Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church: Understanding a Movement and Its Implications - Brossura

Carson, D. A.

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0310259479 ISBN 13: 9780310259473

Casa editrice: Zondervan, 2005

Riassunto

A careful and informed assessment of the “emerging church” by a respected author and scholarThe “emerging church” movement has generated a lot of excitement and exerts an astonishingly broad influence. Is it the wave of the future or a passing fancy? Who are the leaders and what are they saying? The time has come for a mature assessment. D. A. Carson not only gives those who may be unfamiliar with it a perceptive introduction to the emerging church movement, but also includes a skillful assessment of its theological views. Carson addresses some troubling weaknesses of the movement frankly and thoughtfully, while at the same time recognizing that it has important things to say to the rest of Christianity. The author strives to provide a perspective that is both honest and fair.Anyone interested in the future of the church in a rapidly changing world will find this an informative and stimulating read.D. A. Carson (Ph.D., University of Cambridge) is research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. He is the author of over 45 books, including the Gold Medallion Award-winning book The Gagging of God, and is general editor of Telling the Truth and Worship by the Book. He has served as a pastor and is an active guest lecturer in church and academic settings around the world.

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Informazioni sull?autore

D. A. Carson is research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. He has been at Trinity since 1978. Carson came to Trinity from the faculty of Northwest Baptist Theological Seminary in Vancouver, British Columbia, where he also served for two years as academic dean. He has served as assistant pastor and pastor and has done itinerant ministry in Canada and the United Kingdom. Carson received the Bachelor of Science in chemistry from McGill University, the Master of Divinity from Central Baptist Seminary in Toronto, and the Doctor of Philosophy in New Testament from the University of Cambridge. Carson is an active guest lecturer in academic and church settings around the world. He has written or edited about sixty books. He is a founding member and currently president of The Gospel Coalition.

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Becoming Conversant with the Emerging ChurchPREFACEA simplified form of the substance of this book was first delivered as threeStaley Lectures at Cedarville University in February 2004. I would like tothank the president and faculty who welcomed me so warmly, and thenumerous students who went out of their way to engage thoughtfully withwhat I was saying.As I attempt to make clear in the opening chapter, the 'emerging (or'emergent') church' movement, though scarcely a dozen years old, exertsan astonishingly broad influence. An entire literature has sprung up, withthose on the inside quoting and supporting one another in publicationsand conferences. In other words, a self-identity has already been established.Nevertheless, the diversity of the movement, as well as its porousborders, ensure that I have not found it easy to portray it fairly. I have triedto be accurate in description and evenhanded in evaluation. Even so, I mustunderscore the fact that when I am forced (for the sake of avoiding endlessqualifications) to resort to generalization in order to move the discussionalong, one can almost always find some people in the movement forwhom the generalization is not true, and others who do not think of themselvesas belonging to the emerging church movement who neverthelessshare most of its values and priorities. (Also, let it be noted that some of theleaders feel that this has not yet reached the dimensions of a movementand prefer to call it a 'conversation.')I have tried to avoid too much technical discussion. The flavor of thelecture series has not been entirely removed. In reality that means this bookwill probably frustrate some readers in opposite ways: some will find thetreatment of postmodernism to be too elementary, and perhaps others willfind parts of it heavy going. The notes will help the former, and I hope thatrereading will help the latter. But the book is several times longer than themanuscript of the lectures. The brevity of the latter meant that I could notindulge in detailed documentation or introduce a lot of nuances and exceptions.Owing not least to the fact that some emerging church leaders havecriticized the lectures, in various blogs, for such omissions, I have tried inthis book to fill that gap as much as possible.Whenever a Christian movement comes along that presents itself asreformist, it should not be summarily dismissed. Even if one ultimatelydecides that the movement embraces a number of worrying weaknesses, itmay also have some important things to say that the rest of the Christianworld needs to hear. So I have tried to listen respectfully and carefully; Ihope and pray that the leaders of this 'movement' will similarly listen towhat I have to say.I would like to thank Jonathan Davis and Michael Thate for compilingthe indexes.Soli Deo gloria.D. A. CARSONTrinity Evangelical Divinity School10 BECOMING CONVERSANT WITH THE EMERGING CHURCHChapter 1THE EMERGING CHURCHPROFILEWhat Are We Talking About?When I have mentioned to a few friends that I am writing a book on theemerging church, I get rather diverse reactions.'What's that?' one of them asked, betraying that his field of expertisedoes not encourage him to keep up with contemporary movements.'Are you going to focus primarily on Acts, or are you going to includethe Pauline and other epistles?' queried another, presupposing that I amwriting about the church as it 'emerged' in the first century---since, afterall, I teach in a New Testament department at a seminary.Another colleague, known for his worldwide connections, asked, 'Howdid you become interested in the difficult and challenging questions surroundingthe emergence of the church in the Two-Thirds World?' Afterall, the last hundred years have witnessed remarkable stories of 'emergence'in Korea, many parts of sub-Saharan black Africa, Latin America,certain countries of Eastern Europe (especially Ukraine, Romania, andMoldova), and elsewhere.The responses are sensible enough, since 'emerging' and related termsare words that have been applied to these and other circumstances,2including some fairly esoteric discussions in the philosophy of science.But during the last dozen years, 'emerging' and 'emergent' have becomestrongly associated with an important movement that is sweeping acrossAmerica, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere. Many in the movement use'emerging' or 'emergent' (I will use the two words as equivalents) as thedefining adjective for their movement. A dozen books talk about 'theemergent church' and 'stories of emergence' and the like.3 One websiteencourages its patrons in 'emergent friendship,' which turns out to refer,not to friendship that is emerging, but to the importance of friendship inthe movement---thus confirming that 'emergent' is, for those in themovement, a sufficient label of self-identification, so that 'emergentfriendship' is formally akin to, say, 'house church friendship' or 'Baptistfriendship.'At the heart of the 'movement'---or as some of its leaders prefer to callit, the 'conversation'---lies the conviction that changes in the culture signalthat a new church is 'emerging.' Christian leaders must therefore adaptto this emerging church. Those who fail to do so are blind to the culturalaccretions that hide the gospel behind forms of thought and modes ofexpression that no longer communicate with the new generation, theemerging generation. The National Pastors Convention and the EmergentConvention were held simultaneously in San Diego in 2003; of the threethousand pastors who attended, 1,900 chose the more traditional forum,the NPC, while 1,100 chose the other.Before attempting to outline its emphases, I should stress that not onlyis the movement amorphous, but its boundaries are ill-defined. Doubtlessmany (I have no idea how many) of the thousand pastors at the EmergentConvention did not (at that time, anyway) consider themselves part of theemerging church: they were exploring, aligning themselves perhaps withsome aspects of the movement but not with others. By contrast, one reasonwhy the movement has mushroomed so quickly is that it is bringingto focus a lot of hazy perceptions already widely circulating in the culture.It is articulating crisply and polemically what many pastors and others werealready beginning to think, even though they did not enjoy---until the leadersof this movement came along---any champions who put their amorphousmalaise into perspective.

Dettagli dell'edizione

• Editore: Zondervan
• Data di pubblicazione: 2005
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0310259479
• ISBN 13: 9780310259473
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 250
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
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