Don't Stop Believing: Why Living Like Jesus Is Not Enough

The emerging church may have mostly died, but not their questions. Their questions and perspectives show up on blogs and among the usual suspects - but they also show up among our kids, in the most conservative of circles, among people who have never read a Brian McLaren book in their life. A lot of these questions come from a new cultural mindset that is sweeping through the church. A new generation is trying to correct the mistakes and blind spots of earlier generations, and the just see things differently. I saw this in a young crowd recently. The crowd was young and somewhat conservative, but had serious questions that didn't fit the conservative mold. How should we respond? We could dismiss these concerns and questions, but this would be wrong. They are important questions. A lot of people have them, and we can't wish them away. Besides, many of their concerns contain insights that we need to hear. We need to face these issues, and that's where Don't Stop Believing by Michael Wittmer comes in. Wittmer is a professor of systematic and historical theology at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary. He is conservative, but he understands the questions. "I am caught in the middle," he writes. "This book attempts to bring both sides together, eliminating the extreme views of each party and uniting them around a biblical center." Wittmer tackles the tough issues: tolerance, deeds vs. creeds, original sin, homosexuality, the legitimacy of other faiths, hell, truth, the meaning of Jesus' death, and the truthfulness of the Bible, and more. What I like about Wittmer is that he deals with the issues honestly and thoughtfully. No cheap shots. No casual dismissal of legitimate questions. No straw men. There are times that I am surprised by his positions: I think he is going to get his conservative evangelical credentials revoked! But those are the exact areas in which I think he is right. Conservatives have blind spots that need to be corrected too. Wittmer ends up challenging both conservative Christians and postmodern innovators to learn from each other. Wittmer argues that we need to keep believing the classic, orthodox doctrines, and he explains why. But we also need the concern for ethics and justice, as well as the willingness to question and think through issues, that postmodern innovators embrace. We need both belief and practice. "Let's stop the pendulum and embrace both sides. God commands us 'to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.' Genuine Christians never stop serving because they never stop loving, and they never stop loving because they never stop believing." This is the second really good book I've seen from Wittmer, and I hope there are more coming. If you are struggling through any of these issues, or in ministry among people who are, then you can really benefit from this book.

I'm guessing that many who will read this review will be younger evangelicals who are aware of the Emerging Church movement. Many are intrigued with the idea of doing church differently. We've awakened to inadequacies in the church our parents raised us in. For people like us, the generational appeal of the Emergent movement is strong. Polarizing doctrines along with the conservative-liberal divide turn us off. A welcoming community of large-hearted lovers of Jesus sounds both authentic and attractive. This desire for authentic Christian fellowship is not wrong by itself. Doing church in new and tantalizingly different ways isn't either. Luther, Wesley and Moody attest to that. Yet the newness of the Emergent movement is often all that is needed for it to earn sharp and stinging conservative rebukes. Such smug dismissals only prove the point of these "postmodern innovators", as Michael Wittmer dubs them. Conservative Christians today are infected with a rampant modernism that assumes it has arrived. With everything figured out, conservative Christianity has no room for postmodern Emergent craziness. Put me down as one conservative who doesn't think we're above criticism. I tend to see the Emergent movement as reacting against some very real deficiencies in some versions of conservative Christianity. Before reading Don't Stop Believing: Why Living Like Jesus Is Not Enough, I wouldn't have been able to articulate all of this exactly. I couldn't put my finger on exactly what it was that seemed right about the Emergent phenomenon. With Michael Wittmer's book, however, I'm much more equipped to think through the all the ramifications of the postmodern innovations so popular today. Wittmer isn't afraid to listen to the postmodern innovators. Listen and learn. From what I can gather from reading the book, Wittmer hails from a staunchly conservative background. I wouldn't be surprised if he is intimately familiar with independent Baptist fundamentalism like I am. From such a background it is easy to see how many of the Emergent criticisms would hit home. Postmoderns claim we conservatives often love the sinner's soul more than his body. We aim for conversions more than lasting social change. We care more about deathbed conversions than good works and justice. Our churches are not welcoming and inviting to the unchurched, and our world-view comes off too cocky and self-confident. We have everything figured out and don't struggle with doubt or pain. We care more about scientific and logical proofs for inerrancy than we do for the Bible's overarching themes and meta narrative. We're too quick to distance ourselves from the world than be friends to publicans and sinners. There's more. Must you believe something to be saved? Are people good or bad? Is Homosexuality acceptable biblically? Doesn't penal substitution turn the cross into divine child abuse? Does Hell really last forever, and would a loving God really send anyone there? Is it really possible

