This is not a formal book review. I wrote this after reflecting on the book -- jotting down my notes and grouping them into categories. Many of my thoughts are simply first impressions. Many times my musings only make sense if you have the book opened to the page to which I am referring. Rather than waiting to write a formal response down the road, I thought I would put forth my ideas as a way to engage dialog.
I appreciate Dr. Carson's efforts at putting forth a book covering this moving target of a movement. I think we will all be the better for the discussions it produces. Without further ado...
D.A. Carson, Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church: Understanding a Movement and Its Implications.
Introduction
Becoming Conversant addresses a movement that is less than a decade old in the US, and almost double that for the UK. In the UK, emerging congregations exist primarily within Anglican churches, while in the US emerging churches they take the form of new church plants that may or may not retain their denominational affiliation. Carson takes on quite an intimidating task, seeking to understand such a disparate movement.
I appreciate how Carson (45) begins to list many of the strengths of the movement in regard to culture, authenticity, social location, and assessing tradition. I do believe he misses many of the strengths of the movement – such as a renewed look at the life of Jesus and the reign of God, the transformation of secular space, and renewed forms of community, and the list can go on. However, I are grateful that Carson does not find the entire movement aberrant.
Method
At the outset, I must say that the methodological approach in Becoming Conversant falls short, if the goal is to understand the Emerging Church movement in its entirety. The book does not feature interviews with Emerging Church leaders nor were Emerging Churches observed in any systematic way. Focus groups were not created nor were case-studies performed. Indeed, a few of the books written by those within Emerging Church circles were read and discussed. However, with such a small sample of books reviewed, I think it would be impossible to come to understand the Emerging Church movement.
If the goal of Becoming Conversant was simply to survey those authors who influence the Emerging Church, or those who influence the movement epistemologically, the right books were not selected. The attention on Brian McClaren plus a small number of other authors such as Spencer Burke, Steve Chalke, Dan Kimball, Dave Tomlinson distorts the discussion because these authors are not working to create an epistemology for the emerging church. My research among more than one hundred emerging church leaders indicates that other authors have had significant impact on emerging church thinking, authors such as Jack Caputo, Stanley Hauerwas, Alasdair MacIntyre, Nancey Murphy, Henry Nouwen, Miroslav Volf, Dallas Willard, N.T. Wright, and John Howard Yoder to start. Indeed, the books Becoming Conversant lists are significant, but just as with the lack of empirical research, it represents an anecdotal perspective on the emerging church.
What are the consequences of such a reading? Becoming Conversant seems to conflate Emergent with Emerging Church, and the Emerging Church is much bigger than Emergent (87)...In addition, to say that emerging church leaders come from intensely conservative or fundamentalist backgrounds is an overstatement (85). What I would say is that they have fairly solid conservative evangelical roots, representing a broad evangelical spectrum. In the UK the leaders were raised within the charismatic movements, and often they are ‘vicars kids’. In the US, emerging church leaders hail from a fairly broad spectrum, not only from the movements of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s (Calvary Chapel, Vineyard, Purpose-Driven, and Seeker movements), but mainline denominations as well. Carson did not ‘triangulate’ his research – he read a few books, but did not get at any other data to confirm deny his research. However, not all Carson writes is problematic.
On Modernity
Carson is right to critique the hype – postmodernity does not equate to utopia (83), it is simply another fallen culture and not the answer – it must be embraced and critiqued by the followers of Jesus, just as with any culture.
Becoming Conversant decries that the Emerging Church says positive things about all “isms” except modernity (73). My question is, does modernity need advocates? Its many benefits are implicit to all Westerners. It has been the powerful social force in the world for hundreds of years. A minority opinion does not need to praise the status quo; instead, the question should be, are the insights and protests from the margins valid?
Becoming Conversant suggests that Emerging Churches should honor modern Christians with their emphasis on truth, who sought to communicate the gospel in their time, that Emerging Churches should be grateful for the contributions modern Christians have made (65). Honestly, in my many conversations with emerging church leaders, I rarely hear emerging church people disrespecting modern Christians. To be sure, it is not only Emerging Churches who have difficulty controlling their tongue about others who practice their faith differently.
Carson criticizes the tone of the argument some have had against modernity (44). I would encourage that we give emerging leaders some space. They are working out a type of Christianity that is new, and this is a process of dismantling what went on before, and it might take a few years or so to make this transition. They should not be attacked for this liminal stage – it is part of an extremely vital task – mission within post-Christendom is a new process in church history, and there are not a lot of forerunners in this regard.
