Review: Why We're Not Emergent

reviewer: Marcus Deel                                                                                                                             Vol. XXI, No. 8, October 2008

Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck. Why We're Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be. Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2008. 256 pp.

Kevin DeYoung, the senior pastor at University Reformed Church in East Lansing, Michigan, and Ted Kluck, a sports journalist, team up in Why We're Not Emergent to critique the burgeoning emergent movement. With an irenic spirit, the two serve as helpful guides navigating the reader through the often amorphous emergent landscape. The work succeeds in three areas. First, the authors give credit to the members and leaders of the movement where credit is due: "In short, we affirm a number of the emergent diagnoses" (p. 23). Second, De Young and Kluck offer a fair and accurate definition of the emergent church movement (a task that anyone who is familiar with the movement knows is easier said than done). Third, consistent with the book's stated purpose rather than dwelling on the positives of the movement the writers engage in a penetrating critique of various flaws of the emergent movement. For these reasons, Why We Are Not Emergent accomplishes its purpose of offering a valuable introduction and insightful critique of this disturbing new trend.

As this work evidences, DeYoung and Kluck have sifted through an enormous amount of literature in producing Why We Are Not Emergent. They draw from sources such as Brian McClaren, Doug Pagitt, David Tomlinson, and Rob Bell. Analyzing these authors' published writings, DeYoung highlights three common themes/problems present in the emergent movement. First, the emergent movement "undermines the knowability of God" (p. 35). In a later chapter, DeYoung cites Rob Bell speaking on his understanding of Scripture: "We want to embrace mystery, rather than conquer it" (p. 70). In short, experience trumps propositional truth claims about God. The emergent movement posits a false dichotomy between having a personal relationship with God and knowing facts about him. Attempting to bring focus back to a vibrant, relational Christianity, the emergent movement downplays the factual information about God. Of course in order to diminish factual information about God, the emergent movement must redefine Scripture. For the emergent movement, the Bible is no longer an infallible, inerrant guide to knowing truth, but rather a portal through which the reader enters in order to experience a heightened state of spirituality. If this understanding of Scripture sounds very Barthian, it does because it is. "Tomlinson explicitly relies on Barth" (p. 79).

McClaren also chides the evangelical church's infatuation with doctrine as a product of the Enlightenment. DeYoung notes McClaren's misrepresentation of church history by documenting various examples of doctrinally rich teachings and sermons throughout the entire history of the church. He also samples a few statements from the New Testament that clearly demonstrate the importance of doctrinal formulations (p. 74). DeYoung and Kluck's interaction with the emergent movement on the issue of God's knowability shows how deeply authors like McClaren have drunk from the postmodernist well.

The second flaw in the emergent movement is "a confusion of categories. Emerging leaders equate uncertainty with humility" (39). De Young uses homosexuality as a test case. During this discussion, he cites a disconcerting word from Brian McClaren: "I hesitate answering the 'homosexual question' ... because I am a pastor, and pastors have learned from Jesus that there is more to answering a question than being right or even honest..." (p. 44). Mark Driscoll, one of the emerging leaders who have distanced themselves from such troubling trends, is wise to note that the emergent movement is largely liberalism recast.

The third broad theme of the emergent movement that DeYoung notes is that emergent leaders "establish doubt as the essence of faith" (p. 49). Kluck observes this trend particularly among college students. "People who think more theologically seem to college students to be narrow-minded or judgmental" (p. 99). Similarly, DeYoung notices this trend in a rising leader. in the emergent movement, Peter Rollins. Rollins' book, How (Not) to Speak of God, includes ideas such as "an emerging discourse acknowledges that speaking of God is never speaking of God but only ever speaking about our understanding of God' (italics original) (p. 123). If Tomlinson is a child of Barth, then surely Rollins is an offspring of Paul Tillich.

The majority of the book fleshes out the specifics of these themes. For example, Kluck pens the final chapter to explain why he does not want a cool pastor. The pastor as a fellow journeyer just as lost as the next person is a necessary consequence of demeaning dogmatic truth and equating doubt with true spirituality. The authors also cover the trend of emergent sermons being more about dialogue and exploration than about truth and including statements like "do this and live."

Why We Are Not Emergent serves laypersons and pastors alike who desire to become acquainted with the emergent movement. DeYoung and Kluck's distilling of various emergent writings makes this work a valuable overview of the emergent movement, while their devastating critique of the movement serves to guard the church from its pernicious influence. Although there is a great stir of excitement about the emergent movement, especially among the younger generation, the preacher of Ecclesiastes reminds us, "there is nothing new under the sun."

"The biggest irony about the emergent church may be just this: For all their chastisement of all things modem, they are in most ways thoroughly modem. Many of the leading books display a familiar combination of social gospel liberalism, a neoorthodox view of Scripture, and a post-Enlightenment disdain for hell, the wrath of God, propositional revelation, propitiation, and anything more than a vague moralistic, warmhearted, adoctrinal Christianity" (p. 160).

If history proves correct, the emergent fad will disappear in the same manner that mainline denominations are deteriorating. A faithful response to the emergent movement is to be aware of its trends and teachings in order to prevent empty philosophies from taking many captive. One best recognizes a crooked line by placing a straight line next to it. Let us be experts in the tried and true straight line of Scripture rather than being experts in yet another manifestation of false teaching. Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck serve the church admirably by writing this book that allows Christians to be aware of the emergent movement without devoting an inordinate amount of time to mastering what is nothing more than a recasting of liberalism.

[Marcus Deel, Pastoral Assistant, Jefferson Park Baptist Church, Charlottesville, Virginia.]