Introducing the ECM (Part 4)
December 1st, 2006
(By Phil Johnson)
This is a continuation of Phil’s seminar-transcript from the 2006 Shepherds’ Conference.
Definition
With that as background, let me attempt to give you something that approximates a definition of this movement—this thing—that we all agree resists any kind of precise definition.
Some important disclaimers. I hope you won’t be surprised or dismayed when people who are devoted to the emergent subculture point out that my description of their movement is an oversimplification. They are also going to complain that some of the things I criticize don’t apply in every exhaustive detail to every person or every congregation in their movement.
Remember: I know that, and I have already acknowledged it. But I still think there’s great value in giving you a description of the broad contours of the movement, and that is what I am going to try to do.
Some in the movement will complain that I haven’t read enough of their literature; I haven’t interacted enough with the right emergent bloggers; or I haven’t visited enough of their gatherings to be a competent critic of their ideas.
All I can say in response is that I have read as much literature from the movement’s key writers as I can get my hands on; I have interacted directly with people in the emerging movement as much as my time and schedule will permit; I have already put many of my criticisms of the movement in the public arena repeatedly, and I have invited (and received) lots of feedback from people who are devoted to the movement. I have done my best to be fair and complete. And I assure you that I will continue to study the movement.
But I don’t agree with the notion that in order to be a reasonable and credible analyst of a movement like this, you have to remain neutral indefinitely and never become a critic. There is simply too much in the movement that warrants criticism.
As I said, I just want to be candid and clear for you. I wish time allowed me to be as nuanced as I would normally like to be. On the other hand, I think a tendency to over-nuance and over-qualify everything has already spoiled some otherwise potentially helpful critiques of this movement.
A definition (of sorts) in five parts. So allow me to give you a broad-brushed description of the “emerging church movement,” mainly for the benefit of those who are still having a hard time getting their minds around the concept of what this thing is. This won’t be the kind of pithy definition you can take down in a single sentence, so don’t even bother trying. But I will try to keep it brief enough to be manageable.
So here’s my definition:
1. The “emerging church” is a convenient name for a broad-based and growing assortment of similar or related movements that have flourished in the past half-decade—mostly on the fringe of the evangelical movement. “Emerging” congregations in one way or another tend to be keenly attuned to the postmodern shift in art, literature, and public discourse.
(Incidentally, Postmodernism itself is not easy to define, but in general it refers to a tendency to discount values like dogmatism, authority, absolutism, assurance, certainty, and large, commanding, exclusive worldviews—which postmodernists like to label metanarratives. Postmodern values would include things like diversity, inclusiveness, relativism, subjectivity, tolerance, ambiguity, pragmatism, and above all, a view of “humility” that is characterized by lots of qualms and reservations and uncertainties and disclaimers about whether anything we hold in our belief system is really true or not. Those are the very same values that are usually held in high esteem in the “emerging church movement.”)
By the way, I think its a mistake to see the emerging subculture as nothing more than the next generation’s version of the “seeker sensitive” church. It is that, but only in a certain sense. In some ways, the “emerging church” is a reaction against and a departure from the shallow, mass-movement professional showmanship of the slick megachurches like Willow Creek and Saddleback. Emergent types tend to value authenticity over professionalism. Many of their churches—perhaps a majority of their churches—are home churches or otherwise small-group gatherings that are informal and unorganized almost to an extreme.
Understand: this is a very diverse movement. Some in the movement might even say they are wary of postmodern influences, while others are advocating that Christians ought to embrace postmodernism enthusiastically. But, either way, they would all pretty much be keenly aware that postmodernism has molded the way contemporary people think, the way public discourse is carried on, the way public opinion is shaped, and the way judgments are usually made about truth-claims. Therefore, they argue, the church must adjust its message accordingly. And normally, in practice, this means some level of accommodation to postmodern preferences.
2. Now, here is another vital aspect of what distinguishes “emerging church movement”: Most congregations in the movement would describe themselves as missional, by which they mean they stress the importance of evangelistic outreach by involving themselves in the lives of unbelievers in the community outside the narrow circle of the church. They point out that the way believers live is one of the most potent and persuasive aspects of our testimony to unbelievers—if not the single most important thing of all.
