review: Church in the present tense

Church in the present tense: A candid look at what is emerging
Scot McKnight, Peter Rollins, Kevin Corcoran, Jason Clark

My rule these days is that I buy hard copy books if I expect to enjoy them and lend them to others, and Kindle books if no lending is anticipated. I bought Church in the Present Tense in hard copy.  But I'm not sure I will be lending it to many others.

In terms of disappointment, this book most puts me in mind of D A Carson's book on the Emerging Church, but the comparison is hardly fair.  Carson seemingly spoke from a position of little real engagement: these authors are clearly active participants in what is emerging. And yet, because each really only speaks from a narrow personal perspective, the picture is still patchy, and didn't seem to me to amount to a candid look at all.  Perhaps I just expected the wrong thing,

The book consists of eight chapters, with each author contributing two. Corcoran is the editor and writes first, about philosophical realism. This is a curious wander through Postmodernism, epistemic humility, and a heap of related topics: I felt as if I was receiving lots of polemic from Corcoran and understanding his own belief system - but it did little to persuade me to adopt it for myself.  The second essay in the 'philosophy' section is by Rollins: surely he is writing about his favourote topic.  I'm not sure that excuses a line discussing "Heidegger's somewhat Kierkegaardian reading of Nietzsche ...", but over-all the is Rollins at his more readable.

The successive parts take us through Theology, Worship, and Bible and Doctrine.  Each takes us on a tour of the author's perspective, which is interesting,but doesn't really pretend to be representative or typical of the emerging churches they invoke (patchily). McKnight's chapter on scripture in the emerging movement put me very much in mind of McLaren's distinction of bible as constitution versus bible as library. But I fear the latter made the point more clearly. Under worship, Rollins writes on Transformance Art, reprising some of the parable-based stuff from his recent Orthodox Heretic.  He also offers the helpful observation "It is not difficult to avoid hipocrisy when you believe in nothing."

The book comes with a DVD - another reason to but the hard copy - but no reference is made to it in the pages of the book, and as I write this I haven't had opportunity ot view it.

Overall, this must be said to be a book at the 'academic' end of the 'popular' spectrum.  It's well constructed, but I cannot really describe it as instructive. It's a bit disappointing; it feels like a lost opportunity .