An Emergent Manifesto of Hope

Just read An Emergent Manifesto of Hope edited by Tony Jones and Doug Pagitt for my class. It is a collection of different writers from within the emerging church movement from a variety of backgrounds and church traditions. It really was a fascinating book and it felt like being at an emergent convetion and interacting with a variety of people.

My favorite chapters were “The Postmodern Parent” by Carla Barnhill, “Church Emerging” by Brian McLaren, “Humble Theology” by Dan Kimball, “Leadership in a Flattened World” by Sally Morgenthaler, “The End of Reinvention” by Will Samson, and “Leading from the Margins” by Tim Keel.

To read some other reviews click here, here, and here.

Here are a few of the things that jumped out to me:

• When we experience the deconstruction of our faith, we are in good company with many of the characters of ancient Scripture, whose expectations of what it meant to follow God were constantly being challenged and subverted.
• How we live is of equal importance to what we believe or how we practice the rituals of a particular community or tradition.
• It does not suffice to have vague and romantic notions of the kingdom of God that are disconnected from the details of the life and teachings of Jesus.
• We grow in our relationship to and to each other simultaneously.
• In being centered in Christianity, we are affirming that we are more concerned about where we find our center than our edges.
• The will of God is not one of life’s ultimate secrets or a hidden treasure that needed to be carefully sought after. Rather, the will of God was in fact a way of life, a way of looking at the world, a way of relating to God and to the others in my life.
• In the spiritual life, the word discipline means “the effort to create some space in which God can act.”
• Across the whole story of Scripture God’s saving work is best understood in terms of cosmic healing, holism, and liberation.
• The church must not be naive – the medium truly is the message.
• Living out the mission of God has always required wrestling with three questions:  Who is God? What is God doing in this context? and How can I be a part of this work of God?
• Preachers speak of the Bible as an instruction book or as the only data necessary for spiritual living. But this diminishes some critical elements of theological knowledge, namely, the work of the Spirit.
• Contextual theology is rooted in the notion that God’s kingdom is vast and diverse, and it is our task as followers of Jesus to understand the diversity of God’s work in the world and join that effort.
• If by our actions we say that being right is more important than being together, what does that say about the God who formed our communities or how that God wishes to interact with contemporary humanity?

It was a really interesting read. I love books that have many different authors so it feels like you are hanging out with a bunch of different people sharing stories and thoughts.