Boundaries bad; diversity good? Who says?

by Phil Johnson

oundaries. The term has acquired sinister connotations in these postmodern times. As a matter of fact, one of the main reasons clear definitions are so despised (and so hard to come by) nowadays is because they establish boundaries, and boundaries mean someone is being "marginalized." In postmodern parlance, marginalizing someone—anyone, regardless of the reason—carries roughly the same moral connotation as a lynching.

Diversity, on the other hand, while unaccountably missing from every biblical list of virtues, has been canonized by postmodern minds (including most participants in the Emerging Conversation) as one of the last few remaining uncontestable moral values. It is probably fair to say that "diversity" is prized in the Emerging community even more highly than unity. The many clear New Testament pleas to "be of one mind" (e.g., 2 Corinthians 13:11; cf. Romans 15:5-6; 1 Corinthians 1:10; Philippians 1:27; 2:2; 3:16; 4:2; 1 Peter 3:8) are effectively set aside in favor of the more postmodern and politically-correct ideal of a liberal-minded doctrinal tolerance.

How did it come to this?

Well, for one thing, a gnawing doctrinal indifference has been spreading like leaven through the evangelical movement for several decades. The trend seems to have begun in the mid-twentieth century as a radical overreaction to unbridled militancy in the fundamentalist movement.

But the accrued apathy of at least four-plus decades of neo-evangelical influence has left evangelicals virtually defenseless against doctrinal error—especially the subtle varieties. The Emerging movement has aggressively exploited that weakness, challenging (on one front or another) practically every historic evangelical doctrinal distinctive. The Emerging Church has therefore become practically the mirror opposite of what fundamentalism was supposed to be.

Ironically, diversity is also every Emerging apologist's favorite answer to critics who complain about the free-wheeling nature of doctrinal discourse within the Emerging conversation. Individuals within the movement are essentially free to deny or assert anything they like while the larger movement remains effectively impervious to doctrinal criticism—because "Not everyone in the movement believes like that" works well as an easy, all-purpose reply. Heresies and false doctrines of all types can and do percolate freely within the movement (often coming from some of the movement's best-known figures), but Emerging devotees nearly always dismiss legitimate concerns about the erosion of doctrine in their midst with a shrug and a wave of the hand at the ECM's broad diversity.

It's a trend that augurs serious disaster for the movement's inevitable drift.

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