article by Jason Carlson on the emergent  church, I have to say that Machiavelli is still ’spot on.’  A friend recommended an article to me that appeared near a blurb about Carlson’s DVD by the name of My Journey In and Out of the Emerging Church.  The promotion for the DVD went on to call the emergent church “a new dangerous movement” that is “sweeping though the Christian church in America and around the world.” It went on to say that

“Jason will explain what he learned, witnessed and experienced during his time in the Emerging church. Are you currently active in church ministry? Are you a believer concerned about the future of the church? Do you have a son or daughter attending one of the strange new churches? If so you must view this timely and biblically based session on the Emergent church.”

Sounds like something dangerous is brewing, doesn’t it? I mean, I don’t want my daughter attending a ’strange’ new church.   So I decided to try and find something written by him online to see what was so dangerous about this movement.  It didn’t take me long to locate his article of almost the same name My Journey Into and Out of the Emeging(sic) Church.

Carlson begins the article friendly enough.  After all, he came from the movement, maintains friendships within the movement, and they can all agree to disagree.  He calls himself a ”friendly critic of Emergent.”  I have to tell you though, the reasons that he cites for withdrawing from the movement had me feeling anything but friendly.

In fact, his reasons made me a bit angry.  I was angry because he was maligning the emergent conversation by making sweeping generalities that are blatantly false.  Can you find some adherents within the emergent church for which some of these would accurately reflect their viewpoints or actions? Probably.  Largely however, Carlson has misstated the emergent church’s theology and motive.

I attended a conference this last weekend that included a good number of women who are in leadership within the emerging church and none of what Mr. Carlson stated in his article fit the paradigms that these women were operating under.  Mr. Carlson argued from his experience.  Let me argue from mine.

For instance, he states that “lack of a proper appreciation for biblical authority over and against personal experience or revelation.”  This is not true.  What the women that I gathered with this last weekend do have is a proper appreciation for my having the freedom to choose to believe differently.  This allows for real fellowship among believers because we are not getting caught up in doctrinal differences.  With non-believers, it allows the non-believer the grace to be able to have an open and honest discussion without fear of being beaten over the head with the Bible.

He also said the emergent church openly questions “the relevance of key historical biblical doctrines such as the Trinity.”  Having spent the last weekend with this fabulous group of (horrors!) emerging women leaders, none of the ladies whom I had come in contact with were questioning any such thing.  It wasn’t an issue for them.   What they did allow for, however, was the fact that we would grapple with these issues for all time until Christ returns because we cannot truly comprehend them.  We have enough from the Word to understand that they are true but that we cannot understand ‘how’ they are true.

Jason Carlson said the emergents have “an unbridled cynicism towards conservative evangelicalism and fundamentalism.”  If it is true, could it be because of warrant-less attacks such as this?  However, again, the tone of this last weekend was not one of cynicism but of “how can we work together with the traditional church to build the kingdom.”

He states that there is “little or no talk of evangelism or saving lost souls” among them.  The ladies that I spent time with last weekend saw social action as an opportunity to earn the right to tell others of Christ.  It was the action that led to the question, “Why do you do this?” and gave them the opportunity to share about a relationship with Christ.

And the final  point that I will spend time on, that the emergents believe in “a salvation by osmosis mentality, where if you hangout with us long enough you’re in.”  Again, not true!  A recognition that there is a great number of people who now need to belong to a community before they will believe the truth that they see being lived out in the lives of those around them is quite a different thing than believing that if you hang out enough with us you are in.

I could take any of the points that Mr. Carlson raises in his article and do the very same with them – disagree!  I have no problem doing so because he paints the emerging church with such a wide brush and in such harsh tones that it is not hard to see where his error occurs.  He isn’t arguing from Scriptural grounds.  He is lumping anything that does not fit his tightly held worldview into the label of ‘emergent.’  That can not be done accurately.  Mr. Carlson might want to follow Machiavelli’s advice and stick to particulars instead of sweeping with such broad strokes.