Four Lanes on the Emerging Church Highway

Contemporary church life is beset by calls for change and transformation. But the variety is enormous and can be confusing. So-called “emerging churches” represent one such trend. Below some helpful distinctions by from Mark Driscoll (“Navigating the Emerging Church,” Christian Research Journal 31.4 [2008]: 12-21), himself part of that movement.

Emerging Evangelicals, represented by pastors and authors such Chris Seay, Dan Kimball, Rick McKinley, John Burke, and Donald Miller: “are interested in updating worship styles, preaching styles, and church leadership structures so as to be relevant to postmodern-minded people. They do not place as much emphasis as do other ‘lanes’ on actively engaging in their local culture and loving and serving people as the church. They are divided over such things as the role of women in ministry, the proper mode of baptism, and charismatic gifts. . . . The common critique of Emerging Evangelicals is that they are doing little more than cool church for hip young Christians.”

House Church Evangelicals, represented by house church leaders such as Neil Cole and Shane Claiborne among others, “are dissatisfied with current forms of church (e.g., traditional, seeker-sensitive, purpose-driven, contemporary). They bolster criticism of traditional church by noting that America is becoming less Christian, and Christians are not living lives that are markedly different from non-Christians, thereby proving that current forms church forms have failed to create life transformation. . . . The common critique of House Church Evangelicals is that they are collecting disgruntled Christians who are overreacting to the megachurch trend and advocating a house church trend that works well in some cultures but has not proven effective in Western nations.”

Emerging Reformers, see themselves as linked to the traditions established by traditional teachers such as Augustine, Calvin, the Puritans, Jonathan Edwards and Charles Spurgeon, contemporary theologians such as James Packer and John Stott. They look to contemporaries such as John Piper, David Carson and Tim Keller. Driscoll locates himself in this “lane.” The common critique of this lane “is that they are merely repackaging tired Reformed fundamentalism, . . . that they are outdated in their understanding of gender roles, too narrow in their theological convictions, and do not fir into the category of the emerging church at all.”

Emergent Liberals, represented by such as Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt and “most visibly” by Brian McClaren and Rob Bell, “range form the theological fringe of orthodoxy to heresy that crosses the line by critiquing key evangelical doctrines, such as the Bible as authoritative divine revelation, God as Trinity, the sinfulness of human nature, the deity of Jesus Christ, Jesus’ death in our place to pay the penalty for our sins on the cross, the exclusivity of Jesus for salvation the sinfulness of homosexuality and other sex outside of heterosexual marriage, and the conscious, eternal torments of hell. . . The common critique of Emergent Liberals is that they are recycling the liberal doctrinal debates of a previous generation and are not seeing significant conversion growth, but rather merely gathering disgruntled Christians and people intrigued by false doctrine.”

Driscoll then goes on at length to describe the Emergent Liberals through their most prominent leaders Brian McLaren and Rob Bell. Driscoll concludes this discussion as follows: “It seems inevitable, though I am no prophet, that the Emergent Liberal lane of the emerging church will continue to drift away from a discussion about how to contextualize timeless Christian truth in timely cultural ways to an interfaith dialogue with less and less distinction between the religions of the world and the deity of Christ.”