chapter one

The New Christians: Dispatches From the Frontier of the American Church

In chapter one, Tony begins with a history lesson of sorts, taking us through some major themes in church history, including the emergence of fundamentalism, not just in Christianity but in all major religions of today… Tony also cites a movement towards religion, not secularism a trend opposed to many philosophers of the early twentieth century predicted the latter. It is with this intro that Tony begins to give some statistics derived from a Religion Survey conducted in 2006 by Baylor University, that 85% of Americans can tell you a church that they are affiliated with, that is a staggering 255 million Americans.¹ It is with this that Tony asserts that,

” In the twenty-first century, it’s not God who’s dead. It’s the church. Or at least conventional forms of the church.”²

He goes on to say,

The modern church - at least as it is characterized by imposing physical buildings, professional clergy, denominational bureaucracies, residential seminary training, and other trappings - was an endeavor by faithful men and women in their time and place, attempting to live into the biblical gospel. But the church was never the end, only the means. The desire of emergents is to live Christianity, to build something wonderful for the future on the legacy of the past.³

Using this thesis statement, Tony begins to deconstruct the arguments facing these “emergents,” identifying problems on the “right” and “left” that lead to an argument of infinite regression.

btw- thanks Tony for always adding to my vocabulary… (in his defense, he (or his editors) have done a great job of defining most of the “big churchy” words in the text).

This foundationalism is what defines the “right” and the “left” and is what most emergents are trying to steer clear of… hoping to live a more complex reality of a life in the grey.

Tony concludes with a nice dispatch from the blogosphere giving a shout-out to Anthony Smith of the blog, ”Musings of a Postmodern Negro”. Anthony is a great example of many of us emergent types grappling with the practical theology of our faith, in today, and among diverse people.

After reading the initial chapter, I have a few thoughts on the New Christians, Tony introduces… they are young, they are old, they are mainline, they are evangelical, they are intellectuals and they are practitioners. Emergents evade description, and deny stereotypes. They yearn for a new way of doing church, a new way of living life, not as religious practioners, but as incarnational communities. I am looking forward to the direction Tony will take us, and so far give the book a front pew, “Amen!” shout.

One critical review - in my edition there are some typo’s which I think can be blamed on publisher’s error, they are very obvious and at the beginning of a couple paragraphs, which couldn’t be in the original manuscript.

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1. Jones, Tony. “The New Christians: Dispatches From the Frontier of the American Church.” p. 3
2. ibid; p. 4
3. ibid; p. 4-5 (italics mine)