passion play

Listening to the Beliefs of the Emerging Church: Five Perspectives is a masterful discussion on the theology of the emerging church through the eyes of five pastors: John Burke, Mark Driscoll, Dan Kimball, Doug Pagitt, and Karen Ward. Edited by Robert Webber, the book is a point-counterpoint look at three central doctrines within Christianity: the authority of Scripture, the Trinitarian view of God, and the Atonement of Christ on the cross. I highly recommend the book to anyone who is interested in where the church at large is headed, especially in North America and Europe (which also has a significant ‘emerging’ church movement). A quick look at the authors’ chapters:

Mark Driscoll, of whom I’m a big fan, lays down the law in the first chapter of the book. He gives an extremely Scripture-based look at the three doctrines at hand, quoting over 700 references.  John Burke’s chapter was pleasantly surprising. He was ‘emergent’ to a T, but he still stuck to the essentials of Christianity: the Scriptures, the Trinity, and the Atonement. He allowed for mystery in his theology, which is very important, but still realized that once we drift from the three central doctrines discussed, we are no longer Christian. Dan Kimball was, as positioned, middle of the road. He discussed mystery as having a large role in theology, and started to drift away from the central doctrines. Doug Pagitt introduced the idea of equal authority to other influences outside of the Bible. He doesn’t see the Bible as an authority umbrella, but instead just another node in the influences on the Christian’s theology. As such, the Trinity and atonement become less truth and more model for the Church. Karen Ward’s chapter was barely readable. Sure, it was “creative”, but it was creative gibberish, not really getting at anything other than the idea of “communal truth”, which sounds more like a support group wondering what fits them than a leadership team discussing truth. For a true, literate, insight into the liberal, emergent church, Pagitt’s chapter was the best articulated. But I’ll stick with Burke and Driscoll and Jesus every day of the week. Not that Mark and John don’t make mistakes, but they’re grounded in repentance and in Scripture. I’ll trust their theology as such.

There are lots of resources included in the back of the book as well, and overall the book is a great insight to the emerging church culture. Highly recommended.