Is Emergent Church Leader Tony Jones Telling The Truth?

By Ken Silva

The following comes from Out of Ur and the post Is Emergent the New Christian Left 2: Tony Jones takes on Chuck Colson and "true truth."  The headline reads:

In part 2 of his post, Tony Jones addresses emerging church critic extraordinaire Chuck Colson. Colson sees the Emergent conversation as a threat to traditional Christian understandings of the “truth.” Jones responds by discussing the interdependence of truth and community—the essence of the Emergent Village conversation.

Tony then writes in the fashion quite typical for so many of those mired in the mess that is the Emergent Church and says: “What Colson’s writing has in fact betrayed over the last couple of years is that he knows very little about the emerging church.” But this is just the usual whining from this Emergent camp, in this case from a “theologian” who also happens to be the National Coordinator of Emergent-Us, which is by far the most dominant group within this whole convoluted “conversation.” As if their movement is so new and complex that the Church has never had to deal with scoffers before. The truth is that men like this who rebel against God’s Word are found throughout Scripture.

However, what is missed here by this “decade-old friendship,” as Jones refers to Emergent Village, is the fact that they are the ones who began “emerging” away from the Church in the first place. Why it’s fine for Tony Jones and Brian McLaren to go on the lecture circuit and to criticize virtually every strain of the Christian faith, but should we return the favor suddenly the howls of “unfair” emerge. Well, I for one couldn’t care less that the Emergent Church cries foul because if they hadn’t begun the criticisms of the historic orthodox Christian faith in the first place then we would have had nothing to be responding to.

Jones then uses Colson’s latest column in Christianity Today called “Emerging Confusion: Jesus is the Truth Whether We Experience Him or Not” as his backdrop to attack the concept of absolute Truth. In this article Colson recounts an email dialogue he’d been having with a young Emergent theologian he calls “Jim.” Jones informs us the young Emergent, well steeped in the party line apparently, explains to Colson that the Emergent Church is “just trying to translate the gospel for postmodern folks.” Then Jones tells us “Chuck replied, but if they undermine truth, then all is lost.” Then we read:

In his penultimate paragraph, Colson refers to D.A. Carson, fellow critic of Emergent, who argues that objective truth precedes relational truth. Colson then weighs in with this philosophical doozy: “Truth is truth.” (Why don't you read that again.)

You see, by saying that “truth is truth,” Colson is essentially saying...well, nothing. That's called a “self-referential argument,” or a “circular reference" and it's non-sensical; it doesn't say anything, and it doesn't mean anything. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been speaking and heard similar statements. I’ll spend a couple hours doing my best to lay out a rather intricate understanding of truth and interpretation, only to be told by an audience member that some things are “really, really true,” “true with a capital ‘T’ ” or my personal favorite, “true truth.” [1]

Is It True That Truth Isn’t True?

Let me guess Tony, did you hear statements like that because you were busy preaching the absolute and objective Truth contained in the infallible and inerrant Bible of the one true and living God? Somehow I doubt it because you have been so busy laying out “a rather intricate understanding of truth and interpretation” just like the Apostle Paul, or maybe even like Jesus Himself did I guess. Or perhaps it’s rather because you are busy trying to tear down people’s belief in the concept of objective and propositional truth which is painfully obvious here. And some wonder why I have begun referring to the Emergent Church as Christian agnosticism, in reality it’s this generation’s reimagined Christian atheism.

I’m sure such dissertations just wow them after some trendy transcendental meditation. But men and women, exactly when are our evangelical leaders finally going to wake up and see that these corrupt professors like Tony Jones  and Brian McLaren  with their science falsely so called [2] and serpentine reasoning, who are always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth, [3] are not Christians? Where in the Bible do we see God’s preachers going around trying to confuse people and then cast doubt upon their ability to even believe anything period–let alone to believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ? And for Jones’ information, by definition truth is true, as in justified true belief.

Truth is the quality conforming to fact or reality; and in order to know whether what Jones himself is telling us is true we must have knowledge to believe it with justifiable certainty, and we are certainly justified to believe there is such a thing as truth in the first place because Christ said, “I Am Truth.” Therefore truth by definition must be true with justifiable certainty. And if this most ridiculous discussion isn’t proof enough for you that something is very rotten within the fruit of the Emergent Church then you’d best begin to pray you will not find yourself here in Romans 1:

Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. [4]

By Ken Silva Click here for bio and archived articles