**Revisiting** Generation Gaps and the Moral Imperative of Totalitarian Niceness

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 25Jan09

The following list describes the desired traits that non-Christian young people desire to see in Christians, particularly among their elders as compiled by the authors of “unChristian: What A New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity....And Why It Matters.” When I presented quotes from this book on my blog last year, I suggested that we as believers should extend the same considerations to those who follow patriarchy as well as to young unbelievers. I would like to use this list (from pp 194-5 of the book) as a point of departure for relating to young adults in general. Those interviewed suggested that these considerations would improve their receptivity to the Gospel message from Christians, both young and old.

1. Listen to me.
2. Don't label me.
3. Don't be so smart.
4. Put yourself in my place.
5. Be genuine.
6. Be my friend with no other motives.

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Emergent Conversations

When Francis Beckwith and Greg Koukl sat down to write “Relativism: Feet Planted Firmly in Mid-Air,” I don’t think they were thinking about talking to Christians about Christian doctrine. Sadly, I find that their strategies recommended in their book more useful to me when conversing with the Emergents than I do when conversing with Athiests and New Age Pagans. It’s really quite sad.

On pages 145 and 146 of their book, they offer this strategy, one I have used when discussing the Emergent Church with it’s advocates:

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Emergent Thoughts

Here’s a quote for you to consider. I read it and thought it sounded a great deal like another odd quote from Brian McLaren. At first glance, to me it sounds like some kind of Emergent Church challenge that says we really don’t know enough about what God’s Word says to make any kind of definitive statement about what it tells us, save that we should be universalists. The problem with our Christianity is the traditional and orthodox interpretations of the Word of God, and Christianity have become old and antiquated because it is just culturally irrelevant.

Mystery Quote:

The Bible itself and its various interpretations which have become a part of traditional theology form the biggest obstacle to the study and understanding of life beyond death by the average man… The other scriptural idea blocking our pursuit of this path is the belief that the so-called New Testament theology of resurrection and future judgment invalidate anything research may claim to discover. It is possible that the opposite is true; that is, that the results of careful investigation may force a rewriting of some of our theology.

Well, anyone want to guess where this quote came from? Think about it for a few minutes and keep reading. I'll tell you soon.

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Defining Theistic Existentialism: PART II (The Consequences for Emergents and Patriocentrists)

I’ve made reference to this passage from Sire’s book in a previous post because I think that it captures something very important and is almost a litmus test of how postmodern the emergent church really is and how postmodern and self-oriented the patriocentric belief system proves to be. Individuals in both groups become intensely personally offended if not threatened when their ideas and beliefs are criticized. I have not found this to be true of most modernists. It is not a personal offense to them if you reject their truth. They may call you a bigot or a fool, but it’s been my experience that your rejection of their ideas does not really become a personal thing for them. They don’t find their personal integrity to be at risk if someone rejects their beliefs. Such is not true with patriocentrists or emergents, because it is my impression that most of those in each group perceive a challenge as quite personal.

I advance this thesis: That when a Christian’s beliefs are not truly rooted and grounded in the Word of God and when their beliefs are not resting in faith in God’s integrity and truth, defending faith becomes a personal matter. I believe that when beliefs are built on shifting sands of man’s ideas apart from God, only drawing some elements from the Word of God, challenging those beliefs that are believed as a matter of personal preference only apart from some external evidence, postmodernists perceive criticism and challenge as a deeply personal offense.  The postmodernist perceives rejection of their beliefs that are validated only by their preference as tantamount to saying "You're stupid for believing such a thing."  The more personal the nature of the idea (such as sexuality), the more personal and offensive is the challenge, something perceived as a denial of that individual's personhood.  This is certainly not the only cause for FEELING threatened or personally rejected when beliefs are challenged, but for some fringe groups within in patriarchy and the emergent churc, I believe this postmodern response is the primary motivator of their aggression.

