Jesus Cropped from the Picture

The Emerging Method

However, like the Pragmatic and Traditional methods, Emergings have a “pick and choose” approach to the Scriptures based on what seems most relevant to the individual. The individual is sovereign, not the biblical Story that has been believed for centuries. As Emerging Church author Scot McKnight said, “We believe the Great Tradition offers various ways for telling the truth about God’s redemption in Christ, but we don’t believe any one theology gets it absolutely right.” 91 David Wells observes that for Emergings, “Christianity is about filling out my story, being propelled on my journey by the Scriptures or the Holy Spirit, and being propelled into the (post)modern world. It is not about our fitting into the Bible’s narrative.” 92 Such individualistic notions crop Jesus from the picture . Emergings prefer to talk about “narratives” rather than systematic theology, so they are often suspicious of a single, authoritative meta- narrative (a narrative that explains everything). At best, Emergings are humble about their ability to know truth in an objective way. 93 At worst, Emergings lack submission to Christ’s command to believe the entire scriptural narrative 94 (the scriptures that testify about Jesus, John 5.39). Contextualizing Emergings seem to assume they already understand the gospel and are equipped to contextualize it in a Postmodern setting. However, this is not a good assumption. Many Emergings come from Traditional or Pragmatic backgrounds and bring some of their cropped-out-of-the-picture assumptions with them. In their worthy attempt to challenge the Church to more serious discipleship, Emerging Christians rush past the need to have an objective definition of Christian faith.

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