Review: "The emerging Church" by Bruce Sanguin
The emerging Church by Bruce Sanguin
No, not that emerging. Sanguin’s book is for congregations seeking to emerge from an old paradigm of church leadership. In his words,
when I talk about the emerging church I am referring, in a general sense, to congregations that are meeting the challenges of the postmodern world with creativity and vitality. An emerging congregation, by my definition, is one that is always looking out at the horizon for the future that desires to be born through them…
Grounded in his own experience at Canadian Memorial United, Sanguin’s work is a guidebook for congregations seeking to move forward into a future that is less hierarchical and more outward looking than other models of ministry.
As one author puts it,
Sanguin does this not by citing Sweet, McLaren, Grenz, Jones or Derrida – as helpful or important as these disparate voices might be. Instead, Sanguin sources his thinking in insights from leading edge science, including the science of emergence, chaos theory, quantum physics, field theory, spiral dynamics, and evolutionary science. Written in language everyday readers understand, The Emerging Church is filled with no-nonsense, realistic advice on the pitfalls and possibilities of following the vision of an emerging Christian way.
I admit I gave the book a quick read, but I did enjoy it and appreciated Sanguin’s approach to church leadership and transformation. While I think his perspectives are much more appropriate for larger congregations in urban areas than small rural calls, his work is a helpful offering to progressives seeking ways to discern, describe, and live out a new way of following God in their congregation. I didn’t care for his sections on different ways of describing Christ, but I liked his broader point: that we must be aware of how we color Christ with our perspectives, good or bad. If your congregation is looking for a model or map for change, check out this book.
Bruce Sanguin is pastor at Canadian Memorial United Church in Vancouver, British Columbia. For more, check out http://www.brucesanguin.com.
Review: "Coffeehouse Theolgy" by Ed Cyzewski
Today’s book review is Ed Cyzewski’s Coffeehouse Theology: Reflecting on God in Everyday Life. (Full disclosure, I’m participating in a Blog Tour coinciding with the book’s release.)
I really appreciated Jim’s review of the book, both for its description and criticism. I don’t have too much new to add, but… 
In the book, Ed lays out an introduction to what he calls “contextual theology” which is basically saying, “Hey, it turns out our lives, faith, and experienced are really influenced by factors beyond us. So I bet our faith, our theology, even the way we read the Bible is too.”
As Ed writes elsewhere, “In other words, we have mission, culture, the doctrine of God, Biblical theology, church history, and global Christianity, but need a fresh look at how they all relate together in our pursuit of contextual theology.”
For those of us for whom these ideas of context, social-location, and different world perspectives are a new concept the book would be really great — perhaps someone who grew up with a very strict black/white faith but who, after whatever experiences, is beginning to feel some cracks in the foundation of that sort of faith. For those folks this book may be a really valuable resource — especially considering the suggested opportunities for further reading at the close of each chapter.
For me, however, the book didn’t particularly pique my interest for a simple reason. Ed and I come from very different backgrounds. I was encouraged to consider the veracity of the virgin birth in middle school youth group. It was at public school — not church — where I first heard that evolution was questionable. “Context” is practically my seminary’s motto.
I appreciate Coffeehouse Theology for what it is, though, an introduction to contextual theology in a clear, easy-to-read, and approachable way. If you’re new to the idea that people in different parts of the world will read the Bible very differently from you, or that the authors’ original intent is not always explicit, or that theology colors the way we read the scriptures, then pick up a copy, take it to your local coffeehouse, and enjoy.
(Very theological) Review of a Secular Ecological Work: Brown's "Plan B 3.0"
I’ll be putting a few book reviews up over the next few days. Guess what I’ve been doing recently?
The first is of Lester R. Brown’s Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization. I read Brown for my Creation, New Creation, and Ecology class and to a person the class was really impressed with the book.
As Matt points out here, it is pretty overwhelming at times, and indicting too. I’ll analyze it below with some theological terms, but I’d say that it’s by far the best book I’ve read on the ecological crisis and what we must do to correct it–or die.
