LTRP Note: On October 15th, the Christian Post posted an article titled “Pastor Offers a Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional,” which featureS an evangelical pastor, Jim Belcher, who proposeS a “third way” other than emerging and what he calls “traditional” Christianity. You may read that article by clicking here. The following commentary by M. B. Tucker is putting to question the assumptions and hopes of Belcher and the Christian Post.
COMMENTARY
BY M.B. TUCKER
Amos 3:3 “Can two walk together except they be agreed?”
A characteristic of the ’emergent conversation’ is to oversimplify or misrepresent Christians who reject the emergent movement for Biblical faith. Christian Post article, “Pastor Offers a Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional,” and its subject, Jim Belcher, have committed the same error.
Pay careful attention to how they attempt to blur the lines and minimize the differences between “emergent” and “traditional” Christian church. But the differences aren’t trivial. According to the article, Belcher has identified 7 key complaints he and emergents have against what they label the “traditional” church. But until you know how the complainants define those complaints, the real source of the conflict is obscured.
Moreover, using the term “traditional” to refer to that which is not “emergent” is misleading, and their definition equally misleading. In fact, it is a form of the “straw man” fallacy–presenting an erroneous description or position of the “opposition” in order to argue against the opposition. Faith isn’t about “tradition”, it’s about Truth.
For instance, the “traditional view” of salvation, which Belcher and his companions feel is “narrow,” is what Paul calls “the Gospel” in 1 Cor 15 and elsewhere: that Christ died for men’s sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried and rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that men receive forgiveness of sins and eternal life when they repent of their sins and receive Christ in faith.
What about their objection to the “traditional” necessity of “belief” before individuals are considered to be included in the church. The church according to Scripture is that group of people who have been saved by faith in Christ; someone without faith is by definition excluded from that group.
Or what is “contextualized” worship? Is not worship an attitude of life and expression of love, reverence, and faith towards God? When did God Himself cease to be the sole “context” of worship? And how is this an issue of “tradition”?
Belcher asks if there can’t be unity between emergent and ‘traditional’. This is the wrong question. There is always and only one body of Christ. Anyone who denies the Son has not the Father. So anyone who denies the atonement, includes in the ‘fold’ those who do not know Christ, or who openly and deliberately reject Him, and who presents a gospel of overcoming the symptomatic illness of this world rather than the atoning work of Christ for the sins of men, is not in unity with Christ, and therefore cannot be in unity with His church.
2 John 9:11: “Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.”
Related:
Some Say the Emerging Church is Dead – the Truth Behind the Story
