I frequently read and hear people connected with Emergent (a sub-segment of the emerging church) protest the characterization that they are a community of political leftists. I have seen McLaren, Samson, and others chalk this up to people who simply aren't willing to embrace their new broader way forward and can see things only through the old lens of traditional left and right politics.
Today I came across this YouTube clip (HT: Neil Craigan). It is Brian McLaren speaking at a news conference called "Religious Progressives Left Behind." Please don't read past that too quickly, and let me spell that out for you: p-r-o-g-r-e-s-s-i-v-e-s. And surely you did not miss the "double entendre" with the word "l-e-f-t."
In the clip below McLaren says:
"But I am an example of a growing shift from the monopoly of the Religious Right on a conservative ethos and in fact I think I’m an example that that monologue and domination by the Religious Right is becoming a fact of history rather than contemporary news. There’s a broader conversation even among Evangelicals and this new conversation can’t be fit into the old cold war categories of Right versus Left, Republican versus Democrat, liberal versus conservative."
Please get this. McLaren says he is part of a "…new conversation [that] can't be fit into the old cold war categories of Right versus Left, Republican versus Democrat, liberal versus conservative" at a news conference supporting Religious Progressives Left Behind! McLaren also characterizes conservatives and others who may disagree with progressive solutions to problems as only being concerned about a narrow range of issues because they do not subscribe to his progressive agenda.
They say a picture says a thousand words. When you look at this clip of McLaren speaking at the conference, notice the distinguished gentlemen to the right of the screen. That is Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches. I realize some of you from evangelical denominations may not fully know who the NCC is. It is a coalition of the traditional mainline denominations that have been the most polarizing left-wing institution of mainline Christendom over the past forty years. It has supported communist candidates at home and backed communist regimes abroad. It championed the rise of Bobby Mugabe to power in Zimbabwe. It has rabidly and unflinchingly supported unrestricted abortion in any term for any reason, including partial-birth abortion. The organization is so far left that Bill Clinton felt it necessary to keep his distance as most mainstream Democrats tend to do. The NCC is the most rivaled and despised religious organization among mainline conservatives and a symbolic icon of all that the mainline left must preserve.
So here is McLaren at a conference about "Religious Progressives Left Behind" with the leader of the organization that is the iconic symbol of religious left-wing politics telling us that he represents a "broadening" discussion that is neither "liberal or conservative." Give me a break!
McLaren is a political progressive/lefty. Most of the high-profile folks associated with Emergent give evidence to me of being progressives/lefties. (Again, I distinguish Emergent from the broader conversation called emerging church.) I wish they would either own this reality and stop all the coy misdirection about their politics or drop the overt advocacy of leftist political solutions to problems and focus on generating a conversation. I will know we have a truly emerging leader when they give a press conference, and neither Jim Edgar nor Jim Dobson is thrilled to be standing behind him or her.
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