Change or Die?

I'm behind on my reading. So what else is new? But I thought I'd make a few comments on what I hear people like Spong and certain "emergent" voices are saying about Christianity today. These are just some thoughts I have, nothing like a systematic tackling of the problems they are addressing.

My main impression is, good luck. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the criticisms and observations these guys are making are correct. But I don't see the death of Christianity in its older forms anywhere on the horizon.

Why? Because the most traditional and entrenched forms of Christianity and the most childlike of faiths are only as far away as the Sunday School nearest you. Generations of "enlightened," liberal seminarians have been emerging for generations. And let us not forget the oft cited legend of Voltaire predicting the death of Christianity within a generation--made in the late 1700's.

I'm not saying that the emergents aren't on to some things. I'm just saying that the emerging twenty-somethings of the sixties and seventies were on to some things too, as were the emergents of the twenties, or of the 1890 Methodists who had returned from studying in Germany. (By the way, I'll bet you that a lot of the emergent writers today don't "know" some of the things those 1890 emergents knew a hundred years ago--talk about how enduring emergent knowledge is)

What little I've read of the "hot" emergent writers doesn't leave me thinking, "Wow, I need to rethink my theology completely." If anything it's surprise that these guys actually think they're on to something new. I mean, really, Honest to God was written in the 60's, and it didn't stop the conservative resurgence of the 80's that I lived through. If anything, the current emergents are a lot shallower than their predecessors, although they dress better and are certainly more hip.

And look at how powerful conservative evangelical politics are right now--way more powerful than I can ever remember before--even during the Reagan years when I was at Boy's State and we were voting in school prayer. And this comes after the enlightened sixties and seventies! Indeed, the once having ruled enlightened emergents of those days are completely at a loss today at how the "assured progress" of those days doesn't seem to have any support among grass roots people today. They lost to their "conservative" children.

So what am I really saying? First, I'm not dismissing everything the "emergent church" is saying. I think they probably have some insights that the "masses" don't. However, it's almost embarrassing that some of them would think they're the first ones ever to have some of these insights. Frankly, I'm not even sure some of the ones touting themselves as post-modern even understand what the word really means. I'm waiting for the profound new idea that really leaves me thinking, "Wow, I've never thought or heard of that before."

And I'm wishing them good luck on changing the world. But I'll take that bet against Spong that Christianity is about to die if it doesn't change. I've been to Sunday School, and those impressionable little minds have the same visions of Jesus loving the little children of the world that I had as a child in the 70's.