Preaching & The Emerging Church, a review

reviewed by T. C. Pinckney                                                                                                                       Vol. XXIV, No. 1, January 2011

The emerging/emergent church movement has received a lot of publicity but, utnil now, very little analysis ... at least analysis available to the public. John Bohannon, Ph. D., Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, has vary capably filled that lack.

Danny Akin, president of Southeastern, has written, “This book is a must read for those who care about the importance of theological conviction and its impact on the contemporary ministry of the Word. Not all who read this work will agree with his conclusions (I do!), but all will be forced to carefully consider what he says.”

Bohannon selects four well-known emerging church pastors and analyzes each of them in three categories: message, mentality, and method. The pastors are Brian McLaren, Doug Pagitt, Dan Kimball, and Mark Driscoll, To give you a sample of his comments I quote one paragraph;

The gospel message for Pagitt offers a deconstructed, re-imagined message that departs considerably from orthodox distinctives. Original sin and the fall are denied, God as judge is rejected, and Jesus as Savior from sin and God’s wrath is dismissed. The replacement or rediscovered gospel sees humanity in uninterrupted connectedness with God as personal friend and Jesus as man’s guide to living, loving, and partnering with God for the betterment and healing of the world.”

One of the book’s strong points is that Bohannon is consistently objective, commenting on both the pluses and minuses of each of the four preachers and analyses the preaching techniques each uses as a result of their concept of the proper role of preaching.

Every indication is that we will face increasing challenges by the emerging/emergent church movement, and we need to be informed about it. Preaching & The Emerging Church is an excellent resource.

[John S. Bohannon, Preaching and the Emerging Church: An Examination of Four Founding Leaders—Mark Driscoll, Dan Kimball, Brian McLaren, and Doug Pagitt (Charleston, Createspace, 2010), 1-317. ISBN: 9781453694589 Available at Amazon.com: $17.05 plus shipping.]