Mark Driscoll on the Chucks

Okay. First off, I'm no huge fan of the Emerging/Emergent movement.
I'm a bit too much of a doctrinaire to be very comfortable with what I see as a mostly unnecessary uncertainty in what is called the "postmodern" worldview. Whereas I can appreciate much of the ECM's humility in their approach to epistemology, which colors everything else, I find that many foundational things which are spectacularly clear-cut in Scripture are questioned... simply to question them. I call that "being a twit."

Anyway... I digress...

All that being said, there are some in the Emerging side of the movement (yes, Virginia, there really is a difference) whose thinking I have come to appreciate. Chew up the meat, spit out the gristle. And some have more meat than others.

Mark Driscoll, I am finding out, is a meaty fellow. Writing-wise.

This blog post on his Resurgence site is a commentary on the current, growing divide between Chuck Smith Sr. and Jr. CS, Sr., is of course the founder of the movement that I and the fellowship I am blessed to pastor are affiliated with. CS, Jr., used to also be affiliated with the Calvary Chapel movement, but has in recent years drifted quite far outside the parameters of what Calvary Chapel is and has recently disassociated himself from the movement.

Mark's analysis of the divide is a good one. There's no mechanism on the blog to comment unless you've attended one of the Resurgence conferences, so I'm not able to respond there, but in a wee tad, I'll respond here, and give my perspective on Mark's perspective on the Chucks' particular perspectives.

Included is his use of the divide between Sr. and Jr. as a template to analyze the growing chasm between what he calls the "older evangelicals" and the younger "emerging types." Very insightful.

One of the things that I'm discovering (and that Mark's blog post serves to confirm) is that the ECM's longevity is dubious at best, unless it evolves into something much different than what it currently is. Either it will erode into just a hipper form of theological liberalism, or become reabsorbed into Biblical evangelicalism - or both. But however long-lived this particular
flash in the pan proves to be, this, too, shall pass.

But the Word remains.

Anyway, I'm on lunch-hour at tentmaking as I plunk this out; more later.