Why We’re Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be)I requested this book for review from Moody Publishers and they were kind enough to comply.
As I flipped to the first page inside the cover, there’s an endorsement at the top of the page by D.A. Carson. Carson’s book, published in 2005 entitled, “Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church” was hardly a fair handed treatment of the topic the title purportedly representes. Furthermore, Carson’s claims that Brian McLaren has “largely abandoned the gospel” (pp. 186-187) was evidence to me that Mr. Carson neither knows Brian or has any legitimate grasp of what McLaren is all about in terms of his literary contributions over the past several years and the way McLaren has lived and currently lives his life. Carson captures the essence of why I developed the motivation and went through the effort to read “Why We’re Not Emergent – By Two Guys Who Should Be” by Ted Kluck and Kevin DeYoung when he writes: “If emerging church leaders wish to become a long-term prophetic voice that produces enduring fruit and that does not drift off toward progressive sectarianism and even, in the worst instances, outright heresy, they must listen at least as carefully to the criticisms of their movement as they transparently want others to listen to them.” (p.234 – Carson, D.A. “Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church” Zondervan, 2005). Well, D.A., transparently, that’s why I read Ted and Kevin’s book that has your endorsement as numero uno inside the front cover.
From purely a literary and style standpoint, this book is extremely well written and easy to read. The author’s intentions for writing the book are quite clear: “We write this book because the more we learn about the emerging church, the harder it is to swallow (p.23). DeYoung and Kluck even spell out what success might mean to them in writing it when they state: “In fact, if our book makes emergent folks indignant enough to stand up and tell us more definitively what they believe, we will consider this book a success.”(pp.23-24). The authors also confess what they suspect may be one of the outcomes of their book: “It reminds me of how sad this all is — this us/them mentality — and how writing a book titled Why We’re Not Emergent probably won’t help at all in the “further alienating friends and acquaintances” department.” (p.99). Well, when you take 256 pages to attempt to discredit and seemingly dismember a whole group of folks (none of whom you indicated you had an actual face-to-face conversation with) who were created by the same loving God you profess has created you…well…you get the picture.
The overall effect this book had on me was to ponder the existence of lovelessness within the so-called Christian community. The same lovelessness that Kluck and DeYoung decry. Using an excerpt from this book, DeYoung and Kluck succinctly characterize the essence of this impact when they write:
“Ephesus’ lovelessness manifested itself in another kind of sin, not just a lack of life-giving fellowship but a lack of life-giving witness. The followers of Christ were so busy battling and protecting and defending that they had turned inward to self-protection and suspicion. They were navel-gazers, with no vision or purpose outside themselves. They were great at keeping the world out of the church, but they were terrible at taking the church out into the world…It is sad but true. Theologically astute churches and theologically minded pastors sometimes die of dead orthodoxy. Some grow sterile and cold, petrified as the frozen chosen, not compromising with the world, but not engaging it either. We may think right, live right, and do right, but if we do it off in a corner, shining our lights at one another to probe our brothers sins instead of pointing our lights into the world, we will, as a church, grow dim, and eventually our light will be extinguished.” (p. 244 – emphasis is mine).
The book by Kluck and DeYoung is filled with the theme described in the paragraph above. …lovelessness. It is clearly a bush league sucker-punch from a methodological standpoint in terms of what might be characterized as a form of legitimate social research. It is essentially a review of the published emergent literature (books and blogs) where excerpts are used to validate the points being made by the authors, without sufficient (in some cases any) impartial, substantive reference to the context of the material excerpted. Furthermore, there are no face-to-face interviews with the likes of those duly dismembered like Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, Rob Bell, Donald Miller, Dave Tomlinson, Steve Chalke, Spencer Burke, Doug Pagitt, Barry Taylor, Erwin McManus, Dwight Friesen…sorry if I might have missed you. The authors really missed an opportunity to write a vastly more valuable and legitimate literary work had they taken the opportunity to sit down, engage in face-to-face interaction, and discuss their points of inquiry beyond the sole sources they relied upon.
This book is an intentional, unfortunate approach to protecting and defending what Kluck and DeYoung claim to know as truth. The lovelessness inherent throughout the text (save for numerous places where they clearly attempt to be exhibit graciousness – they do) by shining the light on their brother’s perceived sins caused my light to grow dim. Kluck and DeYoung are convinced that they think right, do right and live right. Yet, they’ve done it off in a corner, behind the backs of their brothers, sucking the oxygen out of the room that prevented the life giving witness this project had the distinct potential to become to be snuffed out before the ink was dry on the pages.They write from the frozen chosen perspective they decry.It’s sad — really sad.
The vast distinction between these two authors and the people they take 256 pages to attempt to discredit is summarized in the following quote from Kluck and DeYoung: “One of the things that keeps me grounded as a pastor is to ask myself, “Will this help me and my people die well?” (p.252). Well, that’s one of the fundamental reasons why I’m not enamored with your book, or the life you script for those who claim the name of Christ, who still live and breathe as I do on this planet. As Neil Cole wrote in his book, Organic Church – Growing Faith Where Life Happens: “Christianity is always just one generation away from extinction. If we fail to reproduce ourselves and pass the torch of life into the hands of the next generation, Christianity will be over within just one generation. Yet, because of the power of multiplication, we are also one generation away from worldwide fulfillment of the great commission. The choice is ours.” (p.105).
I would refer you to a splendid source of superb social research to reconsider your stated thesis above about “dieing well.” This research is laid out in David Kinnaman’s newly released book (October 2007) entitled, unChristian – What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity – And Why It Matters. Kinnaman has been George Barna’s protégé over the last 12 years and is President of the Barna Group, unequivocally the ongoing source of reliable social research about Christians, Christianity and the Church, particularly in the U.S..
This book is sobering. I wept at certain parts of it. We Christians have made a mess of Christianity in North America and the established Church most certainly has its share of the blame. As Kinnaman says, “We can’t change what we are known for unless we change how we live.” (p. 231). This “living” includes the “life” of the Church. Kinnaman goes on to say that we must “discern how deep and serious the problems are, so that our missional engagement in the coming years won’t be more of the same.” (emphasis is mine).
It is my prayer that we shall choose to cease engaging in the lovelessness that we birth and perpetuate in well intentioned books like Why We’re Not Emergent – By Two Guys Who Should Be. Of course, we can conjure up all sorts of rationalizations and justifications based upon various perversions of duty and a maligned sense of self-righteousness to justify just about anything we decide to do (the history of Christianity is filled with that isn’t it?).. However, the world yearns for the life-giving witness that only the presence of such lovelessness prevents.The choice is ours.
Call Brian McLaren and Tony Jones. Buy them lunch. You can’t help but love these guys. The love of Christ remains contagious. May we all infect this, His world, with the same. The choice is ours.
I am not nor did I become indignant after reading your book. You said you would deem your book a success if emergent types (I don’t think I’m one of those either — at least the way you portend to understand it) would be motivated by your book to more definitively characterize what they believe. I’m more sad and disappointed than anything else with your book. However, if you want to get a sample of what I believe, you may certainly do so here: http://www.theporpoisedivinglife.com/porpoise-diving-life.asp?pageID=49. It’s entitled What We Believe. By the way, “we” refers to simply my wife and I. Check in next year. It is subject to change.It was published several years ago, well before the idea of your book was birthed.
If you guys ever get out to central Oregon, you can stay at our place. We’d love to host you! Reconciliation and face-to-face hospitality —- it’s a wonderful thing.
