Deep Church: Reflection #1 - Emergents Like to Protest

Today I started a series on my blog looking at Jim Belcher's new book Deep Church which offers a third way down the divide of the emerging and traditional church debates. Sorry I haven't posted here in a while, but I thought this might be relevant to our conversations.

Are those in the emergent church simply true Protestants, protesting against failures in the church and seeking to rebuild and reboot the traditional church?

That is the first question that Jim Belcher looks at in his efforts to define the emerging church. Belcher tries to nail down some specific areas of protest that have defined the emerging church movement. Many of the emerging churches critics have focused on protests and changes related to epistemology (the study of how we know truth) and hermeneutics (the theory of how we interpret scripture). But Belcher gives 7 areas he finds consistent voices of protest within emergent circles.Here are the protests he identifies with a very brief and limited clarifying comment below each.

1) Captivity to Enlightenment Rationalism

This boils down to a belief that the church has been imprisoned by rationalist philosophies that essential removes revelation from the way we know truth. This has found itself rooted in how we try to defend the church, defend scripture, and explain our faith.

2) A narrow view of salvation

Essentially emergents believe that the church has focused too much on justification and not enough on sanctification. There has been an over emphasis on becoming a Christian and not enough on living like a Christian.

3) Belief before belonging

This is a criticism of a traditional practice requiring people to have right doctrine before they are accepted into the body of the church. Doctrine is the gatekeeper for community.

4) Uncontextualized Worship

Worship has been too far removed from the culture of the people who are worshiping and instead it is preserving a culture of a different day and age that is increasingly irrelevant. This is a critique of using worship music, prayers, and liturgy that was all birthed from a one time relevant cultural place, but that time has long since passed.

5) Ineffective Preaching

The pastor as the fount of all knowledge has reduced spiritual formation to head knowledge and has removed people from lending their voice and their experience to the proclamation of scripture

6) Weak ecclesiology

Ecclesiology is the study of how church is structured and how church functions. Traditional church top down structures and unadapting methodology has effected its missional effectiveness.

7) Tribalism

The traditional church has has shied away from its responsibility to go out and to engage the world and to truly bring the Gospel to the world. This engagement with culture has resulted in the church being known more for what it is against that what it is for. We have lost the ability to be countercultural and to create better culture.

So this is where our conversation will begin with Deep Church. Are these fair assessments of the Emerging Church? Are these fair critiques of the Traditional Church? Does any of them resonate with your own protesters heart?