Subscribers have the opportunity to participate in discussion forums, post sermons and offer helpful critique to others. Archived feature articles will also be available to subscribers.
A six-month free subscription is available through a key that can be found on the CD bundled with Kent Anderson's Choosing to Preach. >>
If you are anything like me, you have found yourself whip-sawed in recent years between the traditional and emerging churches. My recent comments on the Piper/Wright debate are a case in point. As much as I appreciate John Piper’s emphasis upon the legal aspects of the atonement, I find myself compelled by Wright’s concern for the broader implications of justification. As I read these conversations, I get the sense that the various parties are somehow “talking past each other,” as if they were speaking different languages.
For that reason, I was instantly drawn to Jim Belcher’s objective in his new book, Deep Church. Belcher, who has been something of an “insider” to the conversation over many years, is searching for a “third way beyond emerging and traditional.” Utilizing a phrase he found in C.S. Lewis, Belcher describes this third way as “Deep Church,” a way of doing and being church that draws on both sides of the continuum. The result, one hopes, is a church that avoids the excesses of the combatants, while embracing what is good in both.
It is a lot to ask for, and whether Belcher succeeds with his prescriptions, he does offer one of the best summaries of the discussion, even-handedly describing the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches. I suspect that both sides of the discussion will have reason to squirm in equal measure under Belcher’s observation.
The book is written mostly in the first person. It has the feel of a narrative as Belcher describes his conversations with people like Doug Pagitt, Tony Jones, and Dan Kimbell. In one devastating section, he describes a now-famous meeting between Pagitt, Jones, and John Piper. Reading the book is a little like watching a Discovery Channel documentary on the state of church. It is often unsettling.
The book focuses on a number of key issues: truth, evangelism, gospel, worship, preaching, ecclesiology, and culture. This is as good a taxonomy of the issue as I am aware of. In each case, Belcher describes the dispute, usually beginning with the emerging critique of the traditional, following with the traditional response to the emerging critique, and then sketching out some middle ground and describing how Belcher and his team at Redeemer Presbyterian Church are working it out in Costa Mesa, CA.
Belcher’s appeal rests on at least two concepts, the idea of “centered-set thinking” and a concern for the so-called “Great Tradition.” I’ll admit that I didn’t find the jargon always helpful, but I did like the general ideas. The sense of it is that the church needs to pursue the Kingdom of God on all fronts, avoiding dualistic and individualistic theologies, all the while retaining a rock-solid centre on the Bible, as it has been traditionally understood. Reverting to the ancient Christian tradition, and its understanding of the Bible, provides a hermeneutic corrective to the over-personalized “relational hermeneutics” of our day. In addition, challenging the church to a more holistic application of our theology will deepen the quality of our kingdom service. While I’m not confident, these arguments will win the day, I’m pleased to hear them aired.
Of course, I was particularly interested in what Belcher had to say about preaching. Much of this section was a discussion of Pagitt’s “progressional dialogue” including his report of a personal visit to Solomon’s Porch to view Pagitt in action. While Belcher came away with the sense that there was little about Pagitt’s form that ought to worry, in conversation afterwards, Belcher discerned a more sinister hermeneutic. Pagitt, according to Belcher, believes that the sermon is an opportunity for hermeneutics to be worked out in community. Traditionalists are concerned, Belcher says, because this elevates the community above the Bible. Have people like Pagitt, lost their confidence in God’s Word?
Belcher offers Eugene Lowry’s “homiletical plot” as directing us toward a “third way” homiletic. While I greatly appreciate what Lowry has to teach us on the subject, I found it a little amusing to note that Belcher would lead us to a homiletic form that is more than 25 years old. Indeed, evangelicals are well behind the homiletic curve. It is established that a more inductive, and narrative-based approach to preaching goes a long ways toward blunting the excesses of the purely deductive and propositional approaches championed by the traditional church. I might suggest, however, that an integrative approach, such as described in my own book, Choosing to Preach, might be more in keeping with the direction Belcher wants to go.
In fact, this integrative idea does seem to permeate the book. The way forward is not to keep shooting at each other. The way forward is to integrate a love and concern for the Bible with a passion for the people and the cultures that we want to reach. In the end, we need to unite around our mission. To that end, I found it curious that Belcher didn’t have much to say about the so-called “missional option” given that his proposals seemed to fit well the directions offered by people like Craig Van Gelder and Alan Hirsch. In fact, Belcher quotes Hirsch extensively, seeing him (wrongly, I think) as part of the emerging church. It is this emphasis on mission, that has the best chance of offering a true third way, in my opinion.
I found I liked Jim Belcher. He seems humble, generous, and wise, and I appreciate him stepping so helpfully into the fray. I don’t expect that we will all immediately drop our differences and embrace the Deep Church paradigm around a rousing chorus of “Friends are Friends Forever.” Yet perhaps there is here, the offer of a start toward a more congenial future. I should hope so.