The New Christians by Tony Jones.

Tony Jones has a new book coming out in March 2008. Tony was gracious enough to send me an advanced reader’s copy (in advance of an upcoming podcast) and I devoured it in 3 sittings. While I’m prone to hyper-active spurts of exaggeration, in this particular instance I’m afraid I’ll understate things. I think The New Christians is the most important book since A New Kind of Christian by Brian McLaren.

I’m really not prone to kissing someone’s butt (unless of course it’s this guy’s), but I was literally engrossed in this book from the first page until the last. I raced through it because I couldn’t put it down. I don’t know if it’s because I’m in sort of a sensitive/soft place about possibly entering back into an intentional community of people but I was actually inspired to want to go out and be a part of creating a space again for a gathered community.

the new christians by tony jonesThe book was part personal memoir, part history, part theological framework, and part travelogue. At times it felt like I was listening to a father-type figure reflecting back on his life and looking forward to the life ahead. And at other times it felt like was truly reading a letter from a pioneer in some far away land reporting back the signs of life that he was discovering.

The strongest portion of the book are the metaphors that Tony develops to articulate this nexus and transition in culture that we are experiencing. He waxed poetic with metaphors about phone booths, chickens, and wikis.

Far from being soft, Tony talks at length in deep theological terms about the trinity, the art of hermeneutics, and politics. But despite wading into these heady theological waters, these topics get addressed and explained simply and honestly. But Tony is doing more than trying to articulate what Emergent’s “is” . Instead he is building a framework for an entirely new/old/third way of doing Christianity. I have a suspicion that in the same way Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christian was so instrumental in helping people put their frustrations in to words, that The New Christians will be instrumental in helping people put their hope into action.

I don’t think this is a book that could have been written 7 years ago like A New Kind of Christian. ANKOC helped many people articulate what they were feeling. Which was a beautiful and freeing thing for many people. But it also left many of us (and maybe it’s just me) on the outside looking in, feeling at times like we were on an island, albeit joined by a few of our friends.

Tony’s book has the potential to be one of the final (or first) steps towards many of us reclaiming our role as leaders and visionaries by giving us some sort of closure for the past few years and some sort of hope for the years ahead.

Plus any book that calls Al Mohler and Paige Patterson “bishops” on page 6 is solid by my definition of pwnage. To be fair, he also pushes back on Marcus Borg and John Piper to name a few. Tony appears way more moderate than the “heretic” label that his critics want to put on him.

My only complaint is that I didn’t get a G.I. Joe action figure to accompany the cute little figure on the cover.

DISCLAIMER: I know my review may appear as quite biased. Partly because I consider Tony a friend (albeit an extended one) and I consider myself thorougly emergent (although I understand the hang-ups with labels). This is an understandable assumption. However, I didn’t write a glowing review because of my appreciation for Tony or Emergent. I wrote the glowing review because it’s a freaking good book. And if you’re a critic of Emergent (you know who you are) then I can’t think of another book that would be my greatest hope to get you to give us the benefit of the doubt more than The New Christians.

Language As Framework.

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I’m slowly becoming aware of how powerful language is, how the words that we put on our feelings and actions carry with them the potential for huge things.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about change, dare I say revolution. I think there is not only a lot of unrest with our current options, but I’m beginning to believe (perhaps for the first time) that there are people who are willing to do what it takes to usher in the change. They are willing and prepared for it to cost them something.

Politics. Economics. Spirituality. Sexuality. Change is in the air and it is beginning with words. For the first time in a long while there is a swelling voice that is beginning to articulate this growing unrest with some of the systemic problems that we have locally and globally.

In this way, perhaps “words” are the first signs of revolution. I remember reading Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christian for the first time and out of nowhere feeling like I was being hit with a ton of bricks. All of a sudden McLaren was putting words onto the feelings that were laying just below the surface for me. By articulating this change in my life and the life of others, he gave me words to describe what I was feeling, what was changing, and what was happening without making me feeling hopeless. In a way it validated what I knew to be true in the deepest parts of my heart but was unable to say (before) without feeling like an idiot.

The same thing happens when you give victims of domestic violence words to describe their abuse. Or when you give words to those who suffer from injust governments. In real and deep ways, they begin to stand up to their oppressor and are empowered to resist them, effecting change which becomes the catalyst for revolution.

I think this same idea is happening in other areas. People are beginning to not only articulate the problem in fresh ways, but they are simultaneously articulate solutions and cures in fresh ways.

I’m not saying the revolution has happened yet or that it’s even upon us or that it will even be realized. But without these people articulating and putting into words things ahead of time there would be no infrastructure for change to put it’s foundation on.

David Korten as quoted in Everything Must Change, referring to the culture war between empire and earth community, “The outcome will depend in large measure on the prevailing stories that shape our understanding . . . Perhaps the most difficult and yet essential aspect of this work is to change our stories.”

Changing our stories is going to happen in large part by big-names and no-names standing up to the unjust and corrupt stories and exposing them for what they are. This is part of the revolution, this fumbling process of searching for the right words is the beginning of the change.

It is happening now. And my only concern is that too many people are seeing these articulations as nothing but mere banter. And negative complaints. When in fact, I believe they are neither.