It is modernists who critique particular traditions, not postmodernists, I don’t believe Carson is on solid ground here. (70)
Carson critiques McLaren’s view of the modern West, that because of its ‘absolute’ perspective on reality, the West marginalized all others and sought domination (70). Carson maintains that McLaren paints with large brushstrokes. However, both McLaren and Carson are advocating mainstream positions held within the academy, and neither are marginal positions. For those who study social theory, McLaren’s interpretation is probably more in the mainstream than is Carson's, so to paint McLaren as overstating things is well, an overstatement.
Culture in General
I find that Becoming Conversant presents a truncated view of culture – Carson asks “is there at least some danger that what is being advocated is not so much a new kind of Christian in a new emerging church, but a church that is so submerging itself in the culture that it risks hopeless compromise?” (44). This statement is inherently problematic. All of us are completely submerged in our various cultures, and we cannot stand outside of culture. Indeed, the church is always 100 % within culture. The question becomes not how much culture the church ought to adopt – but how to glorify God within that culture. By looking to create indigenous postmodern communities, Emerging Churches are not fighting the Bible, but simply other cultural expressions of the Christian faith (be it 1950s, the 1600s, or even earlier). There are many 1950s expression of church that may still make sense to those who have been raised in that environment. However, missionaries think in terms of cultures – how to advocate for a people movement within this other culture? Why should one who lives in postmodern culture have to change cultures, to find God? I teach in the School of Intercultural Studies, founded by Donald McGavran. He taught that one should not have to change cultures to find God. He was speaking most specifically about his own Indian context, where, to become a Christian, one needed to leave his or her culture, become a Western individualist, and join the mission station, to find God. Our Western churches do many of the same things to the spiritual searchers in our culture. They must become 1950s businessmen with 16th century theology to find God. McGavran decried such barriers. Emerging Churches, like McGavran, do not want to extract people from their culture, but seek to indwell the gospel within that culture.
Carson has only heard three or four Africans expound on Romans well – although they do narratives quite well. So, one needs to become modern and of European descent to understand parts of Scripture? I feel this is to impose a certain reading on Scripture that is mistaken at best and imperialistic at its worst. Again, isn’t it possible that a narrative reading of Romans might yield insights that a modernist would not receive from the text? Changing cultures in order to read scripture aright seems naive and ethnocentric. (67)
We need to accept the givenness of a culture (126) – we cannot choose the culture we are born in! Our culture shifted from text-based to image-based over a hundred years ago. To level a critique against image-based culture is futile. It is the same futility that some have sought to change oral-based cultures in order to communicate the gospel. The Incarnation teaches us to go to their culture, not demand that cultural changes occur for some to find God.
Postmodern Culture
What I mean by postmodern culture, Carson refers to these as postmodern correlatives (98). Carson’s fears of postmodern correlatives are entirely one-sided (98). I find the fear of syncretism misplaced. The modern church was highly syncretistic. Secularization was invented in modernity, and the modern church succumbed, in fact, allowed for secularization’s possibility. Indeed, the Bible as a solely print-based medium may have seen better days – but people still communicate texts, the church simply needs to be more creative in creating indigenous forms of communication for God’s Word. The popularity of New Spiritualities is due in part to the secular form the church has adopted. Indeed, the church has much to learn from the ways these new spiritualities form their way of life. Globalization means that I need to take our missional mandate seriously and the end of the practice of valorizing one culture over another.
Carson refers to a loss of objective morality with postmodernity (101) – however, we must ask, did the objective morality of modernity lead to a virtuous society? One that resembled the Sermon the Mount? In reference to evangelism (101), if our evangelism is thought to be superior – we are not evangelizing properly, and to embody the faith first is not necessarily second best – it is how many Christian communities have grown throughout history.
With Carson, I agree that hard categories, in both modernity and postmodernity are fine in argument but fuzzy in practice (121).
Carson has seen little critique on postmodernity because emerging church people see it as a culture, not necessarily an area of debate (125). It is the water we swim in – it just is. I need to work out ways to worship God within this culture – not fight it, stand against it, etc. Missionaries transform cultures from within, after long periods of listening and serving, not from without, through critique.
Philosophy
Carson writes that the majority view in the Emerging Church of the shift of modernity to postmodernity is epistemology – how we know things – representing a shift from foundationalist to non-foundationalist thinking. However, a primary focus in the emerging church is on culture and not on philosophy per se. I rarely hear the word ‘epistemology’ mentioned in Emerging Church circles – when modernity and postmodernity is discussed it is through the lens of culture, of ethics, and not epistemology. For Emerging Churches, just as it is in much of the philosophical literature, ethics and not epistemology is the first philosophy. Again, Carson reduces everything to epistemology (Chapter 3). He is reading everything through that particular lens even though that is not a stated perspective of the participants in the movement. This a modern move, one that places one’s particular cultural interpretation, or set of lenses, above all others.
