Tension is the best word to describe my experience with Jim Belcher’s book Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional (affiliate link). The first time I recall hearing about the book was when @jimbelcher followed me on twitter. When he was not following me a few days later, the follow/unfollow felt somewhat spammy; however, the book did impress me with its endorsements. On the one hand, I didn’t care much about the controversy of the emerging movement; on the other hand, I was concerned about the amount of emergent literature I saw in the library of someone I care about. When I saw a promotion to get a copy of the audio book from Christianaudio, I decided to go ahead and take a chance on it. After listening to it, I felt largely positive about it, but decided to get the paperback copy from the library so I could see the words on the page and better understand it.

Deep Church begins with Belcher’s narrative of his relationship to the emerging church and why a third way matters. He attempts to define the emerging church and identifies seven "protests" of the emerging church: captivity to Enlightenment rationalism, a narrow view of salvation, belief before belonging, uncontextualized worship, ineffective preaching, weak ecclesiology, and tribalism. He takes these protests and devotes a chapter to understanding the controversy of the protest and presenting his "deep" solution: Deep Truth, Deep Evangelism, Deep Gospel, Deep Worship, Deep Preaching, Deep Ecclesiology, and Deep Culture.

Experience

Listening to the audio book was pleasant. The narrator spoke clearly and had a pleasing tone. I appreciated the consistency of his volume- which was especially useful when listening in the car. While not prone to extreme volume changes, I found enough variance in his manner and tone that it was not boring either.

As I listened and later read, I found that I resonated with his life experiences. I could identify with the fellowship of a close group of friends in college. I recognized my own frustrations in some of his frustrations like the focus on life-stage ministry that segregates churches into groups based on factors like age and marital status rather than displaying the radical unity in Christ that surpasses distinctions like race, economic status, and gender (Galatians 3:28).

I also found myself annoyed with some stylistic issues. These were often minor things like referring to authors and leaders by their first names rather than the more formal (respectful?) use of surnames. At times this was distracting; for example, in the chapter "Deep Preaching" the use of "Doug" (Pagitt) and "Kevin" (DeYoung) kept reminding me of Up. Sometimes the style also made it difficult for me to distinguish when Belcher was representing his own view or explaining the views of others.

Clarity

Definitions are important for any dialogue. I think terms are one of the reasons why the emerging church and traditional church talk past each other. People assume that when two people use the same words they mean the same thing, but this isn’t a good assumption because it is frequently false. When dialoguing with people, it is important to make sure the other side is understood.

Belcher’s effort to understand both sides and define the terms being used was one thing I really appreciated about Deep Church. I found this especially helpful in his look at postmodernism, and realizing that postmodernism is more than "what’s true for you isn’t true for me" certainly helped me be more charitable to those who call themselves postmodern. In fact, I was surprised at how much I agreed with some aspects of postmodernism (particularly I agree with some of the criticisms of the Enlightenment, modernism, and foundationalism).

In tension to my appreciation for his charitable definitions, I found myself frustrated by a lack of clarity in terms. While I thought he did a good job of explaining the emerging church, I agreed with Kevin DeYoung’s review in finding the definition of the traditional church to be unsatisfactory. Although I would place myself in the traditional camp, I didn’t recognize myself in many of the descriptions of the traditional church. Belcher says traditional church is not "monolithic" (page 10), and in a footnote even says "I am well aware of the diversity within the camp and the fact that there are even reforming movements inside the traditional church." However, I don’t see much mention of the reform within the traditional church represented.

I also felt frustration with a lack of clarity when referring to "the Great Tradition." If Belcher clearly defined what he means by "Great Tradition," I missed it. While it seems mainly to be the whole of Christian heritage, the capitalization and frequent repetition of the term made me wonder if it had a more specific meaning.

Claims

There were many times that I appreciated the recognition of tension in the claims Belcher made. I loved when he said, "I am in favor of belonging, but I don’t want to shortchange belief" (page 96). I also found myself smiling and nodding at things like maintaining a low bar for membership.

However, I also found myself disagreeing with Belcher. In general I thought Belcher made too much of tradition. While I think we should learn from and appreciate church history, the church fathers were fallible. We should be reluctant to reject what has been commonly held through the ages, but we shouldn’t make tradition equal to Scripture (and it certainly shouldn’t replace the work of the Holy Spirit and Belcher never explicitly said it was equal to either Scripture or the Holy Spirit). In "Deep Worship" I was uncomfortable with saying the problem was the low-church view. The worship wars are a sad problem, but the solution is not high-church worship. Don’t get me wrong, I admire many things about high-church worship, but I don’t think the problem with the worship wars is that it is based on low-church style or that they can be solved by the high-church tradition. I would say the problem is, as Mark Driscoll said at one of his Advance 2009 messages, idolatry (seriously a great message, if you haven’t listened to it, stop reading this post and go download it instead). The problem is not so much the method of worship, but whether we are worshiping God (not worshipping any form of worship). I am in favor of worshipping with excellence and in ways that people can relate to, but I’m more concerned that we worship in spirit and in truth (John 4:24).

Humility

I was pleased with the humble tone of the book. I was a bit concerned with the title, but it is just a reference to a letter written by C. S. Lewis. While he explains what Redeemer Presbyterian Church attempts to do, he doesn’t claim to have perfected it. I was also pleased by the discussion of a two-tiered system of belief- that there can be disagreement among Christians on some issues (for example eschatology). I also appreciated recognizing that although we hold views on issues (and there are correct and incorrect views), it is good to recognize that we might be wrong.

I highly appreciated the consistent use of charitable judgements. However, I felt a concern about whether there was enough love towards the laity (sheep like me). I appreciate the value of dialogue, but what about the value of discernment? Perhaps dialog with those outside of orthodoxy is sometimes beneficial, but I can’t fully agree that "Dialogue is always a good thing even with those outside the bounds of orthodoxy" (page 53). The New Testament has many strong warnings about false teachers (for example 2 Peter 2). I would have appreciated some bolder language than that of "misgivings" (for example page 116) and "This is, I am afraid, gospel reductionism" (page 118).

Conclusion

Like the beginning of my experience with Deep Church, the end of my post is full of tension for me. On the one hand, I think it was profitable for me to read, but I am hesitate to recommend it too highly. I think it would be worthwhile for those involved in a church plant. It may be useful for those who always cringe whenever someone says something that sounds "postmodern," but if one goes into it expecting to tear it apart, one probably could. I might recommend it to those who are attracted to the emerging movement, but on the other hand, I’m not sure it gives as much warning as is warranted about the dangers of some aspects of the emergent side of the movement.