Brokaw Reports on the Emerging Church

An unfortunate portrayal of the “emerging church” as a “youth movement.”

I’m always surprised by these types of reports by networks—why don’t they feature churches like Solomon’s Porch, Church of the Apostles—I wouldn’t be surprised if some folks at Pine Ridge probably wouldn’t want to be associated with Emergent…it seemed like much more the “candles & coffee” type of “emerging church.”

Just my initial thoughts.

It’s much easier to portray only one piece of this wide breadth of a movement, than it is to tell the entire story as it continues to unfold before even those of us that are in its midst. I don’t mean to sound too protective of the media, but certainly we know that the report was quite inaccurate if taken as an entire definition of the Emergent Movement.
I’ve recently been working to connect with like-minded or willing to converse folks in Phoenix, AZ and there is and likely will continue to be that perspective of many that Emergent = Liberal or Anything Goes. But what I’ve been finding is that once I get past the initial “oh my” and I’m able to share (and listen), I’m finding that more people (not in their 20’s or 30’s as NBC might have some thinking) are experiencing and practicing those things we are conversing about, though they don’t know we are talking about the same thing. Maybe the word-of-mouth, relational method will end up working better than mass media once again.
Good thoughts.

Is it just me or does the pastor of Pine Ridge look eerily like Ben from Lost…?

I’m probably most troubled by the parting thought that the “youth movement” is in competition with the aging majority. I am afraid someone who wasn’t informed about some differences before this news report will feel they have to choose sides to defend themselves in some coming conflict. The hostility that is already present really doesn’t need to be stirred up any more by such notions. Being young myself, I am not ready or willing to join any such age war.

David, I agree with you. The last comment struck me as odd, but revealing.

most troubling to me is that emergents are automatically assumed in this piece to be both “evangelical”, hip as in gimmicky hip and, closet conservatives or more specifically, disapproving of gays and lesbians but just not saying anything about it. That’s not good enough. The movement however is much broader than this skewed summary, thank God

All truth is broader than a 3 1/2 minute news story. But if the movement is starting to get enough attention to bring Tom Brokaw out of his semi-retirement, then that is something to celebrate! This was just one small step in getting noticed and another will come soon in the political season as the media has learned to pay close attention to Christian politics (which is an unfortunate oxymoron in my opinion).

I’m part of Pine Ridge and have posted a couple items about Pine Ridge and the NBC story on my site, with some mixed reaction in the comments.

Cleave’s right that Pine Ridge isn’t typically associated with Emergent, and as with most perceived “youth churches” have more older people than is expected (none of the launch team members are younger than 35, though the staff is younger). The rest of the comments here are generally right on, especially as regards to NBC’s angle on the story – it clearly seemed NBC already had the story written and then went searching for a church that they could fit into that storyline. The story isn’t inaccurate per se, but it’s obviously terribly incomplete and somewhat misleading, though I don’t think in an intentionally harmful way.

Also, Pine Ridge pastor Tadd Grandstaff blogs.

Ed Stetzer commented on this on his blog:

http://blogs.lifeway.com/blog/edstetzer/2007/11/nbc_nightly_news_and_the_emerg.html

I saw on this pastor Tadd’s blog that he said he would certainly NOT associate himself or his church with the emerging church. i think that is beautiful because it shows that the emeging church is not just a checklist of doctrines, it is a bunch of people thinking about jesus… it doesnt have to be in the name of a church.

I did not know about Tadd Grandstaff and PRC prior to the NBC piece, so I cannot say anything about them as an emerging community beyond referring to Tadd’s own comment, “I DO NOT consider us an emerging church.” What did catch my ear (I was in the kitchen when the story started) was “emergent church” and Jerry Falwell in the same sentence! I can’t imagine anyone going from studying/ministering under the tutelage of Falwell, to embracing the emerging conversation. Especially if this is a Liberty(University)-approved church plant.

I don’t know why reporters can’t go into a story letting the people/org (who are the focus of the story) define themselves.

It is obvious from Tadd’s comments that they never mentioned the emerging conversation in their time with him, and they misrepresented a woman’s comment by changing the question she was asked.

It seems to me that someone forces a news story subject, they find a church that fits, and then they borrow some story editors from the reality TV division, to edit everything into what the ‘suits’ want it to be.

