Being a formerly "conservative" evangelical myself, I take special interest in the tendencies of the growing tribe of mostly young white males who have the same, or a similar, history. Many call themselves "emergents," which indicates the narrative they like to tell about themselves: they "emerged" from something, and are, perhaps, still moving away from it; but to what?
The problem, it seems to me, is that what they typically take with them from conservative evangelicalism (hereafter "CE") is as important, if not more so, than what they leave behind. And these aspects of CE are not, in my view, positive aspects. Their new found liberalism rests on a very similar foundation to their old conservatism.
This foundation has three interconnected aspects. The first aspect shared in common between both CE and this "emerging" liberal evangelicalism (hereafter "LE") is anti-intellectualism. This claim will, no doubt, be surprising to many, since often the favored claim or assumption is that the "emergence" is based, in part at least, on a new openness to, and acquisition of, scholarly and scientific knowledge. However, I think the tendency toward anti-intellectualism is still prevalent even in and beyond this emergence. To explain this, it is necessary to distinguish between two similar types of anti-intellectualism. The first, obviously more prevalent in conservative circles (including CE) is the "I don't need no book larnin'!" type. Adherents of this type take pride in not being one of those stuffy intellectual types, openly or secretly relishing in the belief that knowledge, so sought-after by these intellectuals, is actually gained by the simple-minded wisdom they themselves exhibit. But there is a second type of anti-intellectualism, more subtle but nonetheless real. Adherents of this type like to pride themselves on joining the ranks of the intelligentsia--or perhaps only wisely appropriating the results of their efforts--without having to do any difficult work themselves. They read one book and presume suddenly to know what "the experts" or "scholars" think about a topic. Never mind that there may be significant disagreements even among the experts. Never mind that the position taken by the author of the book in question may be a minority opinion in the guild.
Both types of anti-intellectualism are basically forms of pride. This is why questioning the knowledge of either type of evangelical will get the same sort of huffy response. Not, "Oh, that's interesting; I haven't thought about that!" Rather, you get, "What do you know anyway?" Here we arrive at the second, related common aspect of CE and LE: a supremely self-confident bravado toward just about any kind of subject matter. Like all of us, they come to a subject matter with presuppositions. What sets them apart is the fact that no amount of investigation can get them to question these presuppositions in any depth. Granted, when an adherent to CE moves toward LE, some, at least, of the presuppositions do change, and undoubtedly this happens in connection with some measure of encounter with the subject matter or thought about it. But in general, this tends to happen at a very shallow level. Again, reading one book might overthrow an entire worldview and replace it with another. What they can't stand is the difficult, painful process of re-thinking a particular topic and its relation to their whole way of thinking in an integrative manner. So they "convert" quickly from one to the other (usually from CE to LE), so as not to have to spend any significant time studying or asking any questions.
Finally, there is the aspect (again, deeply related to the other two) of tending toward membership in one or another "in" group. Let's not be too hard on this tendency; after all, converting away from CE often involves many difficulties with parents, other family members, and/or friends. CE is often found in its own kind of in groups, forming quite unhealthy levels of enforced conformity. As bad as this is, it seems to be somewhat addictive. Finding another such group is understandably a felt need when one breaks with one of them. In these groups, one rarely or never has to question one's presuppositions, or to tolerate it when someone else questions them. The group feeds off of and reinforces the aforementioned bravado. After all, when all of one's peers think the same thing, then why look into the matter any more? And this brings us back to anti-intellectualism. This final tendency is well-illustrated by this joke:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cGB7RnjdLI
What CE and LE have in common, in summary, is a tendency to think about the doctrines of the faith, not with them. It is their underlying, unquestioned, liberal or conservative ideology which constitutes the perspective from which they consider the Christian faith. Admittedly, adherents of LE do seem to realize this to some extent. Formerly, as adherents of CE, they had thought that their way of thinking simply was Christianity, read more or less directly from the Bible. Moving toward LE, they find that this is not the case. But what to do once this realization comes? Simply reject CE (in favor of....?), because it is unaware of its own contingency? But this, it seems to me, is no solution, just a (probably partial) recognition of the problem. A solution can only be found in sustained confrontation with the subject matter of the faith, in such a way as to discover not only its superficial contents but also its deeper, underlying unity. But to do this would mean to reject CE at a much deeper level than "emergents" typically wish to reject it. It means committing oneself to the hard intellectual work, with patience and humility, and in such a way as to require that one learn to be in conflicted and conflictual community with others.
