NeoZine

By Dennis McCallum

Now, I was not happy to see that McLaren is on the cover of Bruxy’s book because the emergent movement is headed directly away from biblical orthodoxy. I should make clear that I know most of these leaders personally (not McLaren), have attended their conferences, visited their churches, had lengthy arguments with them in public debate, blogs, email, and by phone.

McLaren is at this print doubting the reality of hell, saying universalism is okay for Christians, denying the need for penal substitution at the cross and suggesting that would be child abuse, declaring all language to be indefinite and incapable of transmitting objective truth, and all “truth” to be discursive (which undermines the usefulness of Scripture, and flies in the face of what Jesus and Paul taught). So, I believe McLaren is a bad player, and I’m not surprised to see the top evangelical thinkers here and abroad finally critiquing his stuff.

One of their own, Mark Driscoll, has broken with them over their increasingly extreme theology. He was one of the original leaders of the movement gathered by Leadership Network. He participated in their leadership councils for a decade and knows exactly what they think. He mentions the following serious problems in his critique:

1. Scripture. This includes the divine inspiration, perfection, and authority of Scripture.
2. Jesus Christ. This includes his deity and sovereignty over human history as Lord.
3. Gender. This includes whether or not people are created with inherent gender differences, whether or not those gender roles have any implications for the governments of home and church, and whether or not homosexual practice is sinful. This also includes whether or not it is appropriate to use gender specific names for God, such as Father, like Jesus did.
4. Sin. The primary issue here is whether or not human beings are conceived as sinners or are essentially morally neutral and are internally corrupted solely by external forces.
5. Salvation. The issue is whether Jesus Christ is necessary for salvation and whether or not salvation exists for people in other religions who do not worship Jesus Christ.
6. The Cross. The issue here is the doctrine of penal substitution and whether or not Jesus died in our place for our sins or if He went to the cross solely as an example for us to follow when we suffer.
7. Hell. The issue is whether or not anyone will experience conscious eternal torment, or if unbelievers will simply cease to exist (annihilationism) or eventually be saved and taken to heaven (universalism).
8. Authority. This issue is perhaps the most difficult of all. Much of this conversation is happening online with blogs and chat rooms. However, as the conversation becomes a conflict, the inherent flaw of postmodernism is becoming a practical obstacle to unity because there is no source of authority to determine what constitutes orthodox or heretical doctrine.

With the authority of Scripture open for debate and even long-established Church councils open for discussion (e.g. the Council of Carthage that denounced Pelagius as a heretic for denying human sinfulness), the conversation continues while the original purpose of getting on mission may be overlooked
because there is little agreement on the message or the mission of the Church.

I think there is a range of views represented within the group calling themselves emergent. You can see this range if you read the book, “Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches” (Zondervan) which ranges from Driscoll at the conservative end to Paggit and Ward at the liberal end. In between, you see Kimball and Burke, who are not that bad, whereas Paggit sounds like a non-believer. Driscoll’s views are no more liberal (probably more conservative) than ours. McLaren is at the liberal end of this continuum, in my opinion.

Keith mentioned their problems with evangelism, which are acute. Even one of their own leaders, McKnight, acknowledged that he sees a huge problem here — and it’s not just because they are ineffective at reaching non-Christian postmoderns (which would be a major problem, considering that their literature implies that they are the ones who know how this should be done) but that they are increasingly unwilling to witness at all! This is because they don’t want to be arrogant in asserting that Christians are right and everyone else is wrong. So you just witness with your life, not your words. McLaren is in the vanguard of this view as you can see in his treatment of other religions in “A Generous Orthodoxy.” I can only say, my Bible does not take the same view of other religions that McLaren does. Rather than respecting them and learning from them, refusing to view what we teach as superior, Paul says the gods people worship are in fact demons (see 1Cor. 10). Both New and Old Testaments agree on this.

Why Navpress would have no problem with McLaren, or Zondervan, or Baker, is a baffling question. The only answer I can imagine is 1. they have no idea what he teaches, or (more likely) 2. Dollars and cents mean more than being faithful to God’s word.

I think Bruxy Cavey should consider removing his endorsement in a new edition of his book. McLaren’s Secret Message was a more innocuous book. Also read his more inflamatory stuff like Generous Orthodoxy, and some of the careful and fair critiques by many of the leading thinkers in the Christian world today, such as D. A. Carsen, Millard Eriksen (editor of RECLAIMING THE CENTER:
CONFRONTING EVANGELICAL ACCOMMODATION IN POSTMODERN TIMES, which includes a dozen of our best theologians writing essays about why they are so worried about the movement), and many others. Groothius’ book, Truth Decay is good.

