Kruse Kronicle

A Southern Baptist Leader on Emergent

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by

mwkruse
in

Scot McKnight had a link to an article by Ed Stetzer called FIRST-PERSON: Understanding the emerging church. He gives his view of three branches of the Emergent Conversation. It is a great article if you want insight into Emergent from the conservative Baptist lens.

As a side note, this article prompted something in me. Talking about "Relevants" he writes:

Ironically, while some may consider them liberal, they are often deeply committed to biblical preaching, male pastoral leadership and other values common in conservative evangelical churches.

When I read statements like this, I just about bounce off the ceiling. It is about the same as reading "…committed to biblical preaching, WHITE pastoral leadership…" I am sure some people react similarly to me about some of my positions. Owning my sense of outrage while responding in love is probably one of the biggest issues I struggle with.

Comments

16 responses to “A Southern Baptist Leader on Emergent”

  1. Brian Wallace Avatar
    Brian Wallace

    I personally started bouncing off the ceiling when Marcus Borg, George Lindbeck, and Karl Barth were listed in the same category. Good grief, I think Lindbeck and Barth would be quite annoyed to find themselves listed with Borg

    Reply
  2. Rodger Sellers Avatar
    Rodger Sellers

    Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Reading things like “complimentarian view of gender” I usually want to go ahead and call the chauvinist pig a pig! But what actually bothered me most was the line “Much of SBC life is absent from the emerging church conversation. Let’s jump in…” Man, I hate to be the one to voice it in print, but the LAST thing I’m really interested in is some of the narrow-minded thinking coming from some of the SBC. I’ve read Mohler, et. al. Kind of hard to have a “conversation” with folks you don’t trust, no? Afraid my response is, “no thanks.” *Sigh* Hard to admit it, but have to face the “limits” on my own willingness to converse with some. RPS

    Reply
  3. Michael Kruse Avatar
    Michael Kruse

    You caught that too?
    (BTW, were Marcus and Locutus related? *grin* Surely there most be some good seminary jokes about Borg.)

    Reply
  4. Michael Kruse Avatar
    Michael Kruse

    I hear you, Rodger. There is a temptation in me to really take on this kind of stuff but I think that usually does two things. 1. It distracts me and takes energy away from other more meaningful things, and 2. I think it just fuels the determination of those I am opposing, “hardening their hearts” as it were.
    “Truthing in Love.” Argh! What is the quote? “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting. It has been tried and found difficult.”

    Reply
  5. will spotts Avatar
    will spotts

    I think it’s a Chesterton quote, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting, it has been found difficult and left untried.”
    “Owning my sense of outrage while responding in love is probably one of the biggest issues I struggle with.” It’s a struggle of mine also. Though I manage to provoke that same reaction in others often enough.
    The trust issue is also a huge one. One tends to hear differently things that come from sources one trusts — and to make far more excuses for their “departures from grace”. (It kind of reminds me of Ronald Reagan’s obsession with linking the “Siberian seven” to US / Soviet relations. In that case it worked out, but using that as a litmus test for trust always struck me as odd.)

    Reply
  6. Michael Kruse Avatar
    Michael Kruse

    “I think it’s a Chesterton quote, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting, it has been found difficult and left untried.” ”
    Thats it! Thanks Will. How could the big G. K.
    There is a big part of me that wants to see people that “push my buttons” get their due. Okay, I will talk with the “scumbag” but I can’t wait for God to nail them. In that sense, I fear I am like Jonah or the prodigal son’s brother. Jonah resists preaching the Assyrians because they might actually repent and be redeemed. And doggonit, if that it isn’t exactly what happens. The prodigal son returns and pays no price for being restored (grace)and the older son is outraged.
    I like these stories a lot better when they are abstract characters rather than when they are describing me.

    Reply
  7. will spotts Avatar
    will spotts

    “I like these stories a lot better when they are abstract characters rather than when they are describing me.”
    Too true — I think most of us feel that way.