There’s nothing essentially wrong with that idea, of course, as long as we also communicate the truth of the gospel clearly and distinctly with words. The problem arises when you factor in the postmodern tendency to distrust or despise every kind of clarity, certainty, or authoritative truth-claim. It has often meant, in practice, that the emphasis on “missional living” results in an evangelistic strategy where gospel preaching is downplayed or deliberately omitted. (And I’ll probably have more to say about that if time permits.)
3. Here’s another (similar) feature of the “emerging church movement”: Emergent-style churches show a preference for “narrative theology” as opposed to systematic doctrine. The story of the gospel is ultimately more important than the theology of it. The simple narrative of salvation history must not get lost in the careful parsing of theological words and ideas.
Obviously, There’s an important germ of truth in that idea, too. The four gospels do tell us about the life of Christ in narrative format. They are collections of anecdotes and incidents from His life, not systematic doctrinal treatises about soteriology, or hamartiology, or any of the other-ologies by which we tend to categorize our theology.
People in the “emerging church movement” place a lot of stress on that fact, and in my assessment they tend to go quickly overboard. The fact that so much of Scripture is narrative doesn’t alter the fact that much of it is also didactic—and vice versa. Here, I think their obsession with postmodernism has got the better of some of our emergent friends, and they have simply reacted against rationalism by running to the opposite imbalance.
4. In this same vein, people in the emerging church movement often don’t hold the idea of propositional truth in very high regard. And this one of the key points many of them want to make: They believe that when you reduce a truth-claim to a propositional statement, you have actually done violence to the truth.
Of course, a proposition, by definition, is a premise that is either true or false. There is no third choice. (That is one of the most basic laws of logic, known as the law of the excluded middle.)
Postmodernists simply don’t like handling ideas with that kind of clarity. So there’s a tendency among emergent types to denigrate or devalue the very idea of propositional truth, logic, and rationality.
I contend that you cannot teach truth at all apart from propositions of some sort. Boil any truth-claim down to its pure essence, and what you have is a proposition. You cannot even tell stories without propositions, so if you were serious about dispensing with propositions altogether, you would have to forfeit narrative theology, too.
Now again, I think there is a germ of truth underlying this aspect of postmodernist thinking. Truth is more than merely a collection of propositional statements. Most of understand that there is a vast and important difference between knowing Christ and knowing facts about Christ.
On the other hand, knowing Christ in a true and saving way must necessarily involve knowing true facts about Him. You don’t really know Him at all in any biblical sense if you don’t know the basic facts about His deity, His death, His resurrection, and essential parts of the story like those. So there is a sense in which the propositional aspect of the truth about Christ is vital. Al Mohler says it this way: “while truth is always more than propositional, it is never less.”
By the way, the suggestion that we try to deal with truth in non-propositional form is not anything new with the “emerging church movement.” It’s an idea that was floated as one of the key tenets of neo-orthodoxy at least 65 years ago or more.
I would argue that the assault on propositional truth ultimately entails the abandonment of logic completely. It is an irrational idea. Francis Schaeffer said the same thing. He regarded neo-orthodoxy’s attack on propositional truth as the theological equivalent of suicide. He said when we abandon rationality in that way, we have crossed “the line of despair.” We might as well abandon the quest for truth itself. And in effect, that is the result of the postmodernist perspective.
5. Here’s a final element in my abbreviated description of the emerging Christian subculture: Most insiders like to portray their movement as an answer to the influence of philosophical modernism; a departure from modernism; something wholly distinct from modernism. As you know, modernism has assaulted the church for some 150 years, at least. It has always, consistently been hostile to evangelical truth.
Some actually believe the “emerging church movement” is so much the polar opposite of modernism that when you criticize their movement, they will accuse you of blithely and unthinkingly buying into the errors of “modern” thinking. They will often label you a “modernist.” And among other things, they will accuse you of parroting a brand of philosophical foundationalism that owes more to Rene Descartes and Cartesian foundationalism than it owes to the Scriptures. Lots of naive people have been drawn into the movement by sophisticated-sounding philosophical arguments like those.
That claim is based on the assumption that postmodernism itself represents a correction of the philosophical errors of modernism, rather than just a further step in a wrong direction.
How any Christian can uncritically adopt that view of carnal, worldly, humanistic philosophy is an utter mystery to me. It ought to be obvious to people in the church that postmodernism poses at least as much a threat to the truth and the clarity of the gospel as every other humanistic philosophy that has preceded it in the long parade of human foolishness that has brought us to the postmodern moment in which we are living.
