Regrettably, in the hands of these emergent evangelicals it is not postmodernism that is poured through the sifter of historic orthodox Christianity—but just the opposite. As a result, what comes out bears hardly any resemblance to the faith once and for all delivered to the saints. As I alluded to earlier, Robert Webber celebrated the evangelical megashift and its association with Open-view Theism. Following Olson in his disdain for the Old Princeton hegemony, Brian McLaren, who is considered the leading voice in emergent circles, throws disdain on the doctrines of biblical inerrancy and penal substitutionary atonement. McLaren, in Fuller seminary’s Theology, Notes, and News, penned a piece entitled, “A Radical Rethinking of Our Evangelistic Strategy” where, in reference to Mark Baker, Joel Green,18 and N. T. Wright, he declared,

“Bona fide evangelicals are suggesting that the gospel is not atonement-centered, or, at least, not penal-substitutionary-atonement-centered. . . . This suggestion represents a Copernican revolution for Western Christianity, in both its conservative Catholic and Protestant forms. It may be judged erroneous—and likely will be judged so by many readers of this paper—but even those who dismiss it would be wise to consider the possibility that there is at least some small grain of truth to these ruminations on the nature and center of the gospel. A lot is at stake either way. . . . For reasons I have detailed elsewhere, I have put my eggs in the basket that suggests we need to rethink our understanding of the gospel—both for the sake of faithfulness to Holy Scripture, and for the sake of mission in the emerging postmodern culture.”¹⁹

The fact that McLaren’s remarks appeared in a publication from Fuller Theological Seminary does not automatically imply the seminary’s endorsement. Following on the heels of this came the impressive contributions from two Fuller professors, James E. Bradley, professor of church history, and Seyoon Kim, professor of New Testament. Both weighed in and argued that this doctrine is at the heart of the nature of the atonement and certainly was not the private opinion of the Old Princeton Theology.²⁰ Not surprisingly, and right on cue, McLaren has gone on record denying biblical inerrancy, especially as it was framed by Old Princeton.

Like the doctrine of penal substitution, the doctrine of biblical inerrancy is also the object of this group’s billingsgate. Under the banner of postmodernism with its new and improved way of doing theology, a growing number of professing evangelicals now confidently proclaim that the doctrine has long since outlived its usefulness and must be discarded lest we incur the contempt of thoughtful people everywhere.²¹

As striking as are the parallels between the post-conservatives/emergents to Shleiermacher, an even more compelling counterpart is apparent in the nineteenth-century Old Testament scholar and critic of Old Princeton, Charles A. Briggs. Like Olson, Briggs complained of the pervasive hegemony that Old Princeton exercised over conservative Presbyterianism. To begin with the most obvious, Briggs’s overt rejection of the Old Princeton understanding of inerrancy has a wide following among professed evangelicals today. One might even suggest that it is the majority view.²² But there are other areas where Briggs’s perspective would find safe haven as well. The late Stanley Grenz is a prime example. Grenz specifically contrasted his view of Scripture with that of Warfield,²³ and blamed the Old Princeton theology for making propositional truth the touchstone for theology as over against pietism’s (Grenz called it “classic evangelicalism”) emphasis on having a relationship with God.²⁴ Grenz also made a very Briggs-like shift by following the lead of Schleiermacher in positing three sources or norms for theology: Scripture, tradition, and culture.²⁵ Briggs so firmly endorsed this idea that he devoted a book to the subject: The Bible, the Church, and the Reason.²⁶ Elsewhere, Briggs wrote: