Deep Church, Part 1 :: Charting a Third Way

Thanks to Twitter, I keep tabs on a personalized stream of information.  I follow church leaders, news outlets, friends, theologians, and a couple of celebrities, among them Shaq.  During the fall a book called Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional came to my attention, in part because I had connected with Jim Belcher, the author, but more so because other leaders within the Christian world that I respect were drawing attention to the book.  After reading a few Amazon reviews, I was intrigued, so I ordered away, waiting for arrival, and when I had the book in hand I was hooked.  I quickly recommended it to three friends.

The title gives a lot away.  Most anyone I know who is a Christian leader recognizes that there is a deep division within the church, whether it be based on theology or style.  I have wondered if there has ever been a time when this has not been the case, but nevertheless, despite our divisions most all recognize the need to work for unity, and Deep Church is an attempt to build a bridge between two distant shorelines within modern day evangelicalism.

A few quick notes about the book: 

• Jim Belcher is speaking from within the Presbyterian Church in America and is pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, California.  He has a PhD from Georgetown and an M.A. from Fuller Theological Seminary.
• Adrian Warnock has called this book a "model" book akin to Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Church.  He thinks we need more of these kinds of books.
• Scot McKnight named Deep Church one of his "third way" books of the year, along with Adam Hamilton's Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White: Thoughts on Religion, Morality, and Politics.  McKnight also posted a blog series on Deep Church.

For the past several years I've been a student of the "emerging church."  Having grown up in a traditional church setting, new developments within Christianity have fascinated me, particularly since some of those new developments are particularly geared to appeal to my generation.  I agree with Warnock and McKnight that Belcher's Deep Church is an important read if you want to understand the tensions between traditional churches and "emerging" churches.  Belcher states his purpose this way:

This book is written for those who are caught in between.  They are unhappy with the present state of the evangelical church but are not sure where to turn for an answer.  They like some of what the emerging and traditional camps offer, but they are not completely at ease with either.  The public conflict makes the anxiety worse, and these people don't know who to trust or believe.  What if both are off target?  Is there a third option, a via media?  I believe there is a third way.  It is what C.S. Lewis called the "Deep Church."

Belcher goes on to say that this book is also for outsiders seeking to understand the debate, seminarians working out their ecclesiology, and pastors questioning how ministry is undertaken in their context.  The heart of the book addresses the seven protests of the emerging church and the answers given by the traditional church.  Those topics are Truth, Evangelism, Gospel, Worship, Preaching, Ecclesiology, and Culture. 

This week I'm going to take on four themes within the book: Evangelism, Gospel, Ecclesiology, and Culture.

I hope you'll check it out.  We need more third way thinkers like Belcher.