The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier

 ‘‘A Living Way: Emergent Visions’’ Series Foreword xiii

Preface xv

Introduction: What Is ‘‘Emergent’’? xvii

Chapter 1 ~ Leaving the Old Country 1

4 ‘‘Church Is Dead’’

5 Signs of Death–and Life

7 The Problem on the Left

10 A Case Study: Go Where I Send Thee

11 The Problem on the Right

13 A Case Study: Don’t Ask Us About the Chickens

18 The Real Problem: Left Versus Right

21 Caught in the Crossfire

24 Dispatch from the Blogosphere: Musings of a Postmodern Negro

Chapter 2 ~ Dispatches from the Frontier of the American Church 31

31 An Allegory

33 An Alternative Ending

35 Geological Musings

37 What Exactly Is Emerging?

41 The Beginnings

43 ‘‘The Bible Is Propaganda’’

49 The New Kind of Christian Effect

52 Meanwhile, Across the Pond

55 Then till Now

57 The Church’s Choice

60 Dispatch from the Rocky Mountains: Katie and Kristen

Chapter 3 ~ Who Are the Emergent Christians? 67

68 Hunches and Intuitions

72 Influencing Culture or Influenced by Culture?

76 An ‘‘Envelope of Friendship’’

80 An Emergent Voters’ Guide

86 Dispatch from I-35: The Terrific Tale of Trucker Frank

Chapter 4 ~ The Theology, Stupid 95

96 Dartmouth Days

104 What, Exactly, Is Theology?

106 Theology on the Rise

111 Going Deep

115 Skiing the Slippery Slope

123 So, a Biblicist and a Relativist Walk into a Pastors’ Conference . . .

130 The Expurgated Lectionary

134 Dispatch from Seminary: Legalisms of the Left

Chapter 5 ~ After Objectivity: Beautiful Truth 139

140 The Thrill of Interpretation

143 Reading the Whole Bible

148 ‘‘Sonny, It Ain’t Nothing till I Call It’’

152 Truth (a.k.a. God)

155 After Objectivity: Dialogue

157 Beautiful, Messy, Incarnational Truth

162 Paradoxes

170 Dispatch from the End of a Three-Mile Dirt Road: Recovering ‘‘Church’’

Chapter 6 ~ Inside the Emergent Church 175

175 It’s a Great Day at Jacob’s Well!

180 Wikichurch

192 Tightly Knit: Journey

201 Binitarians

203 The People’s Liturgy: Church of the Apostles

209 Time to Rethink Seminary

210 MyChurch: A Paean to Solomon’s Porch

Epilogue: Feral Christians 219

Appendices 221

222 Appendix A: ‘‘Emergent Village Values and Practices’’

227 Appendix B: ‘‘A Response to Our Critics’’

233 Appendix C: ‘‘Disastrous Statements’’

Notes 237

Acknowledgments 253

The Author 255

Index 257