    Reply
  8. Wolf N. Paul Avatar
    Wolf N. Paul

    I realize that this will press quite a few buttons, but don’t you have to ignore quite a bit of Scripture to equate gender and race the way you do when you write, “… male pastoral leadership … is about the same as reading … WHITE pastoral leadership…” ???
    Isn’t there a difference of KIND rather than DEGREE between a complementarian view of Scripture and a racist one?
    Isn’t it true that it requires a lot less twisting of Scripture to retain the traditional complementarian position attested to by almost two millenia of church history and theology than to hold to a racist view which developed during the last three centuries as a justification for the evils of colonianism?
    Do you not therefore, even if you disagree with them, owe complementarians a degree of charity and tolerance which is not owed to racists?

    Reply
  9. Wolf N. Paul Avatar
    Wolf N. Paul

    One more thought:
    Having just gone and read the article by Ed Stetzer it strikes me that Michael Kruse’s effective equation of complementarianism and racism is not very different from Stetzer’s listing Borg, Lindbeck and Barth in the same category of mainstream “revisionists”.
    As I wrote in my previous comment, it is a failure to distinguish differences in kind from differences of degree.

    Reply
  10. Michael Kruse Avatar
    Michael Kruse

    Hi Wolf. Thanks for dropping by. Frist,
    “Do you not therefore, even if you disagree with them, owe complementarians a degree of charity…”
    Yes. But I doesn’t mean I have to like it. *grin*
    Seriously though, I don’t agree that we are dealing with difference of kind. The Jewish men of Pauls era prayed a prayer that included a statement of thanksgiving that they had not been created a gentile, slave or a woman. Paul writes in one of his earliest letters:
    “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal 3:28)
    I know many that many want to argue this was confined to baptism, making all these folks members of the church. The problem is that all of these people could be part of the Jewish faith but only as second class participants. Paul clearly has something more radical in mind when he writes this.
    You wrote,
    “Isn’t it true that it requires a lot less twisting of Scripture to retain the traditional complementarian position attested to by almost two millenia of church history and theology than to hold to a racist view which developed during the last three centuries as a justification for the evils of colonianism?”
    Several things here. First, I suspect what we are aiming at here is a “plain” reading of scripture as opposed to “twisting” it. Oh that it were so easy. (Let us also keep in mind that we are talking of the best reading of the best Greek manuscripts not English translations.) For instance, in first 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, many manuscripts are written as though this was a quote. Paul is clearly responding to letters that have been written to him. It would be just like I quoted your above paragraph and I am now responding to it in this a paragraph. If true, note how 33b-36 would read:
    ” ‘As in all the congregations of the saints, 34 women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. 35 If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.’”
    “36 Did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only people it has reached?”
    In other words, Paul was castigating them? It is unclear. This passage also floats around to other locations (and even into the margins as I recall) in some manuscripts. What we do know is that in the same book Paul gives instructions for how women are to speak prophecy during the service, clearly indicating that Paul did not take this literally.
    Another, big passage is 1 Timothy 2. Look at verses 8-15.
    1 Tim 2:8-15
    “8 I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing.
    9 I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, 10 but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.
    11 A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 15 But women will be saved through childbearing-if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.”
    In Verse 8, who wants people to do the following behaviors? In verse 12, who does not permit? God? Scripture? No Paul. Should we be barring women from church who wear nice clothes and braided hair? Why make these culturally specific and not what follows? You can make some cases in many different directions but my point is that a “plain” reading just isn’t that simple.
    Also, Paul writes about “authority” in many places and uses the same Greek to describe it else where. If we are going to use the plain reading in Greek here we are going to have a problem. The word translated authority is “authenteo” and it is the only place it used in the NT. We have to look elsewhere for meaning and scholarship shows it was used in Paul’s day in relation to practices within the gnostic cults. What kind of teaching and authority is Paul talking about here?
    I firmly agree with your obeservation that we must take seriously the witness of the church over the centuries. Still, the church did hold to a earth centered universe for 1500 years and was wrong.
    The reality is that those who hold to the exclusion of women from leadership in Protestant circles are not holding to 1900 years of chruch teaching. Sometime in February I expect to do a lengthy series of posts on the issue of women and one of the more interesting issues is how the church has seen women over the centuries. Up until the last century women were repeatedly described as intellectual and moral inferiors! The hierarchical complementarian view you are describing is a 20th Century invention. If we are to be honest to church tradition than we need to be preaching that women are intellectual and moral midgets not worthy of leadership in the church.
    I do not believe that most hierarchical complementarians believe this about women. Instead I suspect that there is deep concern that scripture is under assualt and if they cede this issue they cede the “inerrant” authority of scripture. (Also, what will it mean for hot button issues like homosexuality for instance.) They begin with the suspicion that non-hierarchical complementarians (as I would describe myself) have started with an agenda and then “twisted” scripture to fit it. My concern is similar. I worry that hierarchical complementarians are twisting scripture to preserve practices that were clouded by a centuries old prejudice in the name of keeping the authority of scirpture and thus actually undermining it (same as insisting on an earth centered universe.
    The emotional impact on me has two levels for me. First, the male only thing undercuts the witness of the gospel. Second, I know of too many women who are put through endless suffering about call and service in life because of this. That is what most pushes my buttons.
    This is probably waaaay more than you wanted. I would like to invite you to check back probably about mid-February when I expect to do a whole series on this issue.
    Peace!