Amazingly, it has taken over ten years for the evangelical church to realize what we are dealing with in the emergent movement, and they are still partially asleep on this. But I do believe that finally we will see in the next few years the believing church mobilize against the extreme liberal wing of this movement.

by Andy Doman

At the Xenos Summer Institute in 2005, Bruxy Cavey gave two break-out session teachings. I attended his teachings and was extremely impressed with his insight, and Jesus-centered teachings. The description he gave of The Meeting House seemed impressive. He called it “a church for people who aren’t into church.” I made it a point to check out Cavey’s church, The Meeting House, never being as excited to see a new church before.

I noticed a favorite indie pop group of mine, The Pipettes, were touring on this side of the Atlantic for the first time. The tour was extremely limited and the only city in the area they were playing was Toronto. Michael Toth suggested going to Toronto to see the concert. I agreed, and also suggested we attend a meeting at The Meeting House the following day. I recruited Craig Smith for the trip, selling him on the experience of going to The Meeting House, also keeping in mind that traveling expenses would decrease. Although he had little exposure to The Pipettes, he was in a privileged position as a holder of a high-demand sold out ticket. Many people approached us asking for tickets as we waited outside to get in. So, Michael Toth, Craig Smith, and I were set to go on a spiritual journey to Toronto.

I contacted The Meeting House through their website prior to our arrival and asked which meeting I should attend. The pastor of the Downtown Toronto location, Paul Morris, suggested the 10am meeting, which was held in a large movie theater.

Morris also invited us to eat lunch with him after the meeting. We entered the extremely large downtown movie theater with stadium-style seating that was like Cinemark® on steroids. The movie theater had snack bars that served beer in addition to Pizza Hut®, Taco Bell®, and Burger King®, which were opening as we were leaving. We parked in a parking garage and received a parking coin we would later get validated to park for free.

The meeting began with a 5-piece band playing Contemporary Christian Music including a drummer, bassist, guitarist, and two singers. It was unusual because although every person in the room was standing, very few were singing or moving. The crowd was simply staring at the band, making me wonder what the purpose of standing was.

After the music and a prayer by the guitarist, a series of video clips about sex were shown and parts of the songs “Let’s Get It On” by Marvin Gaye and “Let’s Talk about Sex” by Salt-N-Pepa were played. Some of the video clips played were quite funny, especially the “Use Condoms” video, which can be found on YouTube. The pastor of the Downtown Toronto site, Paul Morris, gave a short introduction and the teaching began with a video of Bruxy Cavey introducing the guest speaker for the week, Eric Sandras. Sandras holds a PhD in Human Sexuality and is a pastor in California. Cavey gives the teaching at one site in suburban Oakville and the video of his teaching is shown at the other sites. The video was not quite as impersonal as I imagined it would be, probably because the movie screen was so large that it felt as if the teacher were near. It was impossible to ask questions to the speaker, however, because he was not present. The teaching was a sound, biblical presentation of sex. There was also a question and answer period in which people asked about homosexuality and other controversial issues.

Prior to our arrival we arranged to have lunch with Paul and some of his friends. We ate lunch at a downtown restaurant and had constant discussion about various topics such as serving the poor, the inner city, American politics, methods of Xenos and the Meeting House, the situation in Toronto, and various other topics. The people were a blast to talk with and we all had a great time.

Overall, The Meeting House seems like a place that is on a good track. The people we talked to seemed capable and willing to minister. The main teaching by Eric Sandras seemed to lack a discernable gospel message, however, which made me wonder if the main theater meetings are geared toward members and people that are already Christians. They have high transfer growth, and the teaching seemed to speak to those people, but they do have “Purge Sundays,” which are a mini-series of teachings that project a solid Christian life and encourage people who do not wish to participate to leave. This is one of the ways The Meeting House combats superficial Christianity. The teachings seem to be soundly Biblical and according to Morris, Xenos in Columbus and The Meeting House exchange ideas and talk often.

I am not sure how much I like the teachings on video at all of the sites. It seems take the opportunity away for others to teach. They can spread to different areas of Greater Toronto faster, however, because of the lack of need for teachers and have more convenient locations. Home churches at The Meeting House are a place to discuss the teaching from the main Sunday meeting. I did not visit one of these meetings, so I am not sure if a person who did not attend the main meeting would feel alienated or how dependent the home churches are on Cavey’s main teachings. I know one thing for sure, though. The Meeting House is like Xenos in the sense that they hold conservative theology presented with liberal, nontraditional means like no other church I have seen.