Yesterday, in the mail, quite earlier than I expected, I received a book which I ordered last Friday: D.A. Carson's Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church. Having read (as a few of my last posts will bear witness) Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christian, I decided that I wanted to study this 'emerging church movement' in some more depth. I looked for a good book on the subject, and ran across this one by Carson, who is an author that I have used before in a New Testament studies context. I have enjoyed his work, and agree with much of what he says, so I decided to get this book. So far, I have not been disappointed.
There is an article here which is a summary (a very brief summary) of what he says in this book, but the book fleshes it out much more. So far I have read the first three chapters, so I won't get into a discussion of what he says quite yet, but I will say that I think he is fair in his assessment. He realizes that while there are things that we must be cautious about concerning the emerging church, or even reject, there are also things that we can learn.
The biggest problem with a discussion of the emerging church is that the movement is as varied and misunderstood as postmodernism itself, which the emerging church movement is dedicated to. In order to come to an idea of what 'the emerging church' is, one has to get an idea of what each emerging church is like, and to generalize using as much facts as one can get. I am planning on writing a chapel on the topic for the College, so I will post that when it is done, rather than try to wax all eloquent now without having done enough research.
Carson does, however, raise the interesting point (which was also a discussion among Redeemer University College professors, if I remember correctly) as to whether postmodernism is actually post-modernism, i.e. a movement unto itself, or simply the development of late modernism. Because postmodernism is so dependent on modernism and is, essentially, a reaction to developments of early modernism, some scholars have come to the conclusion that it is not a movement unto itself, but is simply a development of the modernism which it wants to reject. Carson puts it this way: "it is difficult to imagine postmodernism without modernism," and gives the image of a child and parent. While this can be true of any cultural movement (nothing develops in a vacuum), the relationship between modernism and postmodernism is one of protest and rejection--postmodernism is, for now, defined by what it isn't, and what it rejects from modernism. Which is also a problem with the emerging church, but I will get more into that in a later post.
At any rate, this book is giving me much to think about, which is exactly what I don't need right now, since none of what I am thinking about is terribly useful in regards to the classes that I am in now at the College. Not even Dogmatics, which is a shame, but we are now 'discussing' regeneration, which is an interesting and always timely topic in itself, so I can live with that.
When I am more confident with my knowledge of the emerging church (if ever), I will post more. Hopefully my chapel on this topic works (it's next Friday, the 19th), so I can post that. at least there is one outlet for my intellectual creativity...
There is an article here which is a summary (a very brief summary) of what he says in this book, but the book fleshes it out much more. So far I have read the first three chapters, so I won't get into a discussion of what he says quite yet, but I will say that I think he is fair in his assessment. He realizes that while there are things that we must be cautious about concerning the emerging church, or even reject, there are also things that we can learn.
The biggest problem with a discussion of the emerging church is that the movement is as varied and misunderstood as postmodernism itself, which the emerging church movement is dedicated to. In order to come to an idea of what 'the emerging church' is, one has to get an idea of what each emerging church is like, and to generalize using as much facts as one can get. I am planning on writing a chapel on the topic for the College, so I will post that when it is done, rather than try to wax all eloquent now without having done enough research.
Carson does, however, raise the interesting point (which was also a discussion among Redeemer University College professors, if I remember correctly) as to whether postmodernism is actually post-modernism, i.e. a movement unto itself, or simply the development of late modernism. Because postmodernism is so dependent on modernism and is, essentially, a reaction to developments of early modernism, some scholars have come to the conclusion that it is not a movement unto itself, but is simply a development of the modernism which it wants to reject. Carson puts it this way: "it is difficult to imagine postmodernism without modernism," and gives the image of a child and parent. While this can be true of any cultural movement (nothing develops in a vacuum), the relationship between modernism and postmodernism is one of protest and rejection--postmodernism is, for now, defined by what it isn't, and what it rejects from modernism. Which is also a problem with the emerging church, but I will get more into that in a later post.
At any rate, this book is giving me much to think about, which is exactly what I don't need right now, since none of what I am thinking about is terribly useful in regards to the classes that I am in now at the College. Not even Dogmatics, which is a shame, but we are now 'discussing' regeneration, which is an interesting and always timely topic in itself, so I can live with that.
When I am more confident with my knowledge of the emerging church (if ever), I will post more. Hopefully my chapel on this topic works (it's next Friday, the 19th), so I can post that. at least there is one outlet for my intellectual creativity...
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