review: The New Christians

The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier, by Tony Jones

This review has been a long time coming. Indeed, you might say it's overdue. Since various bloggers have heralded the death of emergent, you might even say it's past its best. But hey, I'm the late emerger, so I can be late. The book is only a couple of years old, after all: I've probably been reading it for a year or so, in parallel with lots of other books.

If you want to know what emergent - or, maybe even, emerging - is (or was) all about, then this is a pretty definitive text. I wish it had been available when I first started wondering about all this stuff. Of course, Jones, having been the national coordinator of emergent (or is that Emergent ?) is rather well-placed to discuss the subject.

He observes how spirituality in America (in particular; the main subject of his discussion, anyhow) is in a state of flux, that many of the old expectations, particularly about denominations but also more broadly than that, are disintigrating. The text is interspersed with little one-paragraph 'disptaches', and dispatch one addresses this:

Emergents find little importance in the discrete differences between the various flavors of Christianity. Instead they practice a generous orthodoxy that appreciates the contributions of all Christian movements.

These little dispatches seem rather well-written and good pithy summaries of what he is trying to communicate. Not that Jones needs to resort to little summaries to make his points: his writing is clear and engaging, and 'just right' in its weight and depth. He also includes some inline glossary entries - so the text should be approachable even if you're not well-versed in the ecclesiology of late 20th century/early 21st century evangelicalism. Finally, besides the main text, there are some biographical or personalized asides: a few pages each, to keep the discussion grounded in practice (again, not that there's a real danger of it drifting off into theological abstractions).

I identify with Tony Jones. I think he's about my age. He talks of recoiling when an undergraduate from the concept of 'questionnaire evangelism' (door-knocking in student accommodation, on the pretext of wanting to collect questionnaire responses, but actually seeking an opportunity to hit the victim with a 'gospel presentation'): at about the same time, on the other side of the atlantic, I was having the same reaction. In the book, he explores how good and gentle people find themselves wrapped up in a broken theology which begets a wrong-headed, narrow, constraining Christianity - and a narrow, constrained understanding of God. Dispatch 9 says:

The emergent movement is robustly theological; the conviction is that theology and practice are inextricably linked, and each invariably informs the other.

And so it goes. Here is an account of faith that is always provisional, relational, postmodern (maybe), generously orthodox, and so on. Here is a movement built out of grassroots practice informed by academic theology. Here is a movement populated by people like me (whatever that means) - which is quite reminiscent of the good bits of the Christian Brethren heritage I grew up with.

A chapter seems to have closed on emergent since then. But I doubt that that matters. There's a richness here, a life and vision which is transforming some part of the christian church. The extent of that transformation is hard to judge, but my judgement is that it will remain significant, whatever it's called. This book is a good way-point on the journey.