Maybe someday they will see the fact that the emerging conversation brings together people of a wide range of ages, backgrounds, and personalities; and then maybe they will see this as a much bigger story than your run-of-the-mill battle of young versus old!

the thing that crossed my mind watching that was, I’m always trying to explain to fundamentalists what this ‘emerging church’ is all about, and i think that report just made that job harder.

it does show a pretty serious lack of research on the part of NBC to put a Liberty grad pastor up there as their emerging guy, why not just dress Mohler up in jeans and a goatee and let him pretend to be hip?

and not 1 mention of anything social justice or kingdom of god related…i guess its good to get press, but that kind of press is questionable at best. after all, if the most notable thing about emerging Christians is that we aren’t as republican as our parents, then that is a shame.

i’m most suprised by the last statement brokaw makes about the competition of church. If we are viewed in competition with each other then we have missed the point.

Well, can we be surprised? The MSM is confused because we, ourselves, are confused. We can’t give a streamlined definition of “emerging,” or “emergent.” We are afraid to call the “emergent,” church a “movement,” so we cryptically call it a “conversation.” Yet, despite all this, we expect the mainstream media to give an accurate portrayal of all of this? Whose fault is that? I’m not the least bit surprised by Tom Brokaw’s report. But I sure don’t blame Brokaw; this “conversation,” with it’s own terminology, it’s leaders who say they aren’t leaders (leading a movement they say isn’t a movement), It’s all enough to make any head spin. If we don’t want the media to define “emergent,” than we better get busy with something that defines it on our own terms – or they WILL define it for us.

Well said Mike.

This is about as accurate as the media ever gets. It only becomes obvious when they report about something about which one has intimate knowledge. Remember, they aren’t experts in anything and TV especially only cares about the view from 36,000 ft. Nuance – what’s that?

I’m really getting tired of these kinds of 1/5 true stories about ‘emerging church’ in the mass media.

This is about theology and community, not candles and coffee.

I’m ‘ordained’ female, black, and an EV board member and a post – liberal episcopalian, and I know lots of other ‘mainliners’ in north america and europe who are part of the church emerging, yet our presence and contribution is always overlooked when the emerging church is described only as a ‘young evangelical’ movement.

I’ve not been interviewed by nbc or any other national media group (or has any other female emergent leader?) what is this saying…?

If Tom came to our community and other more mainline ones like Quest, Seattle, Tribe of Los Angeles, Church of the Beloved, Edmonds, WA, Wicker Park Grace, Chicago, The Crossing, Boston, Hot Metal Bridge, Missio Dei, in the Twin Cities, Charles River Church…) they would find different and untold emerging church stories.

Here is some current info for those of you who do not see the Emerging problem:

Taken from:
http://www.wayoflife.org/

EMERGING CHURCH TARGETING THE CHILDREN OF FUNDAMENTALISTS

I attended the conference in San Diego because I am concerned about the next generation. The emerging evangelicals are targeting our children and grandchildren. Brian McLaren counseled emergents to be patient as opposed to trying to change churches overnight. In his 2008 book “Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices,” McLaren described his plan to infiltrate churches and Christian institutions that are currently rejecting the emerging church. He says:

“But over time, what they reject will find or create safe space outside their borders and become a resource so that many if not most of the grandchildren of today’s fundamentalists will learn and grow and move on from the misguided battles of their forebears [Biblicist Christians]” (p. 133).

McLaren is saying that emerging doctrine will infiltrate Biblicist churches from without through “resources” such as books, videos, and web sites.

This is exactly how New Evangelicalism has so deeply infiltrated fundamentalist Bible churches and independent Baptist churches over the past two decades and it is doubtless how the more radical emerging church doctrines will infiltrate them in the coming decades.

The conference represents the fruit of the New Evangelical movement founded by Billy Graham and Harold Ockenga and the post-World War II generation of evangelical leaders who rejected biblical fundamentalism. They founded Fuller Theological Seminary and Christianity Today, both of which were represented at this conference. Fifty years ago these men said, “We renounce separatism,” and this is where their children are today. It is a loud warning to Biblicist Christians who are tempted to go in the contemporary direction.

CHANGE AGENTS

The emerging church aims to transform traditional biblical churches into a new emerging model and they are employing many tactics toward that end.

