Product Description

A cross-section of five frontline leaders in the controversial emerging church movement shed informative light on their beliefs and basic message to help us understand whether it’s all about new methods or a new message or both.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #25699 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

From the Back Cover
What are the beliefs of the new movement known as the emerging church? In thought-provoking debate, prominent emerging leaders John Burke, Mark Driscoll, Dan Kimball, Doug Pagitt, and Karen Ward discuss their sometimes controversial views under the editorship of author and educator Robert Webber. Hear what they say about their views of Scripture, Christ, the atonement, other world religions, and other important doctrines, so you can come to your own conclusions about the emerging church.

About the Author
Robert Webber was Myers Professor of Ministry at Northern Seminary in Lombard, Illinois; president of the Institute for Worship Studies, a long-distance graduate school located in Orange Park, Florida; and professor of theology emeritus at Wheaton College. He was the author of more than forty books including the Ancient-Future Faith series published by Baker Books.

Doug Pagitt (BA Bethel College, MA Bethel Seminary) is pastor of Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis. He is part of the leadership of Emergent: a generative friendship among missional Christian leaders. Doug is married to Shelley and they are parents of four children, and is author of Preaching Re-Imagined, Church Re-Imagined, and BodyPrayer.

Dan Kimball is the author of several books, including Emerging Worship, The Emerging Church, and, They Like Jesus, but Not the Church. He’s a pastor at Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, California, a missional church designed for the emerging, post-Christian culture. Dan and his wife, Becky, have two daughters, Claire and Katie, and a rusty 1966 Ford Mustang.

John Burke and his wife, Kathy, founded Gateway Church in Austin, Texas, in 1998. Since then, Gateway has grown to over 3,000 people, 70 percent of whom are in their twenties and thirties, and consists mostly of unchurched people who began actively following Christ at Gateway. Burke is also the author of No Perfect People Allowed: Creating a Come-as-You-Are Culture in the Church.

Mark Driscoll is one of the 50 most influential pastors in America, and the founder of Mars Hill Church in Seattle (www.marshillchurch.org), the Paradox Theater, and the Acts 29 Network which has planted scores of churches. Mark is the author of The Radical Reformission: Reaching Out Without Selling Out. He speaks extensively around the country, has lectured at a number of seminaries, and has had wide media exposure ranging from NPR’s All Things Considered to the 700 Club, and from Leadership journal to Mother Jones magazine. He’s a staff religion writer for the Seattle Times. Along with his wife and children, Mark lives in Seattle.

Customer Reviews

Outstanding read!
Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches - Five Perspectives is a book edited by Robert Webber that contains theological essays by five leaders of the emerging church. Those of you who have any familiarity with the emerging church know how difficult it is to pin down anything, so this book provides a little glimpse into the theology of a few successful emerging churches.

There are five essays, each followed by responses by the other four authors. The overwhelming tone of this book is one of friendship and respect. Even when there are radically different views the responses provide a glimpse of how I believe God intended us to work through these things. There is no shouting, no condemning, there is love and respect. It is wonderful to behold.

There were a few quotes from Dan Kimball that I thought were worth sharing about the beliefs of the emerging church:

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If we are only trying to be "relevant" (a word churches love to use), by adding candles and coffee, using art in worship, and playing hip music, this is not good. Those are only surface fixes. If we merely tweak the surface level of things, we are missing the whole point of cultural change and what the emerging church is about. That is only a re-fluffing of the pillows. I believe true emerging churches must go deep within, and from the inside out, rethink, reshape, and revalue how we go about everything as culture changes. We must rethink leadership, church structure, the role of a pastor, spiritual formation, how community is lived out, how evangelism is done, how we express our worship etc.

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But nevertheless, the emerging church needs to revere, teach, respect, discuss, and study the Bible. I think all the more in our emerging culture, do we need to create a culture of hungering for the Scriptures.

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I really like what Dan Kimball had to say. I think he "nailed it" with regards to some of the common misconceptions about the emerging church (e.g. it's all about worship style). I also found this line from Webber's conclusion very intriguing:

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First, these leaders remind us that we live in a new world. This assertion doesn't mean that emergents feel the old modern world is completely gone. They acknowledge we live in two worlds-the modern and postmodern. What they ask of us is to get ready for the new world, to recognize that we live in a time of transition, where the old Christendom is dying and the new postmodern world is emerging...the church is in a new missional setting.

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I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in understanding the theology of the emerging church. Although I certainly disagree with some of the points these guys make (as do the other authors in the book), I found the overall tone and "feel" of this book to be very Christ-like and inspiring. God is doing great things with the emerging church. We need to praise Him for raising up leaders like the five essayists in this book and pray for more like them to lead the next generation of the church.