    Reply
  11. Stephanie Avatar
    Stephanie

    I think I would like to add that in emerging churches – if they are truly emergent and biblical in nature – there should be room for both sides of this discussion, without castigation of either viewpoint or viewpoint holder. If we believe that ALL Scripture is God-breathed and useful for correction, instruction, etc, then we must take the words of Paul, in 1 Timothy, 1 Cor., et al, as useful for our continuing discussion of what the Church should look like in order to fulfill God’s Will. That may or may not mean we have to reexamine our culturally defined and much debated roles for men and women. The Bible must be the final Word on all dissension, and it is important even when our buttons feel pushed to step back and treat ALL our fellow believers with love and respect – to make that agape commitment to them as God’s children!

    Reply
  12. Michael Kruse Avatar
    Michael Kruse

    Like I said, earlier, “Truthing in Love.” To me, part of truthing is being honest about what “pushes my buttons” while continuing in relationship and dialog.

    Reply
  13. Steph Avatar
    Steph

    I agree with that – remember, though, others, even those you don’t agree with, have the same right to tell their truths and their beliefs. The real challenge is to line up yours, mine, and ours with Scripture and learn to live together with the result, doncha think?

    Reply
  14. Michael Kruse Avatar
    Michael Kruse

    Actually, I would say we are to become one in Christ by the Holy Spirit as we intepret and live out Scripture.
    I wrote “…while continuing in relationship and dialog.”
    You wrote “remember, though, others, even those you don’t agree with, have the same right to tell their truths and their beliefs.”
    I am a confused. I think I just said what you reminded me not to forget. (Of course, I did just go out to fill up Melissa’s car and got in my car to drive to the Qucik-Trip. So frequent reminders of what I am doing aren’t all bad.)
    Having passionate convictions about an issue does not preclude civil discussion and that is what I am advocating. I am not going to deny my strong convictions and I am committed to civil dialog. That is the best I know how to say it.

    Reply
  15. Steph Avatar
    Steph

    Hey Mike, it would probably be helpful if you would remind ME to fill up with gas just any time you see me 😉 I am notoriously bad about forgetting this.
    My point above wasn’t to call you on the carpet but just to leave room for the idea that your interpretation of Scripture on this matter could be wrong and it could be right; Jerry Falwell’s could be wrong or right; mine could be wrong or right. Only God is infinitely and immutably correct on these and many other things. I love the discourse and debate about them but I too struggle with being loving as well as holding very firmly to what God wills. We are just agreeing really!

    Reply
  16. Michael Kruse Avatar
    Michael Kruse

    I thought we were agreeing.
    The conversation on this thread has inspired me to put together a post on biblical intepretation and its use as “the rule of faith.” Maybe next week.
    Thanks for the exchange Steph (and others)!

    Reply

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