Weary of One-Way "Conversation"

by Phil Johnson

NOTE: From time to time we pull classic comments from an old thread's combox (or fish them up out of some other blog's meta). The text in the shaded box below is one of those. It's an amalgamation of two comments I wrote on the same day. Aside from splicing the two comments together, I've left the basic substance of my original remarks unchanged from the original.

he main substance of today's entry is something I originally wrote in 2006 in the comments section of another blog. A writer on that blog had complained that my criticism of the "Emerging Conversation" was insufficiently nuanced and unnecessarily nitpicky. He seemed to be suggesting that there are more good influences than harmful ones in the broad world of Emerging religion.

My reply deals with a topic I've thought about a lot recently, especially given the almost total lack of serious engagement we get from the Emerging fringe of the evangelical community. For the most part, Emergents and post-evangelicals don't really seem to care what our perspective is (unless we're doing parody at their expense). Nothing in my two-and-a-half -year experience in the blogosphere has given me any reason to think any of those who talk the most about "conversation" are really interested in having a serious one with anyone who is more certain about eternal truths than they are.

I've said before that the rules of postmodern engagement are fixed to make genuinely serious conversation about truly vital matters well-nigh impossible. People with solid convictions on any of several really weighty biblical truths are simply not welcome at the table.

Here's my perspective on the "conversation," including a brief summary of why I think it's a bad idea in the first place to think serious heresy should ever be answered by collegial dialogue. My view hasn't changed significantly since I wrote this comment more than a year ago:

You wrote: "My main point here is that it’s not helpful to point at heretics in the conversation and therefore stop engaging in it." I'll be candid. That's where I think we don't quite see eye to eye. The problem with the Emerging conversation is not that a handful of heretics are trying to horn in on an otherwise fruitful and beneficial conversation, but that people with unorthodox doctrinal agendas commandeered the "conversation" almost from the get-go. It's not realistic to imagine that any amount of "friendly persuasion" is going to make a change in the direction of the larger movement. There's a reason hospitals don't try to cure infectious diseases by unleashing healthy people among those who are already sick. Heresy, like infection, always works the other way around. (I don't know of an unorthodox movement in the history of Christianity that has ever gradually come around to orthodoxy through friendly dialogue with—or subtle infiltration by—sounder minds.) I see absolutely no warrant and no apostolic example for engaging in friendly conversation with heretical teachers. Second Timothy 2:23-26 tells shepherds how to deal with wayward sheep. That is not a recipe for how to handle wolves in sheep's clothing. On the contrary, it seems to me that there are lots of explicit commands forbidding us to cultivate partnerships, friendly relationships, or even academic comradeships with the purveyors of rank heresy. "Receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds" (2 John 10-11). A friendly dialogue with Kimball or Driscoll on an individual basis is one thing. The idea of joining the whole wide-ranging "Emergent Conversation" is quite another. Such a strategy strikes me as abominable. As a matter of fact, my first bit of advice to Driscoll in any private dialogue would likely be a direct quotation from 2 Corinthians 6:14-18 and a passionate plea for him to take the command in verse 17 very seriously. That would likewise be the heart of any message I think might truly and constructively "encourage the masses [in the Emerging mainstream] toward historical-orthodox Christianity." Do I sound like a hard-core fundie? Well, here's my assessment of that: dialogue with some of the more thoughtful old-line fundamentalists would probably be a thousand times more fruitful for mainstream evangelicals than playing footsie with postmodern fads. For every positive thing we "can learn from" the Emerging subculture, evangelical give-and-take with postmodernized religion would expose us to a thousand deadly pitfalls. On the other hand, I think there are still a few sensible fundamentalists out there who remember some important biblical truths evangelicalism as a movement has stupidly discarded—beginning with the biblical mandates for holiness and separation from evil influences. As far as the Emerging/Emergent mess is concerned, I'd rather be a voice from outside the movement itself. It seems to me church history shows a pretty consistent pattern on this: people who try to remain in an aberrant movement or a mixed multitude in order to be an "influence" ultimately have less influence than those who stand outside and try to minister appropriately to those still on the inside—distinguishing as carefully as possible between the convinced and the merely confused. See Jude 21-23.

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