Tony Jones’ Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier
March 2, 2008
The word is out. If you want a primer on the “emerging” church, read Tony Jones’ The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier. It’s a great overview for posterity and for people today who are wondering what this phenomenon is all about.
Tony is the national coordinator of Emergent Village and has been part of evolution of the “new kind of Christian” conversation for more than a decade. In person, he’s an engaging, passionate, self-proclaimed provocateur – and The New Christians conveys his unique voice. Its super readable and maps out vast expanses of this new frontier, including cultural context, theological markers, and case studies of real-life characters and locales.
I personally found the book quite resonant. There were paragraphs that echoed sentiments I’d written about in seminary and undergraduate religion classes (e.g. Weber and the commodification of religion, the notion that we all interpret the Bible). There were parts that recalled conversations I’ve had and sections that described places I’ve visited (e.g. Church of the Apostles in Seattle, Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis).
If I wanted a family member or friend to understand why I’m part of this movement, I would recommend this book as a roadmap. For those I’ve never met, I commend it too.
Finally, on Tony’s travels through this new frontier, it seems he brought along a sieve and sifted gold nuggets out of flowing streams and muddy riverbanks. He calls these little nuggets his “dispatches” and all twenty are precious. Here are my fave five:
Dispatch 1: 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.
Dispatch 12: Emergents embrace the whole Bible, the glory and the pathos.
Dispatch 16: Emergents believe that church should function more like an open-source network and less like a hierarchy or bureaucracy.
Dispatch 17: Emergents start new churches to save their own faith, not necessarily as an outreach strategy.
Dispatch 20: Emergents believe that church should be just as beautiful and messy as life.
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