Postmodernism is just the latest, and possibly the worst, in a relentless procession of bad ideas that ought to have conditioned the church to despise and distrust the folly of human wisdom (which, by the way, is what Scripture commands us to do).
Modernism at its very core and inception was an overt attempt to subvert and defeat the truth of Scripture with humanistic rationalism. Modernism failed, and failed miserably.
Postmodernism is not really a significant departure from modernism; it is just a similar attempt to subvert and defeat the truth of Scripture by glorifying irrationality, and by portraying all truth as hopelessly paradoxical, ambiguous, unclear, uncertain, unimportant, or otherwise unworthy of all the concern and attention philosophers have given to the idea. Postmodernism abandons the hope of finding any absolute or incontrovertible truth, and instead, the postmodernist looks for amusement by playing with words and language, and by questioning every assumption and challenging every truth-claim.
That’s no answer to modernism; it is a further step in the same wrong direction.
So my assessment of the “emerging church movement” is that far from being the antithesis of modernism, this sort of “evangelical postmodernism” is really ultimately nothing more than Modernism 2.0.
I have been trying to highlight that point for the past six months or more on my blog by posting excerpt after excerpt from Charles Spurgeon’s criticisms of 19th-century modernism. (All that material is still online if you want to review it. Just do a Google search at my blog for “spurgeon” and “Modernism.” That will be enough to get you started.) It is very eye-opening to see that every one of the arguments and biblical points Spurgeon made against the so-called “evangelical modernists” of his day can (without any modification whatsoever) be applied against the “evangelical postmodernists” of our day.
Far from being antithetical, the two movements are ultimately just one and the same. The “emerging church movement” is this generation’s version of what our grandparents knew as modernism—updated in some ways, but ultimately, it’s essentially the same. Postmodernists today are using the same arguments and the same strategies that the modernists of the Victorian era employed. The results will be exactly the same, too.
You can begin to understand, I hope, why I insist that this topic demands to be dealt with with the utmost candor and clarity, rather than with evasions and equivocations. And I make no apology for that.
Phil,
This analysis is concise and lucid and fair. I agree that propositional truth is the theological point of tension between orthodoxy and all post-modernisms.
Thanks again for the series. In my opinion, Ravi Zacharias has helped in this area as well. I love how he goes about defending the gospel to the postmodern world.
Phil,
Is it just me, or did someone hack your computer and take out ECM part 3? Or have you changed from proclaiming the whole truth, or just parts 1, 2 and 4?
thank you. it’s a superb work to disclose the darksides of the emerging church movement. I am ready to answer some questions about them from my church members.
To quote Phil;
“Postmodern values would include things like diversity, inclusiveness, relativism, subjectivity, tolerance, ambiguity, pragmatism, and above all, a view of “humility” that is characterized by lots of qualms and reservations and uncertainties and disclaimers about whether anything we hold in our belief system is really true or not.”
The problem Phil with that statement, is that Orthodoxy actually needs a healthy dose of those characteristics. We need to embrace diversity, inclusiveness, subjectivity, tolerance, pragmatism, and humility in uncertainty in ways that the Church has failed to do. Doing such things does not mean one has to conform the overarching false epistemology.
The conservative evangelical church’s problem is that in becoming overly dogmatic, it has brought harsh injury to authenticity and has pushed people away from it. The problem is that to claim we have everything figured out and communicate that kind of sentiment will not be able to tap into the emerging church mind and other postmodern thinkers. And to drill them continuously with overly polemical language will do more harm than good. It will only reinforce people that are already in agreement, not the ones that are in need of reformation.
To quote Phil again;
“People in the “emerging church movement” place a lot of stress on that fact, and in my assessment they tend to go quickly overboard. The fact that so much of Scripture is narrative doesn’t alter the fact that much of it is also didactic—and vice versa. Here, I think their obsession with postmodernism has got the better of some of our emergent friends, and they have simply reacted against rationalism by running to the opposite imbalance.”
The same could be same of the conservative evangelicalism with going too overboard with the systematic and didactic. Scripture by majority is narrative and story-telling. It is not systematic theology. And there are numerous occasions when the narrative can penetrate more than a systematic teaching, and vice versa as well.
