Journal: Christian Apologetics Journal
Volume: CAJ 07:1 (Spring 2008)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous

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CAJ 7:1 (Spring 2008) p. 103

Book Reviews

Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church. D. A. Carson. Zondervan, 2005. 256 pp. $15 (paperback). ISBN 0–310-25947–9.

Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church provides a clear look at one of today’s most enigmatic movements from one of evangelicalism’s most erudite and respected leaders. D. A Carson’s loving, yet firm assessment of this movement is helpful for those within the Emerging Church movement (hereby known as EC) and those without.

Becoming Conversant is divided into four sections. The first section defines EC as a movement loosely characterized by protest. The second section provides the movements strengths. The third, and largest, section is devoted to a critique of both EC and the postmodernism in which it is grounded. This section includes a review of the writings of two of the movement’s most vocal proponents. The book’s final two chapters are a chapter covering significant Bible passages in the conversation and a chapter discussing the relationship between truth and experience.

CAJ 7:1 (Spring 2008) p. 104

This book has many strengths. First, Carson’s portrayal of the Emerging Church is both fair and accurate. This is no small task considering EC’s complexities. Surveying popular EC works, Carson shows how this movement spans the spectrum from the Eastern Orthodox to the conservative evangelical (chapter one). Yet, Carson helps the reader stay on track by providing clear definitions and making pertinent distinctions.

Second, instead of focusing on ancillary issues like style and aesthetics, Carson addresses EC’s most substantial problems like postmodern epistemology, objective truth, and essential Christian doctrine. Carson does not ignore issues like aesthetics, but they are addressed in their relationship to more pressing issues.

Third, Carson’s critique of postmodernism is excellent. It should be noted that Carson does see some value in postmodernism. It reminds us that people are finite and therefore so is our knowledge (104). Carson demonstrates how the dilemma postulated by postmodernism—either man knows omnisciently or relatively—is a false one. All claims to human knowledge cannot be relative because this would be self-refuting (115). And the Christian message presupposes objective truth (chapter 5).

While Becoming Conversant does have many strengths, it is not without error. Seeking to provide the “finite knower” with a path to objective knowledge, Carson suggests several models that fail to do this. The models do not place the knower any closer to objective knowledge. For example, in the asymptotic approach, Carson admits that the curved line never reaches the strai...

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