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Defining Theistic Existentialism: PART I (The "Cure" for the Emergents and Patriocentrists)

Traditional, secular existentialism arose to solve the inevitable problems of nihilism as an adequately workable philosophical view of the world which arose to solve the problems of naturalism, all philosophies which seek to solve the problems of mankind without having to rely upon God and the Blood of Jesus to do so. As Blaise Pascal once wrote, every man has a God-shaped void within him that only God can fill, and when it goes unfilled, man experiences not only guilt but a sense of this “loss of transcendence.”

As a consequence, any philosophical viewpoint that does not acknowledge God, sin and the forgiveness of sins will inevitably result in unanswered questions. If these views could be represented as a set of mathematical equations, there is always an error, and there are some elements of the equation that can never be solved. Existentialism developed as a means of solving the equation for nihilism, but in the working out of existentialism’s equation, it still produces errors. It may be able to solve for “X,” but in the summation, you may find that in solving for “X,” the philosophy opens up into a new inability to solve for “Q” and “P.”

It ends up "solving" theological and philosophical problems by scapegoating and demonizing the alternatives, merely shifting focus away from the dilemmas themselves.  This is just a form of avoidance of the mysteries and those aspects of belief that we cannot prove objectively.  In effect, it doesn't "sovle" problems of belief by offering logical views towards a solution but rather avoids them by creating a different set of problems as a distraction.  People often criticize patriarchy for this, creating a crisis and false dilemmas by scapegoating something, then marketing a ready made set of ideas and practices to solve the drastic problem.  In reality, they just create different problems.  At least in terms of pragmatic considerations, followers of emergent theology are generally much kinder and more pleasant to one another and to others than are the patriarchalists.  Yet both are man's attempt to use man's influence and means to overcome the problem of the loss of transcendence -- the idea that mankind is okay with God and the universe.

Theistic existentialism did not develop from the same roots as secular existentialism, though they make similar errors. The Christian version of existentialism works back to Kierkegaard who was trying to solve some of the problems of the dead orthodoxy of Danish Lutheranism (according to Sire) and “holes” in Immanuel Kant’s ideas. Each man answered the dilemma of his day. Kierkegaard’s philosophy separated the realms of faith and reason, making them separate matters. In the wake of anti-intellectualism in Evangelical Christianity around the turn of the 20^th century and the morality focus of the social gospel, Kierkegaard’s ideas found a new usefulness. Simply reduced, theistic existentialism is more concerned with human nature and man’s relationship to God and the world as opposed to the nature of God as the focus. It is man-centered, not God-centered.

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The Theistic Existentialism of the Emergents and the Patriocentrists: Revisitng Worldview as One Recovers from Cultic Christianity

Before moving on to new territory, I want to finish up some loose ends related to both patriocentricity and the emergent church. Both groups share a foundational problem from my perspective, one that also sometimes challenges my own life by virtue (?virtue?) of coming of age in what was quickly becoming a post-Christian culture. That problem is “Theistic Existentialism” by virtue of the fact that their religions see man as central to life rather than seeing God as central to life. It is a subtle distinction but an important and an original one, dating back to “You shall be like God.”

These matters discuss issues related to “WORLDVIEW,” and I am almost reluctant to use that term anymore. I’ve talked with several mothers over the past few years who feel that the term has been used to barrage and berate them within the patriarchy movement and within patriocentricity. One mom told me that she said she hates the term now and cringes when she hears it. This “hijacking” of so many other terms like this, terms that have been turned into though-stopping clichés or buzz terms that shut down critical thinking through the cultic technique of loading the language. Terms like worldview have become cult programming for some, much like seeing the Queen of Hearts or like hearing one’s full name spoken in a particular way in the two film versions of the “Manchurian Candidate." The stimulus (the word “worldview”) becomes associated with punishment, an expected response or shame induction for many people who have escaped and renounced patriocentricity. (And note that the term “patriocentricity” came about to differentiate it from the legitimate term “patriarchy” and all that it represents.)

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Notes from a Chat Between Andrew Sandlin and John Frame Discussing the Emergent Church

I found this in my Inbox this morning with 

"Cindy, note" as the subject line.

It went online on Andrew Sandlin's blog on February 8th , 2009.

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What Would Spurgeon Have to Say About the Emergent Church?

Note the written quote as cited in the video in the previous post.