Brown structures his book in a simple two-fold manner. In part I, “A Civilization in Trouble,” Brown lays out the harrowing facts of our time. We may hit peak oil production by 2030. And while an oil-based economic system is severely flawed as it is, without ecologically-sensible alternatives in place in the next few decades our way of life–indeed, the very lives of millions of people, let alone animals–will be in grave danger. Brown continues the sobering story with heavy details about rising temperatures and sea-levels–and the creatures they will affect–food shortages, water crises, desertification, extinctions, and population growth. The first half of the book informs, convicts, and horrors in striking ways.
Part II, “The Response–Plan B” paints a prettier picture of what might be done to curb, prevent, and restore such devastation. In “Plan B” Brown gives hope by explaining what progress has already been made. With well-spent funds he instructs how we might avert epidemics, feed more mouths, re-structure our transportation systems, and gain efficiency. The hopeful second half of the book charms and excites while a the brief third section explains how the means to financing these changes are within reach.
Though it was pretty really effective, as a theologian Brown’s two-part structure gave me pause as it reminded me of a misreading of Martin Luther’s law/gospel theology. That misreading, but a common stereotype of Luther, holds Luther’s law/gospel theology uses a stark dichotomy to distinguish between law and gospel. “Law is bad, negative, convicting, sinful” goes this reading, “and gospel is good, positive, affirming, grace-filled–in short, Jesus Christ.”
This law/gospel stereotype builds assumptions onto old pseudo accuracies and ends up barely resembling Luther’s original theology.
… Continue Reading
Two Super-quick Book Reviews
Better than nothing, eh?
1) Following Jesus in a Culture of FEAR by Scott Bader-Saye
(Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2007) 160p.
Good book. Bader-Saye a solid job of describing contemporary America’s culture of fear, how the appropriate Christian response. Not too technical, but with strong theological underpinnings. Good read.
2) Oh Shit! It’s Jesus!: The relevance of Jesus without all that religious crap by Steve Hughes
Nice try, but poorly written and elementary. Folksy, but without redeeming charm. I don’t recommend it.
Review: Leif Enger's "So Brave, Young, and Handsome"
Read this book. It’s good. Real good. Read it if you’re a pastor, or if you like adventure stories, or broken characters seeking redemption, or hard cowboy fun, or just really well-written prose. Leif Enger’s (author of Peace Like a River) has some mad skills.
The book came highly recommended to me by a friend whose taste I trust, so I didn’t read the book jacket description (the best way to read books, by the way). Set in America in 1915, the main character and story-teller is Monte Becket, a one-hit-wonder adventure novel writer who quit his job in the post office but fails to do much right. Becket sort of reminded me of Frank Bascombe in Richard Ford’s novels (recommended too, but much more difficult reads). Both are appealing due to their failures, honestly, and innate American optimism.
Well, a resident of Northfield, Minnesota (which I was proud to call home for four years), meets a reclusive neighbor from down the river. The neighbor is kind, full of the most amazing stories, and has a rather dubious history. To the two set off for a six-week trip to Mexico, a journey of mutual benefit. Glendon, the neighbor, must appease his conscience and confess his faults to a previous wife from his Mexican outlaw days. Becket needs to find himself and discover his true calling whether as a writer, a postman, a husband, a father, or a just a failure.
Adventures ensue. Tears and laughter are shared. Hope is kindled and lost.
I won’t ruin the story, but I will say it contains my new favorite baptism scene in modern fiction. It’s beautiful, hilarious, and so complex it could be used in ten sermons, twenty different ways.
[Ok, here's just a bite if your curious...
"A new fear entered me, ‘Glendon, what if it's wrong for me to do it? Suppose I imperil something'"
‘Imperil what?'
‘My immortal soul,' I rather hissed.
‘Why Becked,' he said, with a warm familiarity I found irksome.
‘I'm serious. What if He's got some rule about this? What if God hates impostors?'
He looked bemused, ‘If you're afriad, then I think you're no impostor.'" ]
I’ll be reviewing some churchy non-fiction books next week, but if your taste is anything like mine, you’ll more enjoy the truthful fiction of Enger’s So Brave, Young, and Handsome.
Just for fun, and for some linking love, here’s some other random blog reviews of the novel: Crookedshore, Erik Emery Hanberg, and BitterSweetLife.
