Emergent Confusion is no Mystery

Strange Baptist Fire has posted an excellent piece on the current melee between the emergent confusion and those who hold to the doctrines of grace.

Postmodernism’s Clash With Calvinism
Putting aside perhaps, some of the extreme KJV only folks that I’ve encountered, I have yet to find a group or mindset that is as "anti-Calvinism" as the Emerging Church Movement. Sure, there are some like Mark Driscoll who have a background in this movement while simultaneously espousing Calvinism, but they are far from the majority of those who identify themselves with this postmodern re-thinking of church and Christianity.

From all of the reading that I’ve done so far of Emerging blogs, the best explanation that I can come up with for this clash has to do with something about Calvinists and also something about postmodernists. Calvinists tend to value doctrinal precision, whereas Emerging Church postmodernists embrace mystery (some would say that they tend to shroud the revealed will of God in mystery) and prefer living with doctrinal gray areas.

When he wrote his 19th century "Warnings to the churches" J.C. Ryle could not have known about today’s Emerging movement, however - this statement of his - I think summarizes the conflict that we often see between Calvinists and Postmodernists:


"He who dares to say of one doctrine that ‘it is true,’ and of another that ‘it is false,’ must expect to be called narrow-minded and uncharitable…"

Continue reading this article here.