Albert says:
“We need to embrace diversity, inclusiveness, subjectivity, tolerance, pragmatism, and humility in uncertainty in ways that the Church has failed to do.”
That is true, but we need know and should do (more of) that b/c its a Biblical Standard. The Bible def. makes room for those things without sacrificing anything. However, the EMers don’t use those words as the Bible is, but more so as self evident (Postmodernistic) truths. There epistemology is and foundation for those things are not Biblical and b/c of that they strayed far away from the central message. I will agree that conservative evangelicalism needs to open its arm to all sinners and give to Gospel unconditionally ~ a very Biblical precedence * See the difference?
Albert also said
“The same could be same of the conservative evangelicalism with going too overboard with the systematic and didactic. Scripture by majority is narrative and story-telling. It is not systematic theology. And there are numerous occasions when the narrative can penetrate more than a systematic teaching, and vice versa as well.”
First I think that is an unfair characterization, just like Jonathan Edwards was just a grumpy, stern, people hater, with a mean God. Conservative Evangelicalism seems that way only b/c that is where it is most attacked, so the reply you receive is on those subjects. The other half of it is never mentioned which is too bad. Not to mention, there is we look at the narrative plenty enough, but once again no one criticizes us there, so its not brought up.
And trust me, I’ve never seen a “systematically theologized” man not know the narratives inside out, but I’ve sure seen a lot people who know the narratives have no clue what those very stories mean…
Argh sorry for the terrible grammar, editing stuff and didn’t proof read :p
“The conservative evangelical church’s problem is that in becoming overly dogmatic, it has brought harsh injury to authenticity and has pushed people away from it.”
I think it may be more accurate to say conservative evangelicals holding the line in a shifting culture only seem “overly dogmatic” to those who have shifted with it, and in looking back claim they have been “pushed away.” Instead, perhaps they have pushed themselves away from Truth, the very concept and content of it.
“The conservative evangelical church’s problem is that in becoming overly dogmatic, it has brought harsh injury to authenticity and has pushed people away from it.”
There is nothing wrong with being dogmatic. The problems comes when we are not patient with those who have not come to embrace the truth that is found in scripture. In my conversations with others I am always having to remind myself that I have had very similar questions to ones that the younger generation is asking. There was a time when I did not believe in the orthodoxy that I love today. There was a time when things like’s God’s sovereignty seemed very firm and harsh to me. I needed someone to take the time and have conversations with me. I needed a teacher who was willing to take time to love me, care for me, and nurture me.
We need to be careful in the tone we take. I think that John Piper does a fantastic job of this. At his conference this year he spent some time addressing post-moderens. One of the first things that he said before launching into his defense of propositions and truth was to spend sometime letting those who disagree with him that he loves them. He talked about his son and how there was a period where his son was not at a place where Piper wanted him to be. He longed for his son to further along in the faith than he was, but he still loved his son deeply.
Let’s make sure that we try to frame our discussions with love, with humility, with care, with wisdom, and with an attempt to bring those who claim they love Christ (I don’t think you would find a single person in the emerging church who says they don’t love Jesus) into a the Biblical understanding of what it means to love Christ. They have the desire, they have the passion, let’s try and work with them so that we can tell them the truth.
It has been a long war on the truth. It will continue to be a war on the truth. The first question ever asked in the narrative of scripture was a question of what God said. Those in the EC question what God says. Let us remember that there was a time when all of us questioned what God said.
I shared the birth of Christ portions of Sccripture with the church this morning. The narrative is amazing, and wonderful to hear and meditate upon.
An angel comes to Mary and says, “Rejoice, highly favored, the LORD is with you; … Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. … you will conceive … and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS. … God will give Him the throne of His father David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.” Luke 1:28,30-33
An angel also appeared to Joseph and said, ” … do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, …. she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He shall save His people from their sins.” Matt 1:20-21
There’s theology here to expound upon; to explain; to prove; and to propose. There’s doctrine here to “unpack”. And that is so exciting. Because we are learning what the truth is.
An angel did come to Mary from God. Jesus really truly was born of a virgin. He truly will save His people from their sins. What does this mean?
Like Phil said , “you cannot even tell stories without propositions”, and I agree.
John,
John wrote; “That is true, but we need know and should do (more of) that b/c its a Biblical Standard. The Bible def. makes room for those things without sacrificing anything. However, the EMers don’t use those words as the Bible is, but more so as self evident (Postmodernistic) truths.”
