The Emerging Church Movement is an amorphous sort of loose-knit association of churches that have decided that there is value, there is even virtue in uncertainty about Scripture. The bottom line in the movement is they believe that we aren’t even suppose to understand precisely what the Bible means. And to me, that’s the big issue. It is an attack on the clarity of Scripture and they elevate themselves as if this is some noble reality. They have finally risen to say we’re honest enough to say, “We don’t know what the Bible really means. We can’t be certain. We are…we’re the truly spiritual ones.” It has overtones of spiritual pride, a false kind of spiritual pride which they call humility. They say, “We’re too humble to say that we know what the Bible means.”

The bottom line, I think, in the movement is that it is a denial of the clarity of Scripture. It is a denial that we can know what the Bible really says. And as I said, it’s amorphous because there’s a mish-mash of approaches to this and a mish-mash of styles and things like that. But they have embraced this mystery as if it’s true spirituality. And so, it becomes celebration of mystery, a celebration of ignorance, a celebration that we can’t really know. I think it’s just another form of liberalism. I think it’s just another form of denying the clarity of Scripture. And I think there’s a motive behind it…it’s just another philosophy.

Post-modernism is another bad philosophy. Modernism was a bad philosophy. Post-modernism is another bad philosophy. But in both cases, they assault the Scripture. Modernism made reason, human reason, the king. Reason was supreme in modernism. Thomas Payne, The Age of Reason, The Enlightenment, all of those things, the Renaissance. Out of that came the worship of the human mind and the mind trumps God. Now mystery trumps the Bible. The human mind trumps the Bible in modernism, mystery trumps the Bible in post-modernism. It is at the foundation an unwillingness to accept the clear teaching of Scripture. Scripture is clear, “A wayfaring man though he be a fool need not err.” God holds us responsible for a right understanding of Scripture. We are liable before God for what we do with a true and right understanding of Scripture. These people, like the liberals, deny the clear teaching of Scripture. And I’m convinced that the reason they deny it is not because it can’t be understood, not because it’s unclear, but because they don’t like what it clearly says. And that takes you back to John 3, “Men love darkness rather than light.” The light is there, they hate the light, they run from the light. The issue is not that Scripture is not clear, it is crystal clear.

One of the big issues is homosexuality in the Emerging Church. They don’t want to take a position on homosexuality. The Bible is not vague or obscure or oblique about homosexuality. It couldn’t be more clear. A homosexual will not inherit the Kingdom of God…that’s pretty clear. Homosexuality in Romans chapter 1 is a perversion that is manifestly when it happens in a culture, begins to dominate a culture, an evidence of divine wrath and divine judgment. So the Bible is clear. They don’t want that clarity. They want to run from the light. Scripture is light, it is not darkness, but they like the darkness because their deeds are evil.

So I think the motive behind this whole Emerging Church thing, whether it’s a conscious or unconscious motive, is discomfort over what the Bible really says, whether it’s about the gospel or whether it’s about sin, virtue…they don’t like it and so the out is…Well, it’s not clear. This is just another way to set the Bible aside. (What’s So Dangerous About the Emerging Church?)

You can read the transcript of this excellent teaching on the Emergent Church of which men like e.g. Rob Bell, his friend Doug Pagitt, his cohort Tony Jones and Dan Kimball are associated with right here.