Yes, but ...

For the past five years, I have been keeping up with my reading on emerging church books and articles and blogs. And I've picked up lots of interesting things:

• A renewed missional emphasis — the church doesn't exist for itself but is an expression of the kingdom of God for which it exists.
• An embrace of postmodern questioning — don't give us a bunch of pre-fab answers, but let us participate in the questioning.
• A desire for embodied worship — don't just engage my mind, engage all of me.
• An embrace of technology not as the key to success and hipness, but as a component of 21st century culture.
• An end to denominational tyranny — the willingness to work and witness and worship across the previously impervious bounds of denominational walls and to side more with Jesus than denominational pronouncements and structures.

But what I can't stand is the arrogance.

There is this whatever-came-before-sucked-and-must-be-ditched attitude.

Some of it is theological as there are those who believe they need to rethink Christianity from the ground up. But I have yet to discover anyone among their ranks on the level of a Karl Barth, much less an Augustine or an Aquinas, a Calvin or a Luther. I don't get a sense of an intellectual depth, a biblical depth, or a prayed depth that matches any of these.

Some of it has to do with Ecclesiology: The church in its current structure is doomed. At first, when I read these authors, I wondered if I should leave my pulpit and return to journalism. Think of how the money used to pay me could be used! Think of how professional clergy cripple the gifts of the rest of the church by doing everything for everyone, or at least pretending to. And the buildings! We seem to worship our buildings more than the Christ we claim to worship. And, again, think of all the money that goes into maintaining them. And the sermons! What a lousy way to learn the Scriptures — all classroom and no homework. Tear it all down and start over again!

There are some valid critiques. We are way too pastor-oriented. We are way too-building oriented. We are way too sermon-oriented (or at least, we claim to be).

Perhaps it is in fact time for something new. But that doesn't mean that we denigrate the way the Spirit has chosen to work over hundreds of years. Yes, things haven't always been this way. But the Spirit has always blown life through our dead structures.

Much needs to change. But let's not cut down the whole tree, OK?