Missiology
Carson asserts that McLaren and Chalke have abandoned the gospel (186). However, they are simply popularizing and reflecting on the significant conservative scholarship of N.T. Wright and mainstream missiological texts. They have not gone beyond Wright’s assertions of the gospel or the atonement – they are simply making these understandings available to the wider church. And the problem with their mission practice is that they are doing it across the street and not on the other side of the world.
Carson acknowledges that McLaren roots his work in David Bosch’s tome Transforming Mission. Clearly, Bosch’s work may well be the best-selling missiological work ever, and by rooting his work here, McLaren stands in good company. Oddly enough, Carson recalls the missionary efforts of William Carey, Hudson Taylor, and Roland Allen positively (74), and yet emerging church leaders advocate for nothing more than what missionaries have historically advocated, that of creating a “context-based theology”.
Church
Carson laments the hype that the church must change or die as alarmist – but I disagree (83). I have spent considerable time with emerging church leaders in the UK – where 1% of their peers attend church weekly whilst 60% attend dance clubs weekly. They see the situation as nothing less than dire. Most denominations in the UK have forecasted their ‘death date’, so creating indigenous forms of the gospel is not a hobby but completely necessary for it to survive. I see quite promising moves at all levels of the Church of England in response to this crisis. They do not need convincing that the situation is quite serious.
On the flip side, Carson writes that the Emerging Church sounds absolutist (85) – however, from Emerging Church leaders what I hear is ‘this is how we are doing it’, and not ‘this is how everyone ought to do it’...
Carson finds it odd that emerging church leaders do not have a tradition (140). Most US emerging church leaders who go the emerging church route are forced to leave their churches. In the UK this is not the case, emerging church leaders are accepted within the Anglican tent – and increasingly they are encouraged in these moves. In the US, it either leads to church splits, shutdown of the alternative service, new church planting, or all of the above.
Conclusion
I applaud Carson’s efforts to understand the Emerging Church, a highly complex task in itself. Indeed, the movement benefits when scholars such as Carson lend their insights to the service of churches on the ground. Unfortunately, with Becoming Conversant, I do not believe he has given the church an accurate picture of this highly vital and important missional movement.
Carson wants a critique against postmodern culture (36), and indeed, a helpful prophetic word will be issued, but not by him, and not by me. Insightful critiques are made by Christians within a culture who have formed a hermeneutical community around Scripture. They make their own necessary corrections -- where they must embrace and critique their own culture. The outsider or even the missionary’s pet sins rarely hit the target. The cultural outsider can ask the questions and create a dialog, but at the end of the day, the prophetic critique of culture will come from within an indigenous, postmodern Christ-following community.
thanks for the review. it prompted some thoughts about carson's methodology which I've blogged.
look forward to reading more from your blog in the future!!!
Posted by: fernando | May 26, 2005 at 04:52 AM
wow this is long, i think i'll need to revisit this post a few times to fully absorb what you're written here. thanks it's very stimulating~
Posted by: Kitty | May 26, 2005 at 05:52 AM
good stuff written here ...
i find myself resonating with a lot of what is said here ... the interesting thing is ...
I'm Chinese, in Malaysia, and thus Asia.
I'm a pastor in a mainline denomination (Lutheran)
Contextual theology is a must for us .. even though it's an uphill and often confusing, paradoxical struggle but rewarding ...
Missiology is more in the forefront than philosophy for me ...I've been and still am rethinking about "church" for the last 5 years with more focus since "re-planting" the church I'm pastoring right now.
I enjoy reading Brian McLaren & the rest of the people with Emergent and I'm aware of the wider emerging church conversation and yet indeed .. while appreciating how they communicate to a more "popular" audience .. names like Bosch, Newbigin, my teacher Hwa Yung, and many others also occupy my bookshelf .. I found the work done by the Gospel and Culture Network especially helpful.
So, "space" definately is need to see what happens next! Thanks for your post ... hope to check out your book with Eddie Gibbs.
Posted by: Sivin | May 26, 2005 at 08:36 AM
cheers for this post. I read Si Johnston's comments on your forthcoming book, and if this is a foretaste then you'll get at least one sale!
Posted by: Brodie | May 26, 2005 at 08:55 AM
Ryan, Thanks for the time you put into this. I especially liked your last paragraph, and in particular this statement, "Insightful critiques are made by Christians within a culture who have formed a hermeneutical community around Scripture." I think it is a point that can, and should, be adopted by any culture.