I’d like to see you prove that. Because I doubt you can.
John wrote; “I will agree that conservative evangelicalism needs to open its arm to all sinners and give to Gospel unconditionally ~ a very Biblical precedence * See the difference?”
I was not talking about opening arms to all sinners. I was talking about the specifics of how one does that socially and practically, which includes characteristics of being pragmatic, inclusivistic, etc. To simply say, “oh well, we welcome all sinners,” does not suffice as an answer. In fact that answer does not answer anything.
John wrote; “First I think that is an unfair characterization, just like Jonathan Edwards was just a grumpy, stern, people hater, with a mean God. Conservative Evangelicalism seems that way only b/c that is where it is most attacked, so the reply you receive is on those subjects.”
It’s exponentially more unfair if Johnson and MacArthur think they can cover the even broader scope of the ECM with just 5 or 6 brief blog posts. But let’s save this as a peripheral comment. The fact is, Johnson has not really said anything worthwhile in his statement. As I’ve said, Scripture is by majority narrative and storytelling. This is what the ECM does well and what the postmodern world is wired to. This is where conservative evangelicalism has failed to contextualize in such a scenario. By majority, it just does not connect to the minds of our generation.
John wrote; “The other half of it is never mentioned which is too bad.”
There are enormous things Johnson and MacArthur are not addressing here. That’s too bad.
John wrote; “And trust me, I’ve never seen a “systematically theologized” man not know the narratives inside out, but I’ve sure seen a lot people who know the narratives have no clue what those very stories mean…”
I’m not talking about whether or not one knows the narratives. I’m talking about whether or not they can synthesize it in our contemporary age in its release. Most conservative evangelicals simply do not utilize their God-given creativity to accomplish it. You need to understand that the mode of communication in the ECM is not the problem. You just think it is because Johnson or MacArthur says so.
Tim,
Tim wrote; “There is nothing wrong with being dogmatic.”
Did I ever say there’s something wrong with being dogmatic?
Tim wrote; “They have the desire, they have the passion, let’s try and work with them so that we can tell them the truth.”
There is much you can learn from the ECM. Do not be so presumptuous to think that conservative evangelicalism has everything figured out. The ECM has lots of strengths in it. This is something even Carson cannot deny.
Tim wrote; “It has been a long war on the truth. It will continue to be a war on the truth. The first question ever asked in the narrative of scripture was a question of what God said. Those in the EC question what God says. Let us remember that there was a time when all of us questioned what God said.”
No one in the ECM will deny that Truth is important. In fact some in it and very Orthodox in their understanding. However again, you are simply stating rhetoric and not addressing the issue at all. What is admirable about the EC is that those questions are even being asked and addressed and that there is authenticity in those questions. All it takes for you is to simply listen.
donsands wrote; “Like Phil said , “you cannot even tell stories without propositions”, and I agree.”
The EC does not deny the crucial importance of proposition. They just have a different perspective on how the proposition is stated. For example, when Jesus told His parables, He rarely expounded on them except by saying such things in the preface, “The Kingdom of God is like…” Conservative Evangelicalism has a certain mode of communication with their language, and the ECM finds it obselote. (And there is a big ring of truth to that)
Isn’t it Piper that always says that we always need to find new language worthy of God? Well, he isn’t really speaking to the EC when he says that.
albert,
Don’t you think the Lord expounded on Matthew’s & Mark’s Gospels by chosing Paul to write all His Epistles. And John later wrote his four epistles to be read and studied. As well as Jude’s and Peter’s and James.
All these sacred epistles to me are the Lord’s way of explaining and expounding on His parables.
Just a thought.
donsands,
You will never find anything I wrote that says that exposition is not necessary. But rather take what I have said so far on its own terms.
What Johnson was arguing in that statement is very poorly asserted. Counter-arguments can easily be given to cast them aside.
To me the whole emergent thing sounds goofy. Sorry for being such a simpleton, but really, Christianity is approached, Jesus said, as little children. We are to be simple in faith and belief. This whole emergent thing sounds like nothing more than Satan questioning God’s word in the Garden of Eden. When Brian McLaren calls the cross of Jesus Christ “propaganda”, that’s someone I’m not going to trust in any way, shape, or form. Jesus Christ and His church has done fine for 2,000 years without Brian McLaren and Rob Bell. We didn’t need them before and we don’t need them now, not if they’re just going to be heresy fountains.
