The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier [Paperback]

Tony Jones (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 047045539X | ISBN-13: 978-0470455395 | Publication Date: April 20, 2009 | Edition: 1

What the "Emergent Church Movement" is all about-and why it matters to the future of Christianity

Following on the questions raised by Brian McLaren in A New Kind of Christian, Tony Jones has written an engaging exploration of what this new kind of Christianity looks like. Writing "dispatches" about the thinking and practices of adventurous Emergent Christians across the country, he offers an in-depth view of this new "third way" of faith-its origins, its theology, and its views of truth, scripture and interpretation, and the Emergent movement's hopeful and life-giving sense of community. With the depth of theological expertise and broad perspective he has gained as a pastor, writer, and leader of the movement, Jones initiates readers into the Emergent conversation and offers a new way forward for Christians in a post-Christian world. With journalistic narrative as well as authoritative reflection, he draws upon on-site research to provide fascinating examples and firsthand stories of who is doing what, where, and why it matters.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Jones (The Sacred Way) provides the single best introduction to the Emergent Church movement, of which he is a prominent leader. The mainline denominations are dying, and the hyperindividualism of evangelicalism is unsatisfying, so many young evangelicals, Jones explains, have decided to recreate church for postmodern times. Jones credits Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christian with raising important questions about sounding the Gospel in an era beset by questions about foundationalism, epistemology and how to read Scripture. He passionately defends the emergent movement from criticism. In particular, critics are wrong to claim that emergents don't really believe in the Bible; emergents passionately love the Bible, says Jones, but also know that finite human beings cannot definitively articulate truth. The strongest sections put flesh on these theoretical bones by taking readers into actual emergent churches, like Jacob's Well in Kansas City, Mo., where the pastor draws on Catholic practice, engages the visual arts and sees the church's job as assisting people on their pilgrimage of faith. Jones's writing is brisk and conversational, but the book gets poor marks for design. Call-out boxes, pull quotes and frequent font changes, which might be thought to appeal to a younger audience, in fact make for distracting and disjointed reading. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"This intelligent and informative book is the only insider story from one of the leading lights of the more progressive wing of the emerging movement, the former national coordinator of Emergent Village." -Christianity Today (October 2009)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (April 20, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 047045539X
• ISBN-13: 978-0470455395
• Product Dimensions: 5.7 x 0.8 x 8.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #437,999 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Tony Jones, M.Div., Ph.D., is the author of The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier and is theologian-in-residence at Solomon's Porch in Minneapolis. Tony holds a Ph.D. from practical theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, and he is the author of many books on Christian ministry and spirituality, including and The Sacred Way: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life, and he is a sought after speaker and consultant in the areas of emerging church, postmodernism, and Christian spirituality. Tony has three children and lives in Edina, Minnesota.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Needed Perspective, February 25, 2008

By 

Julie Clawson (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier (Hardcover)

In my opinion The New Christians is a needed and welcomed contribution at this stage in the emerging church conversation. This is the book to read to understand the history of this thing called emergent and the passions of those of us drawn to it. To list a few of the reasons why -

First, to be completely narcissistic, I enjoyed reading Tony's story of his journey into Emergent because it echoed so much of my own experience. I know that he has received criticism for not being inclusive enough of various forms of emerging thought in this book, but he makes it clear in the book that he is telling the story of his own experiences, the groups he has encountered, and the friends he has made. He gives snapshots of where he has encountered the conversation and summarizes the trends he is witnessing. Some people may not see themselves reflected in this book, but for those of us who have trod similar paths as Tony, it is affirming to have part of our story told. This book represents our reality - from the questions, to the conferences, to the online emphasis, to the conversations.

I also like that Tony isn't afraid to tell the truth about the messy parts of Christianity and emergent. The messy parts exist and many in this conversation have experienced pain because of them. So I appreciate Tony's willingness to say that yes Emergent has critics, yes there have been falling outs, and yes some people have refused to play ball with us. It's reality and hiding from it won't help resolve differences. And it's high time, imho, the truth was told that its not just emergents causing the problems.