Posted by: David | May 26, 2005 at 12:36 PM
great stuff, ryan. i need to go back to my own thoughts and make a link back here- anyone who wants to take an inteligent look at both sides simply MUST read this blog post.
thanks for writing it.
great to hear you talking about McGarvran and you know i am a big fan of Bosch and Roland Allen.
and thanks for picking me up at the LAX airport last month.
Posted by: andrew | May 26, 2005 at 12:45 PM
Thanks Ryan for your reflections on Carson's book, and especially for your comments that validates the significance of the new spiritualities and what they pose back to the church. They do represent the "unpaid bills of the church in praxis and theology", and are from being a fringe item for today's urbanised church.
It is a major contextual missions issue that I keep harping on about. I guess it takes a word from a well-known North America leader to grab people's attention.
Please keep blogging!
Posted by: philjohnson | May 26, 2005 at 05:09 PM
Ryan, thank you for a very thoughtful response. It is excellent having you in the blogosphere.
Doubtful you'd remember me, but we met at Fuller last year during Randy Rolland's class. I'm Tyler Watson's pastor friend who's married to an MD.
Posted by: Bill Ekhardt | May 27, 2005 at 08:02 AM
Ryan,
Great quote about evangelical culture being 1950's business combined with 16th c. theology. Totally descriptive. Perhaps the real weakness of an title like this is the subversive name given to it. Here conversant doesn't mean conversation. It means telling from a position of absolute truth. Carson can do it but all he will achieve is omission from being in a conversation that could well do with his modernist contribution.
Posted by: Andy | May 29, 2005 at 09:17 PM
Appreciate your comments, Ryan. A more appropriate title for the book would have been Being Conservative about the Emerging Church because that, sadly, seems to be what it's about: Conservative Evangelical reservations about the emerging church movement and its leaders. More of my ramblings - for what they're worth - via my link.
Posted by: Phil Groom | May 30, 2005 at 07:29 PM
I think it is unfair to depict Carson as trying to understand the Emerging Church "in its entirety." According to the book title, Carson's goal is "Becoming Conversant," not "Having Been Conversant." Furthermore, to say that "the right books were not selected" and that Carson should be responding to Caputo, Hauerwas, et. al. instead of McLaren et. al. is to miss the fact that McLaren et. al. are the ones popularizing the ideas of the more influential leaders. While thier ideas are responded to in books such as Reclaiming the Center, the way McLaren has framed the issues also needs a response. The proof of this is found in the comment by Andy, who either denies the existence of absolute truth or rejects the notion of absolute certainty (for an explanation of this distinction, click here). Either way, Andy has mischaracterized Carson's position, for saying that Carson's critique is "from a position of absolute truth," Andy either means there is no absolute truth, in which case he is a relativist, or that there is no absolute certainty, in which case he mischaracterizes Carson's position. These false dilemmas are being popularized by McLaren, and no one in the emerging church seems to speak out against this even though Carson has given a legitimate critique of this kind of practice.
Posted by: Timbo | May 30, 2005 at 11:17 PM
Timbo, thanks for the thoughtful post. True, obviously nobody can understand a movement in its entirety. Keep in mind, however, that the subtitle of the book is "understanding a movement and its implications". Can one really understand a movement without interviewing its participants? Without observing their rituals?
Granted, McLaren is highly significant in the Emerging Church scene, and his thoughts warrant engagement by advocates and critics alike. But understanding a key thought leader like McLaren does not equate to an understanding of a social movement such as the Emerging Church, even partially.
If you really want to know my theology, you must see how I live...
Posted by: Ryan Bolger | May 31, 2005 at 10:53 PM
"If you really want to know my theology, you must see how I live..."
Sounds reductivist.
Posted by: Timbo | June 01, 2005 at 03:32 PM
Timbo,
I would say that any theology that is not embodied in some way is just wishful thinking. Our theology must be lived if it is to be understood by others. I would say that any theology that is not lived is more reductivist than one that is simply espoused but has no evidence in the observable world...
Just my thoughts,
Ryan
Posted by: Ryan Bolger | June 01, 2005 at 06:03 PM
for what it's worth, i'm with timbo on this. i have been more than a little disheartened by the "emergent" responses to carson's book and lectures. it seems as if anyone who tries any kind of critique of "emergent" is immediately dismissed for one reason or another. it's just an impression, mind, and not an accusation. anyway, i haven't finished carson's book yet, and i appreciate that you've blogged on it. i have some reading and some thinking to do...