Albert wrote; “Scripture is by majority narrative and storytelling.”
Ok, that is true, but those narratives and stories are powerless without the underlying theologies that are systematized through careful study. The jewels hidden beneath the ground make the plot of land so much more valuable. If you take a story at face value it may make you cry or even come back for more, but if you fail to understand the essential and propositional truth it surrounds, you walk away empty handed. I feel that Phil has appropriately and respectfully communicated valuable info about the ECM. To say; “The fact is, Johnson has not really said anything worthwhile in his statement” is proposterous. If he has lied about any of the obvious facts about the ECM, then say so, and back up your claim, but don’t come with a belittling statement that what he is saying is empty.
Here are the true and simple facts about the ECM:
1. They are post modernists.
2. They question established and proven doctrine.
3. They would rather “live” the gospel than “speak” (not that living it is wrong, it’s just absurd to think that someone is going to get saved just because you live right without actually having to “preach” the gospel like Jesus commanded -Mark 16:15).
4. No one can really explain what it is they absolutely believe, because ultimately they tend to cringe at absolutes.
If that was the only problems with the ECM, that would be enough to question them.
[...] Introducing the ECM (Part 4) [...]
Some thoughts on this article.
1. The focus on narration instead of systematic theology is an important part of the ec, just as the author point out. He then goes on to say that the Bible also contains didactic material. I know of no EC person who would challenge that statement. The focus on narration is an alternative path that I would say is followed in order to understand more of truth rather than less. Generations of evangelicals have been fostered in a way of reading that seek to extract the propositions of scripture – we have used the Bible as the raw material of systematic theology. I would also say that shifting focus from proposition to narration makes us shift focus from Romans to the Gospels, from propositions about Christ to Christ himself.
2. Under point four the author discusses the ecs relationship to truth. I find his toughts unclear. I like the quote by Mohler;”while truth is always more than propositional, it is never less”. I would say this is the whole point of the ec problem with the evangelical reduction of scripture to propositions. But then the author goes on and says that anyone thinking like this has totally given up on logic. Does that include Mohler? Lets get this straight: As an ec type person I don´t stop writing this text suddenly because I get serious doubt about the existance of my computer. The authors type of argument is not about “faith seeking understanding” but an unwillingness to try to understand the counterpart, and instead resorting to namecalling and misrepresentaion of the ec. I find this deeply offending, and it doesn´t get any more true by being oft repeated. The focus on narration and our calling into question the modern version of theology (be it liberal or conservative) does not leave us with anything less than truth, but more. It is a hunger for Truth himself that drives us. The outcome is not anything less than truth, but a more balanced, biblically balanced one. Therefore we want to be informed by the whole testimony of scripture and we allow truth to stay in tension, where it is found in that way. We don´t feel the need of treating scripture as an eqation that needs to be solved, if the eqation in itself gives a clearer picture of who Truth is. The question, for instance, of how one gets saved will be answered much in the same way as any evangelical would answer it (by grace, through faith, into a relationship with God), but it would also include discipleship as an integral part (saved into a community testifying to a future hope) it would at the same time be reminding of the thief at the cross that did none of the stuff we would expect in a salvation moment as a checks and balances.
3. In answer to the authors point five I want to point to my point one in my comment to the previous article. Alan Roxburgh, in a lecture I attended, told a story about a sociologist who asked a number of students what culture they beloned to. The asian-american students would name their culture as an asian-american one, including nation of birth, collective identity in the states, etc. African americans woyld say that they belonged to a african american culture, they could specify different cultures within that wider culture and point to their place in the whole. The white student would call themselves “human”, or “american” or a “citizen of the world”. By this story Roxburgh concluded that it is only those who belong to the majority culture who can think themselves to be culturally neutral. I find the authors self labeling largely unsatisfying. He clearly operates with the notion that the ec is postmodernist, that they try to pin him down as a modernist, that he himself is critical of modernism and therefore can´t be one. Then, what is he? Noone and nothing exists apart from culture, not even Jesus. Being incarnated he stepped into a specific culture among a specific people speaking a specific language at a specific time in history. being unaware if ones own culture is a sure way of misrepresenting truth in akk ways possible: