Emerging Presuppositions

Here are a few presuppositions compiled from various sources in the emergent camp... these presuppositions are usually presented matter-of-factly as "givens", but in reality are quite dubious, if not downright unbiblical. Some of them have already been noted at various times throughout this blog. And yes, many of these presuppositions can be found in the ideology of those who consider themselves conservatives in the emergent "village"/church/movement:

I would also posit that these presuppositions are mostly if not completely incompatible with biblical ecclesiology, eschatology, soteriology, Christology, epistemology, etc. etc. Of course, trying to nail down the emergent belief “system” (yes, I just used the word “system”… because everyone has one) is akin to nailing jello to the wall. It's also not so hard to notice that much of what underlies these presuppositions presumes an Arminian (non-providential, non-Calvinistic, non-Reformed) frame of reference in understanding God's relationship to man.

This began as an exercise to collate various presuppositions of the EC in order to articulate its ideology and theology better... what began as a list of 10 grew into 50, and I'm sure there are more. Without further apology…

1. What Christ and the apostles *do* in the narrative of the gospels and Acts is more important or carries more weight than the apostolic deposit in the epistles.
   
2. Because early church form, method, organization, mission and structure described in Acts is chronologically “closer” to the time of Christ and the apostles, it is superior (and normative) to the form, method, organization, mission and structure of the church occurring chronologically “later” (this presupposition is why I’ve dubbed the emergent church the “back to Acts” movement, as if Acts describes that which is superior).
   
3. The “hierarchical” (a term loaded with more presuppositional baggage) structure of the “later” church (non-apostolic era) is not grounded in the text of Scripture.
   
4. There is/was a dichotomy between the theology of the church in Jerusalem and the church in Antioch, and the theology of the church in Antioch is superior.
   
5. The hierarchical structure of the church is the product of Greco-Roman tradition.
   
6. The ecclesiology ( including ordained clergy as pastor-teachers with authority) of the current church is a modern construct and does not originate in the text.
   
7. “Institutionalization” of the church is unbiblical.
   
8. The corruption of the institutional (organized/structured) church in church history amounts to proof that formal organization/structure itself is unbiblical.
   
9. The liturgy, ecclesiology, and theology of the current church originated in the Enlightenment.
   
10. There is a need to return to the apostolic era methodologies.
    
11. The apostolic church’s mission was to transform culture.
    
12. The primary problem of the Western church today is that it is not “missional”.
    
13. Interpretation of the Bible arises from a community’s history and culture.
    
14. Ecclesiology (and theology) originates in the community (some emergents even go so far as to suggest that “faith” and/or “the canon” originates in the community), i.e. the church’s understanding of itself comes from the culture.
    
15. Worldview (our understanding of reality) originates in the community and is culturally driven (IOW, worldview does not transcend culture).
    
16. The worldview, ecclesiology, theology, faith, etc. of the apostles originated in their community and was culturally driven.
    
17. Faith is the product of the experiential/existential, arising from the community.
    
18. Systematic theology is the “modern” product of Greco-Roman/Western thought, did not exist @ in the apostolic era, is “man-made”, and is an imposition on the text in exegesis.
    
19. Theological constructs find their meaning in cultural relevance.
    
20. The apostolic era ecclesiology was grassroots and decentralized.
    
21. Wisdom and its application in the culture is the end goal of biblical education and Christian formation.
    
22. Ecclesiology (and theology) changes with the culture.
    
23. The idea of “sacred space” is Greco-Roman and does not originate in the Scriptures.
    
24. Sacred vs. profane is a Western construct and does not originate in the scriptures.
    
25. Because God “contextualized” his speech in a way that His people could understand, contextualization *must* be the primary consideration of proclamation.
    
26. The overriding concern of the hermeneutic/homiletic endeavor and resulting theology/sermon is life change and/or transformation of the culture.
    
27. Transformation of the culture is the call of the church.
    
28. Teaching/preaching requires contextualization.
    
29. Missions or missional outreach is the primary purpose or function of the church in the book of Acts and thus, should be ours as well.
    
30. The current cultural context is the primary consideration/paradigm of the church’s existence and activity.
    
31. The scriptures and its gospel message are not self-relevant, but are themselves the product of and/or completely dependent on cultural contextualization.
    
32. God's monologue toward man is subservient to his dialogue with man.
    
33. Numerical growth is the primary manifestation of Christ’s expansion of his kingdom on earth (a presupposition emergents share with the consumeristic church growth, "seeker-friendly" movement that emergents passionately critique as "modern").
    
34. The mark of a “successful” church is one that molds and patterns itself to the cultural context in which it is found.
    
35. Karl Barth was right. :-)
    
36. The canon and its purposes are anthropocentric (man-centered), especially since the canon originated in the faith of the community.
    
37. The pragmatic (whether something works) or utilitarian is more important than ontological or ethical (whether some is true or right).
    
38. The existential and experiential is to be preferred over the objective, ontological, intellectual, and/or, propositional.
    
39. Dualism and antithesis are Greco-Roman concepts and unbiblical.
    
40. God is preoccupied with human culture.
    
41. There is not an inherent, eschatologically conditioned antagonism between church and culture, and thus, the “us vs. them” epistemology of the church vs. culture is not biblical.
    
42. The primary goal of the gospel is cultural transformation.
    
43. The Mars Hill text (Acts 17) is paradigmatic for the western church today (I’ve already blogged about this) in its “contextualization” of the gospel.
    
44. The church exists to save the world.
    
45. The language of a given culture or community is its source of reality (a postmodern construct; thus, we hear emergents speak of “conversation” and “dialogue”).
    
46. The primary purpose of the gospel is to meet people’s needs and change their lives.
    
47. Our view of God originates in the language of our community.
    
48. Historical precedent and historical determination are incompatible with the authority of Christ through the scriptures, since both the current church and the ancient church are culturally contextualized in completely different ways.
    
49. The history of the church is best understood within the sociopolitical paradigm.
    
50. The history of the church (not the text) provides definition for the current church’s self-understanding.

And one extra axiom... we will condemn the current/contemporary church as a product of Greco-Roman (Western) philosophy and epistemology (and the correlative Enlightenment), but we will freely quote and affirm Aristotle and Plato. :-) -- crb