In November I had the great privilege of joining a handful of other
young pastors for lunch with world-renowned Christian philosopher,
speaker, and writer, Ravi Zacharias. He was in Seattle to speak at the
University of Washington about the Christian faith to a largely
non-Christian audience. I first learned of Ravi when I was a new
Christian in college and have deeply appreciated his radio program,
books, and lectures ever since.

As us white guys ate Greek food with the Indian guy, I found Ravi to be
as intense and passionate as I would have expected. Personally, I also
found him to be the kind of guy you'd want to take to a ballgame to eat
nachos and talk theology with. In short, Ravi has both a great
intellect and a great disposition.

As we talked I asked him what issues were of the greatest concern to
him and what he was preparing to focus on in the coming year. Much to
my surprise, he said that the Emerging church was a great concern to
him because it held a low view of truth and was gaining momentum as a
gathering point for all kinds of aberrant Christian doctrinal agendas.

Ravi works on such a global level that naming a growing sect of
American Christianity as his top priority for 2006 greatly surprised
me. I explained to him my history as one of the early leaders in the
Emerging church movement. I further explained to him that the brand
name "Emerging Church" was coined by my friend Dan Kimball who wrote
the book The Emerging Church after borrowing the line from Leadership
Network. Leadership Network had started the Young Leader Network in the
mid-1990s, which later evolved into the Emerging church. I explained
that within the Emerging church there is a wide range of theological
teams but that many people on the teams are Bible-believing
evangelicals who appreciate the writings of like-minded authors such as
Dan Kimball and Donald Miller. I also explained that Emergent is a
stream within the Emerging church where the more theologically liberal
Emerging church leaders gather for community and conversation.

As one would expect, Ravi had great insights and feared that the same
kinds of spiritual errors prevalent in non-Christian Eastern religions
are gaining popularity in America among Christians who are ill-informed
regarding the dangerous results of not thinking God's thoughts after
Him. And the guy has some of the best stories you'll ever hear thanks
to his world travels.

Until this point the Emerging church and its various theological teams
have enjoyed relative freedom to experiment with doctrine and ministry
styles without critical evaluation. But with the growing buzz about the
Emerging church, more Bible scholars are critically evaluating the
teachings of the Emerging church leaders, especially the more
liberal-minded Emergent team. Examples include the book by renowned New
Testament scholar D.A. Carson, Becoming Conversant with the Emerging
Church, R. Scott Smith's, Truth and the New Kind of Christian, and the
recent issue of Act 3 Review (formerly Reformation and Revival
Journal), run by my good friend John Armstrong, which has lengthy
reviews of Brian McLaren's book, A Generous Orthodoxy, by such noted
theologians as John Frame. Later this year the spring issue of the
Criswell Theological Review will devote an issue to the Emerging
church. Brian McLaren (tentative), Dr. Robert Webber, Al Mohler,
president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (tentative), Jerry
Johnson, president of Criswell College, David Mills of Cedarville
College, Scott Smith of Biola, and I will each write articles for the
issue.

The result of the growing investigation and critique of more prominent
Emerging church leaders and their teachings could be either positive or
negative. Aberrant leaders may prove humble enough to receive
correction and maintain sound Christian doctrine, in which case the
greater church of Jesus Christ would be best served. Or, aberrant
Emerging church leaders could become more entrenched in their erroneous
teachings. This could lead to a fracture in the evangelical church that
forces a doctrinal debate similar to that of a previous generation,
which also wrestled with such things as the inerrancy of Scripture,
truth, sin, atonement, inability of other religions to save, women in
ministry, gender roles, masculine names for God, and the nature of
authority in the church. My fear is that these Emerging church leaders
will only see their support base of new monastic community,
labyrinth-walking, jolly-blogging, new kind of Christians grow as the
disgruntled children of evangelicalism declare heresy to be hip.

In the midst of the growing debate it will be interesting to see what
Ravi has to say and how his comments are received. Indeed, a brilliant
man with a global perspective and a deep understanding of both
philosophy and world religions who happens to not be yet another white
guy should provide penetrating insights that cannot be easily
dismissed.

Lastly, do be in prayer for Ravi as he mentioned having some rather
severe throat troubles that greatly complicate his busy speaking
schedule.
Mark Driscoll's blog - 01.21.06