- Scot's full post on Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging ChurchesThe book is a 5 perspectives book. Each author writes out his or her view on each topic, and then the other four interact. The five authors are:
Mark Driscoll: Biblicist theology
John Burke: Incarnational theology
Dan Kimball: Missional theology
Doug Pagitt: Embodied theology
Karen Ward: Communal theologyIt is not hard to guess how this approach works out as the book strolls along — Driscoll takes on each topic with gusto and comes up looking like what he is: a Reformed emerging pastor; John Burke comes up looking like a sensitive pastor to postmoderns who is a conservative evangelical on each of the three topics. Both are orthodox in Scripture, Trinity and atonement; Driscoll is more defined than Burke. Burke is more concerned with building bridges in our pluralistic context; Driscoll tears the bridges down.
Dan Kimball comes up looking like a pastor to postmoderns with sensitivity to issues while at the same time not defining specifics; he keeps theology at the basic level of common agreements in orthodoxy. He’s an evangelical in theology: inspiration, Trinity, and substitutionary atonement.
Doug Pagitt discusses at length the conversational nature of theology and doesn’t really address the three topics; Karen Ward looks at each topic in nonpropositional, communal, and ritualistic ways.
Good post. Interesting that you note that “Driscoll tears the bridges down.”
ReplyDeleteBridges can accept two way traffic. If we build a bridge on the wrong issue, we could end up with someone thinking they are on the Christian side when they are not.