As for having a face-to-face conversation at a conference somewhere, I’m game — that’d be a fun deal for me, for sure. We can just call a date/time and hang out for a weekend, or find a conference of mutual interest and double-up on the venue.

Billy, thanks for the gracious invitation to dialogue further about these matters. Having been one of the more active Asian American participants in the emergent church conversation, one of the very few, in fact, I think I can speak about what I see as a “friend of emergent.” I agree with you that it is a conversation, a network, and a smattering of critique against established theologies, and that it is not a “legitimate theology”. I think that is fair, from what I can tell, emergent is not plotting its course to develop nor to prescribe a new theology.

My main reaction to Tim Challie’s observation about his first live experience with McLaren is that it seemed to be more descriptive of his strong personal opinion, than a fair representation of what McLaren asserts. I don’t think McLaren could read that description and nod his head saying that Tim’s description really resonates. A telltale sign for me is the word “hate” — that is so uncharacteristic of McLaren.

Dr. Craig Carter was at the same event as Tim, and at
politicsofthecross.blogspot.com/2006/03/secret-message-of-jesus-by-brian.html
offers a considerably more fair assessment (tho’ based on his latest book): “This book has to be read as a tract for inquirers, not as a carefully nuanced work in dogmatics for other scholars, pastors and people with some training in theology.” … “Brian is a great story-teller. This is a great advantage if you are trying to preach or talk to postmodern people. And I’m convinced that Brian’s main gift is evangelism.” … “Brian does a good job of showing that there is no opposition between Jesus and Paul and that Paul is just as concerned about the kingdom of God as Jesus is. This is crucial because the unity of the NT hangs on this point.”

I don’t disagree with your “biblical theology” and the need to structure our lives according to the word of God. The word of God has authority and power, and what many postmoderns are trying to do, as I hastily generalize, are trying to see HOW that authority and power actually gets lived out today. and I don’t think that all postmodern Christians would disagree with you on that the desire to live in unity with walking with God through is plan for us. Reformed covenant theology is wonderful at a macro-level, I believe that it has done wonders to the body of Christ over the centuries and still remains powerful in guiding orthodoxy. But I believe that at the micro-level, it becomes ambiguous in and of itself, if you say that I should live according to reformed covenant theology.

I mean, by “micro-level”, the everyday, mundane, the job choice, the spouse choice, the hobby choice, the choice of church, friends, community, investments, movies, skiing lodge, cell phone…suddenly there are a lot of holes that aren’t not addressed by any theology. The teachings of neither Paul nor Jesus dictate to us exactly how to deal with the lesbian couple that want to adopt a child, who claim to know the Lord, mind you. Do we cut them off from the body? Do we bear their burdens? Do we chastise them? Where do you think they should go? Or what about the teenage girl who was raped and sexually abused by her father, an elder in the church, who routinely recited the Lord’s prayer while forcing himself upon her? Those people that would even consider listening to the traditional language of church is becoming a smaller circle in this country, and it is incumbent upon all believers to be “missional” (as Peter Ong mentioned earlier) and “incarnational”. Doing so, I think doesn’t necessarily mess with your macro-theology. It may mess with your micro-theology, your everyday, how do I speak to others, how do they hear me, where do I hang out, where do they hang out, this kind of thinking.

When I view postmodern ways of approaching the culture, it’s very grassroots and is almost “open-source” in the way they digest knowledge and information. This does not however, mean that they discard “centrality of Christ”, but in a certain sense, they are looking to bring Christ out to the margins as well. And here again, I think that the “conversation” is not on the macro-level, but on the micro, precisely because the conservative church has not spoken to this as they could have. Remember most churches are operating from a survival mentality, not an equipping and apostolic sense. Therefore, the church has more often asked people to come in, but not go out. A large degree of what I see coming from postmodern dissatisfaction is not necessarily with the theology, but rather with the church itself.