Ever feel like you don't fit in with either 'side' in todays Christian controversies? Do your conservitive freinds think you might be teetering on the edge of liberalism, while your liberal friends think you are way too sympathetic to the concerns of conservatives? Ever feel that you are just as disgusted by postmodernism at certain times as you are by modernism at other times, albeit for different reasons? Well if those sentiments resonate for you, as they do for me, Michael Wittmer can relate, and is trying to work out a deep, Biblically grounded, culturally aware third way forward which embraces the good of each side while critiquing their shortcomings. To articulate this way forward Wittmer (professor of historical theology at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary and author of "Heaven is a Place on Earth" a brilliant examination of the new creation) has recently written a second book, "Don't Stop Believing: Why Living Like Jesus is Not Enough". In his newest work Wittmer eruditely works through some of the most controversial issues in Christian thought today, such as whether or not we need to believe specific things to be saved, if people are basically good, the ethical issues of homosexuality, the controversies of whether penal substitution is divine child abuse, and whether it is even possible to know God or his word in any real sense. In examining each of these issues (and more) Wittmer steers a path between the extremes of both sides, as he puts it "conservatives fear that postmoderns don't care enough about doctrine, and postmoderns think that conservatives don't care enough about people. Conservatives say we must believe in Jesus, while postmoderns say it matters most that we live like him. This book attempts to bring both sides together, eliminating the extreme views of both parties and uniting them around a biblical center." (pg. 13) Though the title focus more on some of the more radical elements of the Emergent church who he fears (and demonstrates) are drifting far from biblical orthodoxy, Wittmer to his credit takes conservative Christians to task just as much and just as seriously. One example I found very powerful came at the end of a discussion about how homosexuality violates the holiness of God and his image in us, and then discussing a loving Christian approach to sexual ethics, Wittmer states in conclusion, "Homosexuals are guilty of illicit sex. We [Christians] often are guilty of not caring about them or their plight. Our sin is greater, and it isn't even close" (pg. 82) Wow. Sadly both sides have pushed each other to extremes. The church gets too focused on doctrine and then the pendulum swings dramatically away to good works, the church ignores doctrine for social action and so the pendulum swings dramatically back toward an inward looking intellectualized faith. What we need is both faith and action, both beliefs and love, both deep theological articulations and passionate commitment to social justice. Wittmers

Michael Wittmer feels trapped in the middle. To one side are conservative Christians demanding lockstep allegiance to narrow doctrinal statements--statements so detailed that they insist on specific theories of the end times or specific understandings of the spiritual gifts. Such people interpret doubts, questions, or appreciation for other viewpoints to be the first signs of an inevitable slide to liberalism. On the other side are postmodern Christians who question many traditional assumptions--or maybe even every traditional assumption--but who go about it in ways that discredit their arguments; they offer new and novel interpretations of key Scripture texts and refuse to state exactly what they believe. To the one side are those who want to believe like Jesus while on the other are those who want to live like Jesus; to the one side are those who love their beliefs while to the other are those who believe in their love. Each position is polarizing and each position seems to offer something less than a robustly biblical faith. Wittmer's position on the conflict between conservatism and postmodernism shows itself in the book's subtitle: "Why Living Like Jesus Is Not Enough." A professor of Systematic and Historical Theology at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, he is clearly not a person who has recklessly jettisoned theology in order to pursue theology-free living like Jesus. This book is his measured reaction against the postmodern tendency to live like Jesus at the expense of sound theology. "My goal," he says, "is not to define a certain segment of Christianity but merely to examine the specific questions that many postmodern Christians are asking." The book, he says, is a friendly warning that rejecting abuses may well lead to a slide into equal and opposite errors. "The history of the church is a series of pendulum swings, and right now the momentum seems headed toward Christian practice and away from Christian belief. This book is an argument for both. ...This book seeks to avoid the most extreme forms of both conservative and postmodern Christianity and hit the sweet spot of appropriate tolerance." And so Wittmer seeks to craft a third way, a way that avoids the extremes on either side while finding that sweet spot that allows a Christian to hold fast to what is true while retaining a love for others and a desire to serve them. He reminds the Christian that right works can only arise from right beliefs. He blazes this trail by answering questions that are on the minds and tongues of many Christians today. Must you believe something to be saved? Do right beliefs get in the way of good works? Are people generally good or basically bad? Which is worse: homosexuals or the bigots who persecute them? Is the cross divine child abuse? Can you belong before you believe? Does the kingdom of God include non-Christians? Is hell for real and forever? Is it possible to know anything? Is the Bible God's true Word? While each question rates its own c

Serious theology written for the everyday Christian. Something wrong is afoot in Christianity and it is taking the Church by storm. Some Christian writers, pastors and speakers have popularized the idea that it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you "live like" or "follow after" Jesus. Wittmer very clearly and practically writes to bring Biblical truth back into clear focus. And argues that living like Jesus is not enough just as believing alone is not enough. Faith without works is dead and works with out faith are vain.