Yesterday Michael Spencer asked, “Who will repudiate Emergent No?” After reading the mentioned post I thought it would be worthwhile to show what passes for reason under the hubris of “discernment” that has become a popular word in anti-Emergent circles.

Since one of the staples of the emerging church movement is to disseminate its ideas through blogs, it is no surprise to see its critics marshal their condemnation through the same medium. The unfortunate genre of the so-called “watchblogger” has emerged (no pun intended) to comb through the websites, books, and blogs of any and all things “Emergent”—a word that used as a category of ridicule instead of a distinctive name of an organization (emergentvillage.com) that is different from the general phenomenon of the so-called “emerging church.”

One of the more popular blogs of this ilk is called Emergent No. Their latest contribution is supposed to be an alarming piece entitled John Piper Quotes Dallas Willard. You might want to read that again. Now read it thinking it is in bold type like a headline that reads from the Daily Planet “SUPER MAN IS DEAD.” That’s the gist of it, or at least it’s supposed to be.

There are a number of things that could be said about the arguments given in this post, and just about anything else written on the site for that matter, but there a few common features that are worth noting. First, there is the unwritten rule of quoting the right people. Basic to the author’s argument is that John Piper has done a disservice to his readers by quoting someone who does not make the “approved author” list. I have encountered this kind of reasoning before when reading critiques of authors who quote Roman Catholics, mystics, unbelieving philosophers, or perhaps a Buddhist in support of a point that is being made. So and so cites “Person X” who is a Y and is dangerous to Z. Therefore So and So is “dangerous” or “undiscerning” or worse, “not one of us.” But this ignores the relevant context of what is being said and introduces distracting red herrings about issues impertinent to the point. Further, it makes normative the illogical premise that when one quotes another, one is supporting all that another believes.

Second, vital to every debate is how the terms are defined. If one is given the right of defining the terms then one will prevail in the debate. For example, if I define infant baptism as apostasy from the gospel then it follows that all who practice infant baptism are apostates, because one is practicing what is apostasy. The argument is deductively valid, yet its premises are defined to be persuasive and cannot be said to be sound. The abortion debate is a perfect example of an argument that hinges on definition. If a woman chooses to end the life of a human being—born or unborn—she is destroying human life. But if a woman chooses to end the course of the development of fetal tissue in her uterus she is merely exercising personal sovereignty over her body.

This same issue arises in the post. In an effort to smear Willard’s reputation, the author gives her definition of “spiritual formation”:

A movement that has provided a platform and a channel through which contemplative prayer is entering the church. Find spiritual formation being used, and in nearly every case you will find contemplative spirituality. In fact, contemplative spirituality is the heartbeat of the spiritual formation movement.

What the author means by “contemplative spirituality” we are not told, suffice it to say that it is something bad. Therefore, if one teaches the importance of spiritual formation one is teaching something bad. Contrast this with how Willard defines it, “Spiritual formation is character formation… It is the process of establishing the character of Christ. That’s all it is” (see here for more). In his book dedicated to this very topic, Renovation Of The Heart, he makes no mention of “contemplative spirituality” at all. Rather, he emphasizes a broad-based idea called the V.I.M patter for living: vision (what does a Christ-like life look like), intent (do I want that), means (what can we do to attain it). He delineates those means further in his Spirit Of The Disciplines and in his section on prayer he makes no mention of anything “contemplative.”

Third, we have the all-important key to a watchblogger post: the guilt-by-association tactic. Since John Piper quoted Dallas Willard who recommends books written by Catholics (who are heretics!) and is friends with contemplative prayer proponent Richard Foster who is influenced by George Fox who was a Quaker (another group of heretics), John Piper’s pastoral integrity up for questioning! This is precisely the kind of rabbit hole we must jump down if we are to follow these six-degrees of McCarthyism our author engages in. Most who commit this fallacy do so this way: Person P accepts idea I, therefore I is wrong. It takes unusual persistence, however, to do Person W quoted Person X who is friends with Person Y who was influenced by Person Z who accepted idea A and started group B, therefore Person W did something bad!

I could go on about a fourth kind of misleading reasoning watchbloggers love to commit, the genetic fallacy, but you get the idea. I am not one who is sanguine about the direction or ideas of the emerging church or Emergent or whoever else thinks it is a good idea to embrace postmodernism, but I am even more exasperated by the so-called “discernment” of those who consider themselves self-appointed guardians of biblical doctrine. Discernment simply means detecting truth and error. To do this, one needs to learn how to think rather than just what to think. Error will go unchecked if it is wrongly engaged, and more will follow lending less credibility to what actually may be true.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 11th, 2006 at 7:52 am and is filed under Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.