Whether you’re only loosely affiliated with Emergent or have a front row seat to “the conversation”, you’ll no doubt be interested in the New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier, a new book by Tony Jones, national coordinator for Emergent Village. While numerous books have been written on the topic of the emerging church (including a few critiques, some more fair than others), this book is what you might call a true insider’s perspective. And not only because its penned by Jones’, who has a considerable role and history within Emergent, but also because the book includes anecdotal reports from on-the-ground, brick-and-mortar, “caffeine-and-sconed” Emergent churches from across the United States. To be clear, the New Christians offers the most crystallized, comprehensive series of snapshots of the Emergent phenomenon offered by any author to date. Add to that the impressive writing prowess of Jones, and you’re guaranteed an informative, entertaining joyride through the life and times of an organic movement that has grown immensely in popularity, familiarity and impact over the last several years.

Jones opens his book reminiscing about a meeting - that took place more than a decade ago - that served as a true turning point for the movement that would become Emergent. At that meeting, the idea that church merely needed to be re-packaged for Generation X came into question. By the end of that meeting there were two groups of people identified; those who got it, and those who didn’t. So what was to be gotten? Well, the idea that the very way people experienced truth had shifted… in a word, postmodernism. Under the umbrella of this new paradigm it was realized that superficial re-packaging wasn’t going to cut it anymore. And this realization exposed the new soil upon which Emergent would be seeded.

Now would probably be a good time to address the difference between what is often referred to as the emerging church, or, the emerging conversation, from Emergent, or Emergent Village. While the emerging church is a larger conversation involving a much broader slice of 21st century Christianity, Emergent is one specific (though still fluid and organic) entity within the larger conversation. And in clarifying the difference, Jones writes,

This second group more accurately describes Emergent. And speaking of definitions, while it’s too much to expect a static mission or doctrine document from an organic and unbounded movement like Emergent, Jones actually goes a long way towards delivering clarity. The New Christians is filled with - what you might call - individually-wrapped points of convergence that serve to hold Emergent together. These include:


This last point is key. Much of the criticism of Emergent relates to claims of its luge-like-run down the slippery slope of postmodernity. Critics claim that Emergent goes wrong in its attempt to forsake biblical clarity for the ever-shifting constitution of political correctness. But here Jones - and not the Emergent critics - turns to history to defend this approach to theology. Not only is it true - as an abstract conceptual point - that we are finite, erring creatures trying to comprehend a limitless God, but history also tells us there are many occasions where we just got it plain wrong. To put it bluntly- our theology was wacked. In reality, we Christians have justified all sorts of horrors while parading to church every Sunday morning with our fashionably worn bibles in hand. Slavery, the oppression of women, you name it… we did it - all the while claiming to be a biblically-based community.

Now today, for the vast majority of Christians, there is a clear confession that these practices and belief systems were wrong, that they were clearly out of line with what the Bible teaches. Great! Confession is an essential component of true repentance. But what makes us so sure we’re not making similar errors today? The errors that the church of tomorrow will reject and decry? This is Jones’ point. This is why Emergent embraces – again, as he puts it - “not relativistic apathy”, but “biblical humility”.

While this emphasis on biblical humility is one defining feature of Emergent, an equally important one is the cohesion, the indivisibility of theology, and praxis. In his 9th dispatch, Jones writes,


Jones goes on to clarify further…


If one were to identify one of the fairest and most telling critiques of Emergent - in my opinion anyway - it would be this sense that a robust conversation still needs to incarnate into various expression of real, on-the-ground communities of faith, if it is to have a lasting and truly substantial impact. If this were to remain simply an intellectual, or a solely web-based movement, it would - more than likely – be doomed to a short and tumultuous existence. But this is where Jones’ book is such a pleasant surprise. It is much more than a manifesto of Emergent potential, it is a glimpse into real communities of faith that are already living out this message of Emergent presence.

This demonstrates one of Jones’ strengths. He doesn’t simply “trust his instincts” when it comes to the Emergent experience, he goes out and documents it, tests it, experiences it first hand. The New Christians lets us experience a-day-in-the-life of several of these Emergent churches, including Jones’ own home church, Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis, as well as the Church of the Apostles in Seattle, and Jacob’s Well in Kansas City. Each of these communities is its own, and yet, each one also clearly shares a common-identity. And being that postmodernity tells us that truth is in tension, we come away with a better understanding of what it means to be Emergent by experiencing all three of these faith communities in action.

There is much to recommend with this book. For those new to the conversation, the New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier offers an insightful glimpse into history. For those grappling with understanding Emergent today, it offers a clarifying, yet fluid picture- taken from multiple vantage points. It also introduces us to someone, Jones himself, who sits somewhere close to the center of this weblike, open-source theo-ecclesial movement. And this particular point of view is certainly a fascinating one. The view from here tells us that our inclinations are correct; that this movement is gaining momentum around North America, and the world - marking a truly fresh, engaging, newly-integrated way of following in the footsteps of Jesus of Nazareth in the 21st century.