I appreciated the way Tony dealt with the issues of homosexuality and women in ministry. Instead of dealing with each as "issues," he just told the stories of real people. He was inclusive and affirming in practice while not alienating in dogma. Of course this could just mean he pisses off everyone on both sides of these issues, but I thought he was fair in how he approached such controversial topics.

I enjoyed his affirmation of how popular culture shapes our reality. There are streams in the emerging church that refuse to condescend to popular culture. One often feels like one needs to apologize for watching TV or for listening to mainstream music around other emergents. I liked how Tony used popular culture as metaphors and as keys to understand the forces shaping the conversation. I prefer this thoughtful engagement to the snobbishly turning up of the noses I often expect in emergent circles.

There were of course other stories and ideas throughout the book that I enjoyed, just as there were a few things I questioned and a couple of things that I found annoying (the layout). But this is a good book, well worth the read. If you want to know more about emergent, understand where it came from, or just hear the stories of real people who are a part of it - read this book.

24 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars History & perspective, February 21, 2008

By 

Rick Stilwell "Coffee, Books, Mini" (Cayce, SC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier (Hardcover)

This has been a fun, challenging, insightful read for me. As one who's been reading and thinking and messing people up with "emergent" dialog, Tony Jones' The New Christians (copyright 2008, Jossey-Bass Publishers) gets into the nitty gritty history and thoughts behind the movement in a way that's accessible and personal.

I found "the emergent church" folks about ten years ago, reading some of their forebears and thinking new thoughts that scared me, to be frank. I attended a couple of seminars, traveled to Maryland for one of the Off The Map conferences, and read through alot of books. I put this new work right up there with the most meaningful of my library - good for anyone looking for someone "on the same page as me", and detrimental for anyone wanting to just keep the status quo religiously.

It's into this mess of paradox, oxymorons and mystery that Jones and others have sought to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling".

What I like about Jones' prose is that he doesn't water anything down. There are problems on both sides, there are misunderstandings all over, and there's a need for forgiveness and mercy and grace from each corner. He does this with the historical potions of the story, and then does much the same with the theological discussion of truth, the Bible, interpretation, missiology. There's a flow that's working for me, like a primer on what I've been reading from my own vantage point that's developed over the same passage of years.

30 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars good book but unconvincing to me, February 17, 2008

By 

M. Scott (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier (Hardcover)

This is a well written, and passionately written, book designed to foster excitement for the Christian movement in which the author participates. I give it three stars for this, but no more because I don't find it terribly convincing. However, if you're interested in the Emergent movement, or the current state of Christianity at all, it's worth a read, there is certainly some good information and ideas in the book.

That said, reading this I rather get the impression that Mr. Jones is somewhat out of touch with reality, and takes movement he participates in much too seriously. He constantly compares himself and his fellow Emergents to adventurous pioneers battling on the fringes of philosophy and spirituality. But if you broaden your horizons a bit I think you'll find that pioneering - in a general sense - is being carried on by a great many people of all persuations. Why are the emergents the pioneers but not the Buddhists or secularists? We're all trying to figure this out, this thing we call reality. Really, what the emergent church seems to be (if there really is such a thing, since the author never does give a working definition of it) is a bunch of disillusioned people trying to reconcile their Christian faith with human experience. As such they aren't much different than the Christians who have had seriously questioned their faith throughout history. The only difference is that now they're trying to figure out how to be one in a postmodern world. Jones was not conclusive on how this can be done or if its even possible.

In fact, and unfortunately, he was not conclusive about anything at all. He writes and writes but avoids conclusions, he makes no points, or when he does, he quickly retracts them or qualifies them to the point that they are not falsifiable. He revels in ambiguity and fluff.

An example of fluff is how he claims to find value in all the Christian traditions, and restrains from saying one is right and one is wrong, or even where they are right or wrong. But what does this actually mean? It's ok to say without going into detail (which he almost admits), but its clear that there are huge discrepancies between say, Catholicism and the Baptists. And why only the mainstay traditions? Why is not Christadelphianism considered? And if these traditions are so highly valued, why has he gone off dismissed them to start a new, postmodern tradition? Jones doesn't even try to answer this. It's ok to paint in broad strokes about what you think Christianity is until it comes time to actually explain what your basis for that picture is.