Joel

a conversation between four persons with an interlocutor
This book is simply not a conversation (at least not for one of the participants). Further, Mark Driscoll doesn't seem to be listening to any of the other people who contribute to this book.

Driscoll's chapter seems to be a recycled piece of propaganda. His positions are "backed" by scripture references over 200 for his 15 pages. He advocates a "Biblicist" tradition that reads as a very reformed position (with the possible exception of a modified Arminianism or Wesleyanism). Driscoll's responses to the other person's chapters are especially revealing as he labels the other person's positions and then rejects them. For example he dismisses Karen Ward as the pastor of an "average" church and then even questions here leadership because of her gender. He mentions Dan Kimball's cool hair. I found Driscoll's "contribution" to the book to be of very little value. Further, he doesn't seem to be engaged in the emergent conversation unless you count the fact that he recommends Leslie Newbigin and Gruder's books on his website.

John Burke's chapter speaks of the messiness of ministry. He advocates a place where people are accepted and engaged by persons who attempt to incarnate Jesus.

Dan Kimball moves to explain how he moved from being Dispensationalist position to a missional theology. This missional theology is much more mysterious and adventurous than a mathematical puzzle.

Doug Pagitt seeks a theology which is embodied. This theology must be contextual and he argues for thinking in relational terms. I suppose that this chapter aligns most closely with what I think of when it comes to the emergent church.

Karen Ward takes the local theology of the "apostles" of the "Church of the Apostles" located in Seattle. She advocates a communal listening to the Scriptures from the Revised Common Lectionary. Her chapter is an ad hoc correlation of comments from the theological soup of her congregation.

The Theologianhood Of The Believer...
...is what emerging churches are about, at least according to this book (with the exception of Mark Driscoll's contributions). I say "contributions" because each of the five contributors not only writes a chapter of his/her own, but responds to each of the chapters by the other contributors. So by the time you've finished the parts written by the contributors, you have a pretty good idea of what the contributors are thinking about things.

In addition, this book contains some context for the conversations of the contributors, provided at the beginning and end by evangelical theologian Robert Webber. He contends American evangelical Christianity is at the beginning of the fourth of four roughly twenty-year cycles, seeking how to interact with a post-Christian, neo-pagan culture, finding that the questions to which they have answers aren't being asked anymore.

The placement of the names on the cover is a pretty accurate reflection of where the contributors are theologically. The only change I would make is swapping Karen Ward and Doug Pagitt.

Each of the five contributors have different diagnoses of the problems with American evangelical Christianity in the early 21st century:

Mark Driscoll says the problem is watering down the truth of Scripture, giving Jesus a makeover to make him more attractive to our culture. His prescription is to unapologetically present the message of Jesus as told by an authoritative Scripture. As I read his words, I remembered Bible teacher J. Vernon McGee saying "The chief sin of the church is ignorance of the word of God."

John Burke says the problem is that American Christians are both hypocritical, unchanged in their character and behavior, and judgemental, believing they have a monopoly on truth. His prescription is to invite people to come as they are, recognizing it might take a while for changes in people to take place.

Dan Kimball says the problem is that we're still stuck with those dispensational end-time charts, and scared that someone is going to ask a question to which we don't know the answer. His prescription is to create a worshipping community of missional theologians, people who are well-versed in the study of the nature of God, and inquiring into religious questions.

Doug Pagitt says the problem is any number of assumptions about the way we do theology, an unwillingness to address new questions raised by scientific advances, and an unwillingness to think about the increasing rate of cultural change. His prescription is to challenge these assumptions and address new cultural realities.

Karen Ward says the problem is the modern pastor-as-CEO model. Her prescription is an apprentice model of discipleship, distributing as much of the mentoring as possible. Her prescription also involves a metaphor of theology as the cooking of tasty, nutritious food, as opposed to the metaphor of theology as architecture.

Robert Webber provides a helpful summary of the contributions in his conclusion section. In my opinion, Webber's Appendix 2, "What is the Ancient-Future Vision?" and Appendix 3, "A Call to an Ancient Evangelical Future" should have been placed immediately after the conclusion section, because Webber just wasn't finished commenting. It is unfortunate that some readers of this book won't read these parts because of where they are placed.

I considered my complaints about the placement of names on the cover, and the placements of the appendices to be insufficient to take the fifth star away from a revealing book about American evangelical Christians in the early 21st century.

Full Disclosure: I attend Solomon's Porch in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Doug Pagitt, one of the contributors, is my pastor.