Listening to the beliefs of emerging churches
28 05 2008
‘Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches: five perspectives,’ edited by Robert Webber, does exactly what it says on the tin. Five emerging church leaders each in turn have the opportunity to describe their take on theology and the emerging church. Then the others have the opportunity to respond to what they have written. The book ends with a brief attempt by Webber to assess emerging theology.
The five main sections are:
- The emerging church and Biblicist theology, by Mark Driscoll
- The emerging church and incarnational theology, by John Burke
- The emerging church and missional theology, by Dan Kimball
- The emerging church and embodied theology, by Doug Pagitt
- The emerging church and communal theology, by Karen Ward
I’ve written earlier about the sheer theological diversity which makes it almost meaningless to talk about the emerging church, or about a single emerging church theology. This book does an excellent job of capturing that diversity, and this makes it well worth reading.
Precisely because of this, Webber’s attempt at a conclusion is the weakest part of the whole book. He tries to synthesize some very different things – or at least, to find some common threads between them. You’ll have to decide for yourself whether or not you think he succeeeds.