(Emphasis mine)

From “The Soul Winner”
by Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Pages 239 -240:

“To Sunday School Teachers and Other Soul-Winners”

Sermon #1137, October 19, 1873
Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

“Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one converts him,
let him know, that he which converts the sinner from the error of his way
shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.”
James 5:19, 20.

There are some Truths of God which must be believed—they are essential to salvation—and if
not heartily accepted the soul will be ruined. This man had professed orthodoxy, but he turned aside from the Truth on an essential point.

Now, in those days the saints did not say, as the sham saints do now, “We must be largely charitable and leave this Brother to his own opinion. He sees the Truth of God from a different standpoint and has a rather different way of putting it—but his opinions are as good as our own—and we must not say that he is in error.” That is at present the fashionable way of trifling with Divine Truth and making things pleasant all round. Thus the Gospel is debased and another gospel propagated.

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More From Greg Koukl: Putting Your Knowledge Into Action

From Stand To Reason's
"Solid Ground" Newsletter Jul/Aug 07

Truth is a Strange Sort of Fiction Part V:
Christianity and Postmoderism: The Emerging Church

by Greg Koukl

• To be good ambassadors for Christ we must have a working knowledge of two things: the dangerous philosophies of men Paul warned of (Colossians 2:8) and the life-giving truth of Christ that is their antidote. This will help us recognize the dangers new cultural ideas present and keep the church true to the message of the Gospel even when employing new methods.
• Use the four watershed issues: the truth/knowledge equation, the authority of the Bible, the work of the Cross, and the Great Commission to understand where any movement within Christianity stands.
• Remember that Christians have an important ally in this war of ideas: reality. Human beings must live in the world God created.
• To reach our postmodern culture keep in mind the tactical question: “Why do we all feel guilty?” The answer to guilt is not denial, the answer is forgiveness. This is where Jesus comes in.

In the previous post, I mentioned how Eastern religions and how many within the emergent church essentially seek to rid themselves of the inconvenience of discernment though eliminating the veracity of reality. Make everything true and morally neutral, and your problems melt away. But why does morality present problems? Because we are all guilty of doing wrong, we all feel guilt, the dilemma of mankind. We feel guilty because we are guilty of imperfection. God is God and we are not. The sense, our sense, of this loss of transcendence haunts us all.

So how to get around this problem?

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Redefining the Constants

Years ago, I watched an episode of Star Trek Next Generation that featured the character named “Q.” This character was an all powerful being from a “continuum” of beings like him, yet they lacked omniscience, not understanding what it was like to see through the eyes of other beings, subject to their limitations. One particular Q who was named “Q” gets punished by his brethren, and he loses his god-like, special status. He chooses to live out his now moral life as a human, and he settles in with those on his favorite starship. Much of the story line involves his discovery of the limitations of his new, human form. And in keeping with standard sit-com rules, the writers restore his powers by the end of ths show, all the wiser for the experience.

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More Resources on the Emergent Church

Nicene Creed in Cyrillic

Bill Honsberger from “Nietzsche, the Death of God, and the Emerging Church Movement” (audio):

So while hiding behind the skirts of the creeds, Tony Jones is famous for saying, “Well, I believe in the Nicene Creed and you can’t say that I don’t.”

Well, we don’t know what that means, do we? I mean, if I don’t know what the Bible said 2000 years ago, then why would I know what the creeds meant 1700 years ago or 1600 years ago, or any other creed? How could I know? It’s all interpretation.

So while hiding behind the skirts of the creeds, they’ve attacked the Trinity, hell, Biblical inerrancy concerning homosexuality, substitutional atonement, inerrancy concerning the nature and person of God, etc...

We need to understand how corrosive this stuff is...It is corrosive to everything it touches and it is corrosive to the Christian Church.

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Greg Koukl on the Emergent Church

CLICK TO ENLARGE GRAPHIC from Stand to Reason
From Stand To Reason's
"Solid Ground" Newsletter (text and graphic)

Truth is a Strange Sort of Fiction Part V: Christianity and Postmoderism: The Emerging Church by Greg Koukl

Emerging Christians, then, are reacting to a church establishment that deeply offends them. They have been embarrassed by what appears to them to be systemic hypocrisy. They are unsettled by what they take to be indifference toward the poor, a fear of (and therefore hostility towards) diversity, and a dogmatism borne of religious conceit....