Moto F3 Review, Summary: no matter what, do NOT buy it
If you’re thinking of buying the Moto F3 cell phone, stop. Burry those thoughts in the farthest reaches of your mind and never ever visit them again.
The phone is crap. Utter ridiculous excuse for technology. Don’t get it. Don’t use it. If you see one, run away as fast as you can.
I’m sorry, Motorola, I have nothing against you. I’ve never met you. You might be perfectly nice in person. But you designed a product that made my life barely worth living. And for that, I will never forgive you.
The phone drops calls. The phone does not tell you when you have a voicemail. It turns off in your pocket. It sends text messages slowly, and receives them whenever it gets around to it, which may be days later. The screen reminds me of the first computer, that one made in Greece, 3000 years ago. You cannot text lowercase or uppercase letter, nor can you receive them. To read a simple text message, you have to scroll a few million times because the screen only holds 5 characters at a time.
Sure, at under $50 retail it’s cheap. Maybe so, but how much are you willing to pay for your sanity.
Review: The Tangible Kingdom by Halter and Smay
The Tangible Kingdom: Creating Incarnational Community
Hugh Halter & Matt Smay
Jossey-Bass, 2008, 195 pages
Lately I’ve found myself reading books fairly different from my usual tastes. Not only that, but–get this–I’ve enjoyed these new reads. The Tangible Kingdom is a prime example.
The Tangible Kingdom presents a way forward for Christians, a new way of church that intentionally considers all our practices as individuals and gathered. As Halter writes,
This book is about the millions of people who are openhearted and curious about life and God but who are honestly not finding goodness in the good news that was talk about and that, at times, has been forces down their collective throats.
I appreciated the book and Halter’s voice, because he has clearly struggled deeply with how to do and be church. Coming from an evangelical background, at home in a mega-church environment, Halter fights against many of the expectations of such contexts. Hugh now heads a very different sort of church community, “Adullam” which is sort of emergenty, sort of new-agey, and very very different from the average PC(USA) way of church. He’s honest in his struggle, and often–get this–he ends up in a place very similar to my own.
Take this, for example,
What we need to dig up, recover, and find again is the life of the Kingdom and Jesus’ community…the church. As we do, we’ll find that it’s not American…it’s “other world”; it’s not evangelicalism, it’s much more holistic and integrated into real life. It’s not anti-church; it’s pro-church. It’s about the type of church that Jesus would go to, the type he died to give flight to. It’s not about success, size of buildings, budget, or “salvation.” It is about being faithful to live Christ’s alternative ways in the world again.
Beautiful. Halter, with great agility, sheds much of what he had previously accepted about the realities of church. He’s open to finding a more faithful way, and the book goes a long way to narrowing in on one.
That said, the book let me down at points. The description on the jacket speaks of “ancient church practices” which Halter leaves under-developed. His descriptions of the ancient church are few and vague. In the same vein, I thought the first half of the work was much stronger than the second.
My favorite chapter is entitled “Posture.” It puts words to my understanding of mission. Mission is about heart and relationships, about putting ourselves in situations likely to change us. Halter turns upside-down his previous understanding of mission noting that many begin their discussion of mission thinking narrowly and within the church.
Posture, for Halter, encompasses all of who we are. It’s “an attitude of the body: the nonverbal forms of communication that accompany what we say.” Rather than a mission/evangelism of coercion–how Halter characterizes trying to save folks in one conversation over coffee–an appropriate posture is embodied, holistic, and non-coercive. Halter describes his newly found posture of advocating–for others, for Christ, with our whole lives. It’s a mission “that can be done with or without words…instead of putting another slick saying on our church billboard, we commit two years to getting to know someone. Instead of advertising our faith as superior to other faiths, we serve those with other faiths.”
Halter (again, like me) is not afraid of the world becoming less Christian, of the move to the margins of society. He (and I) see this move as an exciting one, helping Christians re-focus on what Christianity is all about, claiming a true faith rather than a societal expectation.
Halter’s intended audience is church leaders, ordained or not. I’d recommend this book to any of a more evangelical persuasion who is interested in new ways forward for the church. I’d also recommend this book to a any mainliner interested in playing well with evangelical brothers and sisters.
UPDATE:
here’s the video from The Tangible Kingdom website. Well done video. Sermon-worthy, even.
Connect Online
