{"id":1474,"date":"2010-12-15T11:04:27","date_gmt":"2010-12-15T17:04:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theamericanjesus.net\/?p=1474"},"modified":"2010-12-15T11:04:27","modified_gmt":"2010-12-15T17:04:27","slug":"deep-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/zackhunt\/2010\/12\/deep-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Deep Church"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Obviously here at American Jesus we seek to entertain those of you whose sense of humor is similar to our own, but more than that we hope that at some point some sort of reflection will happen so that you find yourself asking some serious questions about the American church. We tease, because we truly do love the church, both in America and elsewhere. For those of you like us who either have a passion for seeing the church be who she was called to be, or are simply interested in what is going on in the church beyond the four walls we each sit in on Sunday morning, then this book is a must buy. I picked it up at a conference shortly before Thanksgiving and couldn\u2019t put it down.<\/p>\n

Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional<\/a>\"\" is written by Jim Belcher, founding church planter and lead pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church<\/a> in Newport Beach, CA. Although he doesn\u2019t consider himself \u201cemergent,\u201d he came of age in ministry alongside Rob Bell and others who, whether they care for the labels or not, have become closely\u00a0associated\u00a0with the so-called \u201cemergent church.\u201d As\u00a0contentious\u00a0as the \u201cbattle\u201d between the emerging church and the traditional church often is, many people on both sides really aren\u2019t clear as to what the other is proposing. They simply assume what the other believes and attacks that assumed belief. The reasons for this are many, not least of all because there is no clear and definable organization called the \u201cemergent church.\u201d In Deep Church<\/em>, Belcher does an outstanding job of clarifying both the \u201cprotests\u201d of the emergent church as well as the counter-arguments of the traditional church. For someone like myself, who in all honestly only held assumptions about each \u201cside\u201d, I found this clarification\u00a0enlightening\u00a0and Belcher\u2019s even-handed approach refreshing. Missing is the\u00a0vitriol\u00a0that so often spews from both sides when they try to engage the other.<\/p>\n

Clarifying both arguments, however, is not the ultimate point of Deep Church<\/em>. Belcher takes his title from a line in C.S. Lewis\u2019 1952 letter to the Church Times<\/em> in which he wrote \u201cPerhaps the trouble is that as supernaturalists, whether \u2018Low\u2019 or \u2018High\u2019 Church, thus taken together, they lack a name. May I suggest \u2018Deep Church\u2019; or, if that fails in humility, Baxter\u2019s \u2018mere Christians\u2019?\u201d \u00a0In other words, if Lewis was seeking \u201cmere Christianity\u201d, then Belcher seeks \u201cmere church.\u201d As the subtitle suggests, what Belcher is attempting to do is offer a \u201cthird way\u201d beyond the current bifurcation of emergent and traditional. In this I think he succeeds, at least in offering an avenue for others to follow. Belcher grounds this \u201cthird way\u201d in what he calls the \u201cGreat Tradition\u201d, by which he means the universally agreed upon creeds and statements of faith from the early church, i.e. the Apostles\u2019 and Nicene creeds. Personally, I think Belcher is right on with this approach. Only in finding common ground can we hope to reconcile the divisions in the church, and what better place to lay a foundation than in the words we all hold as truth.<\/p>\n

If you find yourself bound by the propositional truths of modernity, or if you are in love with the Enlightenment project, then you probably won\u2019t care for this book, and you will\u00a0undoubtedly\u00a0find Belcher\u2019s attempt at a third way to be a failure. Belcher\u2019s third way\u00a0operates\u00a0from what many would label a postmodern position. At the core of the debate for Belcher is an\u00a0argument\u00a0over truth and belonging. The\u00a0fundamental\u00a0problem in the debate, as Belcher rightly points out, is that both sides approach this issues in radically different ways. For the emergent church truth is contextual and experiential, while the traditional church continues to fight for propositional truth. For the emerging church a person belongs to the community before they necessarily believe everything they profess, while the traditional church requires belief before a person can belong. Belcher does his best to have a foot in both camps as he proposes another option, and for the most part he succedes. Ultimately, however, I do not think he will be able to escape the emergent label in the eyes of many. His argument for truth being like a well from which we can all drink and from which we can stray from, but not too far from, will be for many simply a\u00a0re-narrated\u00a0postmodernism. Likewise, Belcher both preaches and practices belonging before believing, something which is intolerable for many in the traditional camp. Personally, I like both his well paradigm as well as the idea of belonging before we belief. Both seem to have their foundation not only in the Great Tradition, but the gospels themselves.<\/p>\n

Regardless of what camp you find yourself in, or if you don\u2019t find yourself in any camp, if you care about the state of the American church, and particularly if you are in any form of ministry, then you must find the time to pick this book up and read it.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Obviously here at American Jesus we seek to entertain those of you whose sense of humor is similar to our own, but more than that we hope that at some point some sort of reflection will happen so that you find yourself asking some serious questions about the American church. 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