The driving force for many emerging Christians, therefore, is not orthodoxy, but orthopraxy; not right thinking, but right living – a practical “love lived out” way of life...

My own concerns are theological and philosophical, not cultural. My uneasiness with the movement is not with the emerging church in general, but with a subgroup on the vanguard that I fear is being seduced by a postmodern culture God intended them to transform, not be transformed by. This subgroup goes by the name “Emergent,” a proper noun identifying those following the lead of the Emergent Village...

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The Postmodern Decay of Language: Why People Talk More and Say Less

"Paul Preaching In Athens" by Raphael

In response to several inquiries, I posted some information postmodernism which has opened up into more questions people have asked me about exactly how language has degraded within our culture. Now, more than ever, a growing number of people speak and use eloquent-sounding language, but their messages demonstrate a gross lack of content. Cults and spiritually abusive groups capitalize upon this process. One astute reader asked me how it is that more and more speakers and ministers can offer content-free speeches and sermons but how few people can recognize that their messages actually lack content. People “sound good,” offering “feel good” rhetoric, but they essentially say nothing and are rewarded for it. This reader asked me about possible sources of information to help them understand more about exactly how communicators manipulate language in order to say nothing.

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Problems with Viewing History and Truth through a Postmodern Lens

A week ago, I watched video of President Obama’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery where he paid his respects at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I recalled my own visit there, my first one, in 1987. I wept uncontrollably as I stood there for the changing of the guard, imagining and empathizing with all the mothers, wives, daughters and sisters that had stood and would ever come to stand where I was standing then. “But for grace, there go I,” always floods through my mind as I ponder those who suffer.

And on Monday of last week, I recalled my childhood tradition of watching the Martin Luther King, Jr. speeches on Channel 17 in Philadelphia every year. I would ponder why God put me in the family that He did in the day and time that He did, as I surely differ little from all of those who have seen greater tragedies and had fewer comforts. When history presents itself to me and gets my attention, it becomes a deeply personal experience. I see myself as some character in most every narrative I read, because “but for grace,” I might have been them. I have something to learn from those people, particularly those who have lived through something that I find to be very different from my own experience.

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Geniuses Are Leading Our World Astray..... "I have a strong sense that the Son of God weeps at the loss and misplacement of such genius."

Ravi Zacharias - Postmodernism Philosophy

The original post featured embedded video clips that are now no longer available to post here on this website.   They can be viewed directly at You Tube, courtesy of the Henry Center.  Click on the links below.  All but the final video can be viewed via a single playlist at the Henry Center Channel on YouTube by following this LINK.

Ravi Zacharias: An Evangelical Understanding of Postmodernism 

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5

Q and A following the lecture  (An Evangelical Understanding of Postmodernism)

• Part I
• Part II

Post Lecture Interview

• Part I
• Part II
• Part III

What Are the Effects of Postmodernism and Modernism?

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Evaluating Deconstructionism Using Responsible Hermeneutics

Five years ago on this very date, I sat with a now deceased laptop computer in the University of Texas Library, writing an essay. I'd been asked to present how thought reform played into the Vision Forum mindset from the vantage of one who attended a Presbyterian church with the followers of Doug Phillips and, on rare occasion, with Phillips himself.

I believe that I watch the world from an interesting and unique vantage. Though I was born in the first year of Generation X, I don’t bear all of the same qualities as most Xers. Perhaps because my parents missed the hippie mentality by what probably amounts to a few months and owing to slower life in a rural community, both my parents and I think much differently than our peers of the same age. I identify more strongly with Baby Boomers born later in that generation, as though there is a bridge period between Boomers and Gen X that theorists never define or capture. My most comfortable niche places me in an category with those born roughly somewhere between the early fifties and mid-sixties. I tend to march in tune to that drum rather than the drum of my same-aged peers. Though I am Christian first, I think like and communicate best with a modernist and tend to relate to others like a postmodernist living in a postmodern world.

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