Product Showcase {Book & Bible}

EMERGENT CHURCH

Becoming Conversant With the Emerging Church

D.A. Carson / Zondervan p $14.99 ISBN: 0310259479

To help traditional church leaders understand and ostensibly find common ground with the emerging church, seminary professor Carson critiques the emerging-church movement, noting Brian McLaren’s and others’ perceived scriptural inconsistencies. Carson’s scholarly tone makes it inaccessible to average readers, though his analysis of premodern, modern, and postmodern thought is excellent.

The author says postmodern views associated with the movement are largely incompatible with Christianity. He counters postmodernism by stating repeatedly, “We can know some things of what Scripture says truly, even if nothing omnisciently.” While he shows the emerging church, with its subjective viewpoints, can never be acceptable from a solidly modernist perspective, his arguments won’t dismiss its validity to those disillusioned with modernist Christianity or convince readers postmodernism constitutes all there is to the movement. Despite his fatherly tone toward what he perceives as wayward youth, Carson seems unwilling to consider that aspects of the emerging-church phenomenon may be a genuine work of God. —Gary Hassig

The Last Word and the Word After That

Brian McLaren / Jossey-Bass c $21.95 ISBN: 0787975923

McLaren’s third semi-fictional treatise in a trilogy (A New Kind of Christian and The Story We Find Ourselves In) continues to follow the changing theology of Dan Poole, an evangelical/emergent pastor. Most of the book is a wide-ranging conversation between Dan and friend Neil Oliver (Neo). They examine traditional and nontraditional views of hell and alternative ways of interpreting the Bible. They discover likeminded believers from different religious traditions who share their new, this-worldly understanding of the Gospel, which focuses on Jesus as the One who creates better people here on earth who will follow His way to create a “good and beautiful world.”

The Last Word is stimulating, provocative, and engrossing. It will act like a Rorschach test: Readers committed to traditional teaching will be irritated, while those looking for alternatives will find it interesting.

Heed McLaren’s own caveats: It’s not a ‘fair’ presentation; it underrepresents the traditional view of hell; and the theology isn’t original. Finally, the author warns the book’s ideas could harm readers.

Not everyone will appreciate the provocation. G.K. Chesterton said the object of an open mind is to eventually shut it on something solid. —Neil Bartlett

NONFICTION

a.k.a. “Lost”

Jim Henderson / WaterBrook Press

Subject: Evangelism p $12.99 ISBN: 1578569141

We need a new way of perceiving, approaching, and winning to Christ those people traditionally thought of as lost, Henderson asserts.

He prefers to think of them as missing persons who need to be found for Jesus because He misses them so much. They aren’t lost, so much as they’re simply not where they’re supposed to be. Certainly, they don’t perceive themselves to be lost.

This altered perception helps to blur the “us vs. them” attitude, and fosters a kinder, gentler approach. Only a few people gifted in evangelism can successfully follow the model for witnessing generally promoted. Consequently, most people simply don’t do it. We need a new model that’s comfortable and do-able—one that feels natural for all concerned, and one that follows much more closely the model Jesus lived out for us.

This excellent book is a worthwhile read for all Christians. —Anita Cain

Battle Cry for a Generation

Ron Luce / Cook Communications Ministries Subject: Youth Ministry c $19.99 ISBN: 0781442672

“The world has kidnapped our kids right under our noses. We have invited the terrorists into our homes and paid them to corrupt our kids,” says Luce, whose Acquire the Fire youth gatherings have inspired millions of teens and thousands of youth workers internationally. He decries media and business “terrorists’” efforts to “capture a generation by restructuring its values, especially in the area of sexuality,” citing TV, pornography, and video-game industries as some of the prime culprits in exposing kids to a flood of perversion and violence to convince them it’s normal.

Luce has a vision: to raise up an army of

88 | AspiringRetail | June2005

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