His most interesting chapter to me was 5, "After Objectivity," in which he describes the role of paradox in the Christian faith. Yet in the end I am left unconvinced that these paradoxes are true. If the trinity doesn't make sense, perhaps it really is because people conjured it up. Why look for paradoxes where other explanations suit just fine? Whenever and wherever Jones finds an obvious contradiction he assumes there's a deep hidden truth in it. But sometimes a rose is just a rose. What reason do we have to believe these paradoxes are true, that we are not just reading profundity in them? Any absurd thing can be made profound, that's both the beauty and folly of human imagination. There are certainly paradoxes in other religious and metaphysical theories, some of them may be deep, but many may just be nonsense. Jones assumes that the paradoxes he favors are the former.

Not only this, but he repeatedly contorts the bible to allow for dubious postmodern, existentialist interpretations. In my experience this is certainly impossible (and downright dishonest!) without compromising the original intent of the authors. And if one does that, then what is the point?

Jones seems to want to make the Christian faith somehow existential. For instance he says "the Christian faith is a journey -a Way- not a destination." Personally I think he may have barrowed that idea from Basho or some other poet or philosopher. You certainly don't find it in the Christian scriptures. You find that Jesus is the "Way" but the destination is always the main focus in the New Testament.

So when one does this, when one reads things into the text and pretends that one is teaching bible, or when one takes out-of-date, nonsensical dogmas and says "I believe it because it is irrational" - one is merely playing a game, with oneself and with one's peers.

In fact when one has done this one has effectively ended conversation and dialogue, what Jones espouses most in his book. When one assumes a priori that one's faith is true, then one has effectively closed off communication. On some level Jones has already done this. He's not very interested, it seems, in seriously considering that his faith is dead wrong. But if he was, would it really be possible live a life of such contradiction? After all, you cannot be totally open to discussion and revision AND assume you're beliefs are correct at the same time. It's an impossible stance, a fence-sitting act that can take place only in a static world. Therefore, there's something unreal about the way emergent Christians describe themselves.

Jones complains that critics of the Emergents fail to see the movement as a whole, or are too quick to generalize. Yet he is also reluctant to give us anything TO criticize. In some places he seems to enjoy this state of ambiguity, and even practically admits that criticizing the movement is like "nailing Jell-O to a wall" (sorry I can't remember the page reference).

In the appendices there is a response to certain criticism made by D.A. Carson in his book "Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church." I expected a rebuttal of some sort. Now I have not read Carson's entire book, only selections of it at the store, but from what I saw he was spot-on and his arguments valid, or at least apparently valid, enough to warrant a worthy rebuttal. McLaren, Jones, et al, response addressed nothing. Jones complained they were caricatured and misrepresented (without explaining how), the response consisted of merely affirmed that they really do believe in Christianity (without explaining how), and an offer of friendship to their critics.

Perhaps the new generations of Christians, those conversing with the postmodern world, have felt the need to retreat to ambiguity and contradiction. I understand why this might provide relief - there is a feeling of freedom in that, in not being pinned down. And this attitude itself is great. But I am not convinced that it belongs logically in the Christian faith. I do not see how one can claim to be Christian and also claim to live with this attitude of openness to the possibility of being wrong. Belief in God seems an all or nothing thing. At least that's the way the bible portrays it. Somewhere in McLaren and Jones, et al, something doesn't mesh. Either they, deep down, don't truly believe in God, or they, deep down, are closed on this level to commutation. They can't be both, can't they?

Yet, even with all the problems I have with this movement, which I may or may not have articulated well, it's hard not to feel that this emergent movement, or this emergent sensibility, can only be a good thing for Christians as human beings, because it allows them to breathe rather than feel trapped by static dogma. Who knows what kind of faith will eventually emerge out the emergent church.