The Virtue of Unoriginality
By Mark Galli, Christianity Today, April 1, 2002

[What is the "emergent church"? It was in doing some research on that question that I came across this article. Of particular importance is the assertion the author makes that real lasting change comes not so much from wrestling with culture, modern or postmodern, but wrestling with Scripture. For the complete article, click on the link above. Sola Scriptura, ~ The Billy Goat ~]

"A new reformation—at least an attempt at one—is brewing. "Doesn't the religious community see that the world is changing?" plead the new reformers. They say the culture is being transfigured by postmodernism. They say the church is stuck in the modern era. They conclude that the church must become postmodern or die...

"Doesn't the religious community. … have anything fresh and incisive to say? Isn't it even asking any new questions? Has it nothing to offer other than the stock formulas that it has been offering? Is there not a Saint Francis or Søren Kierkegaard or C. S. Lewis in the house with some fresh ideas and energy?"

McLaren's plea is typical of postmodern reformers. Indeed, their passion is admirable, and their cultural analysis is keen. But I fear they would merely slap a coat of paint on a sagging building whose foundation needs attention. They would do well to take lessons from the very people they say they admire.

C. S. Lewis, for example, was uninterested in "saying something fresh." His prologue to The Problem of Pain is typical: "I have believed myself re-stating ancient and orthodox doctrines. If any parts of the book are 'original,' in the sense of being novel or unorthodox, they are against my will and as a result of my ignorance."...

...Kierkegaard's scathing critique of his church culture was based not on his take on how "the world was changing" (though as a leading philosopher of his day, he would very well have known how it was changing). Instead, he looked backward. He weighed the church's shortcomings against what he called "original Christianity." In a very typical passage, he asked, "How many are able to say they are truly Christians in the New Testament sense, or that their lives are even close to resembling those of the first disciples?"...

Francis lived in an era of profound church corruption—popes and bishops waging war in the name of Jesus, accruing wealth and political power, winking at dalliances with mistresses and prostitutes. But Francis spent little time wrestling with these "data." Instead he grappled with the teachings of Jesus—especially his injunctions about poverty (what Francis called "apostolic poverty"). He so patterned his life on Jesus' teachings that many refer to him as "the second Christ."

In fact, nearly every agent of church renewal began by comparing the church or himself not with intellectual and cultural trends but with the faith of the ages, particularly with biblical teaching...

Postmodern reformers have many wise things to say, but I fear they will never be able to produce a "new kind of Christian." The bulk of A New Kind of Christian wrestles with culture and church, and implies that by such analysis, a new kind of Christian will begin to emerge. But there is no deep engagement with Scripture in the book. Scripture is only referenced, and often as a proof text for a larger cultural argument (at least it feels like this to me)."