Posted by: stephen wilkins | June 03, 2005 at 02:37 PM
I don't know that the responses to Carson's critique have been dismissive. Is it dismissive to say that the book is badly researched? Is it dismissive to tell Carson, "Hey, you aren't really talking about us. You've constructed a straw man out of a fragment of the emerging church conversation rather than taking the time and energy to find out what really makes us tick." Why is the emerging church obligated to take ownership of an inaccurate picture of itself just because that picture has been painted by a respected scholar?
Posted by: J. Michael Matkin | June 05, 2005 at 03:45 PM
Stephen, I took Carson's critiques seriously and evaluated them on their own merit, with the tools I have been trained with as a missiologist.
To clarify, I am not an emergent guy, per se (I have never spoken at Emergent). I just hosted an event here at Fuller, a think-tank if you will, of many emerging church folks who, although many were emergent, just as many would not see themselves as emergent.
So, I did not evaluate the book with the mindset to defend emergent or any other entity. I simply read it and recorded my thoughts...
I welcome your posts and look forward to discussing this further with you...
Ryan
Posted by: Ryan Bolger | June 06, 2005 at 03:07 PM
I have yet to read Carson's book, but I can say right now, that from my personal interactions with people from Emergent, I found nothing close to what the critics claim. It seems to me that most criticism stems not from misunderstanding Emergent, but from misunderstanding Post-modernism alltogether, which is to be expected from those who bring a lot of modern baggage with them, both theological and cultural (no offense intended to anyone).
Posted by: Virgil Vaduva | July 05, 2005 at 07:49 AM
Is it just me who thinks this? It sounds to me like Carson is just resisting the inevitable. I believe the words of Carson reveal a soul that is grasping for the modern last straw....I fully anticipate Carson to become one of the more profound emergent thinkers in the near future. Come on DA... what are you scared of?
Posted by: Jim Urbanovich | July 06, 2005 at 10:05 PM
'becoming conversant' without ever speaking to a native, learning the language, visiting the country, or living in the culture. Now that's a 'day of pentacost' miracle. Cross-cultural understanding is a good thing, so as ambassadors, we show hospitality to the foreigner.
Posted by: David | July 07, 2005 at 12:56 PM
'becoming conversant' without ever speaking to a native, learning the language, visiting the country, or living in the culture. Now that's a 'day of pentacost' miracle. Cross-cultural understanding is a good thing. So as ambassadors, we show hospitality to the foreigner.
Posted by: David | July 07, 2005 at 12:57 PM
Listen carefully to critique, consider all feedback, and certainly do not be impervious to infomation. However (that always sounds better than 'but')...to spend time and energy debating other heaven-bound believers, is, to God, poor stewardship and to Satan, an adequate distraction.
Posted by: David | July 07, 2005 at 01:11 PM
I graduated from the same school as Dr. Carson (note: not Cambridge but his undergrad); he spoke at my graduation; I have heard him speak many times and have had his work referenced by professors often; so really, I came to fall in love Dr. Carson's works. I have read much of what he has written and his theological works in many ways became my theological resting place!
However, a couple of years ago I had a very good friend introduce me to this emergent thing, and I have to say that my theological world has been turned upside down and then flipped on its side and I think its still spinning?!
I was very much looking forward to Carson's critique as I felt that it would provide some type of balance between my 'old self' and my 'new self'. Coming from the conservative background that Carson reveals is the common heritage, there are still some beliefs that at times I tend to be apprehensive to give up. But to my surprise, I found myself disagreeing with much of what Carson was offering as critique of the Emerging church. I found a lot of it unfair. And I found my belief (if 'belief' is the right word?) in the emerging church growing stronger. In fact, much of my disappointment was summed up quite nicely and dare I say 'neatly' by your blog! And I am grateful to McLaren for referencing this on his website!
By the way, 15 minutes ago I finished McLaren's newest work 'The Last Word and the Word After That' and knowing what Carson would likely have to say about it, for me, it is probably my favorite thus far of all of the emergent literature that I have read!
Again, thanks for your comments!
Posted by: Dan | July 10, 2005 at 11:40 AM
Would someone please tell me which work or two would best describe what the emergent church means by postmodernism. I am reading the secular postmodernists--Rorty, Foucault, Derrida, Barthes etc. (as far as I can tell the secular postmodernists are atheists) and trying to get a handle on their whereabouts, but what do religious postmodernists either believe or live. Help. Thanks...
Posted by: David A. Noebel | October 07, 2005 at 11:25 AM
David,
I believe Nancey Murphy's works have been most influential in the US Emerging Church conversation on postmodernity. Check out Anglo-American Postmodernity as well as Beyond Liberalism and Fundamentalism.
Thanks for visiting...
Posted by: Ryan Bolger | October 07, 2005 at 04:49 PM