Machen and the Emergents: Nothing New Under the Sun

I'm reading Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck's critique of postmodern, faddish Christianity lite, Why We're Not Emergent (by Two Guys Who Should Be). It is devastating in that DeYoung and Kluck quote extensively from Emergent authors themselves (Brian McLaren, Doug Pagitt, Tony Jones, et al.), bringing to light all the questionable elements of their arguments. In its primordial state, the Emergent movement (or "conversation" as its proponents like to call it) and its leaders could have been excused for their theological sloppiness. But as the movement has continued to, well, emerge, such sloppiness is beginning to be codified into carefully crafted and intentionally provocative theological revisionism which is quickly making the emergent church the new home of Protestant liberalism in the wake of the continued decline of the mainline church.

DeYoung and Kluck, while sometimes straining to defend some of Reformed evangelicalism's more unattractive baggage, do an excellent job of pointing out that most of the evangelical "boogeymen" against which the Emergents are rebelling are, in fact, straw men. From my own perspective, I see McLaren, Pagitt, Jones, and company being all too eager to buy into media and cultural stereotypes of evangelicals; shadow boxing against enemies that largely do not exist or were long ago taken out of the way. It is not surprising that much of their rhetoric is nothing more than a repackaging of the old arguments of Harry Emerson Fosdick and Walter Rauschenbusch. Indeed, the analysis and critique of Protestant liberalism at the turn of the twentieth century by J. Gresham Machen in his classic work, Christianity and Liberalism, is easily transferrable to the Emergent movement of today. Michael Wittmer at Koinonia summarizes Machen's analysis of the major beliefs of liberalism and sees a parallel with the present-day Emergent movement (HT to the Anglican Curmudgeon).

1. Living like Jesus is more important than believing in him. Machen wrote that the liberals in his day insisted that “Christianity is a life, not a doctrine,” and that conservatives should focus on “the weightier matters of the law” (Christian ethics) rather than use the “trifling matters” of doctrine to divide the church.

Machen responded that doctrines such as Christ’s “vicarious atonement for sin” are not “trifling” and that Christ is not merely “an example for faith” but is “primarily the object of faith.” He explained: “The religion of Paul did not consist in having faith in God like the faith which Jesus had in God; it consisted rather in having faith in Jesus. …The plain fact is that imitation of Jesus, important though it was for Paul, was swallowed up by something far more important still. Not the example of Jesus, but the redeeming work of Jesus, was the primary thing for Paul.”

2. People are basically good and free from original sin. Machen observed that the defining belief of modernity was its “supreme confidence in human goodness.” He wrote that “according to modern liberalism, there is really no such thing as sin. At the very root of the modern liberal movement is the loss of the consciousness of sin.” This absence of sin led Machen to wryly observe that the liberal church “is busily engaged in an absolutely impossible task—she is busily engaged in calling the righteous to repentance.” Machen countered that the gospel must begin with sin, for “Without the consciousness of sin, the whole gospel will seem to be an idle tale.”

3. Penal substitution is unnecessary because a loving God would forgive without demanding a sacrifice. Machen wrote that “Modern liberal teachers…speak with horror of the doctrine of an ‘alienated’ or an ‘angry’ God,” for this implies that God is “waiting coldly until a price be paid before He grants salvation.” Liberals deny that “one person” may “suffer for the sins of another,” and “persist in speaking of the sacrifice of Christ as though it were a sacrifice made by some other than God.” They insist that a loving God would forgive without penalty.

4. Christians and non-Christians may unite around their common journey with God. Machen agreed that “The Christian man can accept all that the modern liberal means by the brotherhood of man. But the Christian knows also of a relationship far more intimate than that general relationship of man to man, and it is for this more intimate relationship that he reserves the term ‘brother.’ The true brotherhood, according to Christian teaching, is the brotherhood of the redeemed.”

5. Salvation includes many who do not believe in Jesus. Machen said that liberals in his day wanted “a salvation which will save all men everywhere, whether they have heard of Jesus or not, and whatever may be the type of life to which they have been reared.” He replied that such openness would remove the offense of the gospel and change its historic meaning. He wrote: “What struck the early observers of Christianity most forcibly was not merely that salvation was offered by means of the Christian gospel, but that all other means were resolutely rejected. The early Christian missionaries demanded an absolutely exclusive devotion to Christ. …Salvation, in other words, was not merely through Christ, but it was only through Christ.”

6. This life matters at the exclusion of the afterlife. Machen said that liberals in his day believed that concern for the next life is “a form of selfishness.” Consequently, “the liberal preacher has very little to say about the other world. This world is really the centre of all his thoughts; religion itself, and even God, are made merely a means for the betterment of conditions upon this earth.”

Machen agreed that our Christian faith must change the way we live here and now, but he insisted that “there can be no applied Christianity unless there be ‘a Christianity to apply.’ That is where the Christian man differs from the modern liberal. The liberal believes that applied Christianity is all there is of Christianity, Christianity being merely a way of life; the Christian man believes that applied Christianity is the result of an initial act of God.”

Since these beliefs are widely held or at least tolerated by the leaders of Emergent Village (I document this in Don’t Stop Believing), I suspect that Machen would conclude that their “third way” sounds too much like the old way to be a genuinely new way. If we want authentic triangulation, it seems that we must emphasize the best of both worlds: social ethics like the liberals and the specific, historic doctrines of the faith with the conservatives. In Don’t Stop Believing, I show how this genuine third way makes sense of the contested issues of our day and strengthens the church for its mission in the world.

"Is there a thing of which it is said, 'See, this is new'? It has been already in the ages before us" (Ecclesiastes 1:10).