One tactic is to create doubts and to bring about a re-thinking process, but they don’t lead the individual back to the Bible for the answers. It is not wrong to re-think things, particularly methodology, but our thinking must be carefully bounded by Scripture or we will find ourselves in deep spiritual trouble.

Another tactic is to get churches to see themselves through the eyes of the world and to encourage them to adapt to this viewpoint. For example, since the world doesn’t like “judgmentalism” and criticism, the churches must stop judging and be tolerant and tone down the “negative preaching,” and since the world is put off by an “anti-gay” stance, then the churches must adopt a new approach to sexual issues.

God’s people should try to understand the people we are trying to reach and we should care what they think of us at some level, but the fact remains that the world has always looked upon Christians negatively. That was true in the first century and it is true today. Jesus said that the world will hate us because it hated him (John 15:18-20; 17:14). The only way to change the negative way that the world looks upon Bible-believing Christians is to compromise the faith. The emerging church solution, to make Christianity “cool,” is simply not an option for Bible believers.

Another tactic that the emerging church uses to bring change is to promote contradictory doctrinal positions. This is the dialectic approach. Zondervan and InterVarsity Press epitomize this. They publish men who claim to believe the Bible is infallible and who have a personal testimony of salvation and supposedly believe in hell (e.g., Bill Hybels and Rick Warren) alongside of men who do not believe in the substitutionary atonement and are convinced that “an exclusive, hell-oriented gospel is not the way forward” (Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy, p. 120, f. 48).

These contradictory positions ultimately cause readers to conclude that doctrine cannot be dogmatically known and is not very important. It destroys doctrinal stability.

CHRISTANIZED WORLDLINESS

The worldliness that permeates the emerging church is breath-taking. The general sessions of the National Pastor’s Conference began with half-hour stand-up comedy routines, some of it pretty crude. The comedy routines were followed by hard rock concerts complete with massive pounding speakers, colored lights, smoke, and huge rear-projection screens. All of this took place in a darkened hall. Some of the speakers, such as Will Willimon, (left) head of the United Methodist Church, used profanities that we would not repeat in print. The females were typically dressed immodestly.

Even the most conservative branches of the emerging church have made shocking compromises with the world. They claim that they relate to the world without being conformed to it, but in reality they are deeply conformed to it.

Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, claims to be “THEOLOGICALLY CONSERVATIVE AND CULTURALLY LIBERAL” (“Pastor Provocateur,” Christianity Today, Sept. 21, 2007). He criticizes “hardcore fundamentalism that throws rocks at culture” (ibid.) and defines himself as “relevant,” “contextual,” and “cool” (“Conference examines the emerging church,” Baptist Press, Sept. 25, 2007).

Driscoll says, “Restrictive Christians go too far and name everything a universal sin, forbidding some culture activities that the Bible does not, such as listening to certain musical styles, getting tattoos, watching movies, smoking cigarettes, consuming alcohol, and body piercing” (The Radical Reformission, p. 103).

Driscoll says that he learned to preach by “studying stand-up comedians.” He said that seeing the filthy comedian Chris Rock live was “a better study in homiletics than most classes on the subject” (Confessions of a Reformission Rev., p. 70)

Mark Driscoll’s church sets up a “champagne bar” at its New Year’s Eve dance parties. The December 2007 party was called “Red Hot Bash2” and featured “one of the top dance bands in the Northwest.” Participants were invited to “come bust a move on the enormous dance floor” and were reminded to bring their IDs.

Mars Hill has “beer-brewing lessons” and operates the Paradox Theater which has hosted hundreds of secular rock concerts. At one concert, a Japanese punk band performed naked.

Mars Hill shows R-rated movies. In fact, Driscoll says that some of his sermons on sex are R-rated and that visiting youth groups have been embarrassed and walked out half-way through the message (Confessions of a Reformission Rev., p. 134).

And this is the very conservative side of the emerging church!

God’s Word says, “And be not conformed to this world,” and, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world” (Romans 12:2; 1 John 1:15).

This is just the top of the iceberg of what is going on.

We need to stick to reading God’s word and if we do not, we will become fooled just as Adam and Eve did in the Garden, when Satan lied to Eve and she chose the contemporary route of her day, which is not too different from today. Amazing how eternal God’s principles really are and will continue to be valid for eternity.