Southern Baptist Theology in the Late Twentieth Century
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 54, No. 2 – Spring 2012
Managing Editor: Malcolm B. Yarnell III
By Mark Liederbach and Alvin L. Reid. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2009. 302 pages. Softcover, $19.99.
Much has been written in recent days about the Emerging Church Movement (ECM) in all its various forms. While the leaders of this movement continue to publish works defending their positions, critics have feverishly critiqued, evaluated, and dismissed their volumes for a number of theological and methodological reasons. In this volume, Mark Liederbach and Alvin Reid, both of whom are professors at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, attempt to fashion a via media between the proponents and the critics. They write, “It is our conviction . . . that while many of the ECM’s criticisms and critiques have validity, there is a better way forward that will take us beyond the overreaction to the real and perceived failures of the modern Conventional Church. This way forward involves listening to the critiques and ideas of the ECM while being careful not to reject the necessary foundations or truths of the gospel message” (21–22). The authors hope that this convergence of two streams of thought—the emerging church and the conventional church—will bring about a more effective and biblically sound “convergent church.”
The book is divided into three main sections which, on some level, could almost be read independently of each other as long as one has read the introduction. In the first section comprising four chapters, the authors take their readers on a journey through the development of modernity into its transition to postmodernity. The book provides a basic overview of the thought and influence of Descartes, Hume, Kant, Wittgenstein, Foucault, and Derrida. While the overall nature of this historical review is fairly basic, it certainly provides any reader without a background in philosophy the context from which to see how contemporary culture reached postmodernism. Then the authors demonstrate how different ideas along the way found their way into the church. Finally, this section concludes with an evaluation of the prevalent characteristics of the ECM, including vintage faith, missional emphasis, holistic orthopraxy, communal authenticity, contextual relevance, and postevangelical movement.
The second section of the book provides a discussion on missional worship. These three chapters consider three distinct ideas that serve as a foundation to answering the criticisms coming from the emerging church. The first is the concept of life as worship. In this chapter, the authors challenge their readers to view every thought and deed as worship. The end goal is that the lives of Christians would reflect the glory of God in every aspect. The next concept to challenge the readers is to view Christianity as a movement and, as a result, be moved to the mission of spreading the gospel message. The final idea is that doctrine serves as a foundation for both worship and mission. This is the authors’ most direct attempt at redirecting the drifting tendencies of the contemporary church. They argue that not only has the emerging church sacrificed doctrine at points but that evangelicals as a group suffer from doctrinal illiteracy among many of their people.
The final section of the book considers the idea of living out missional worship. It is in this section that the authors attempt to place some practical application to the concepts they have discussed in the previous chapters. The first two chapters of this section are also the most helpful of the book. In them, the authors discuss the subject of ethics. They propose that the two common streams within Christian ethics—deontology and virtue—need not be mutually exclusive; rather, they propose that the goal of Christian ethics should be a life of virtue informed by deontological commands and content, resulting in a deontological virtue ethic. In the second chapter on ethics, the authors challenge their readers to reconsider social justice issues apart from the Social Gospel movement. It is in this chapter that many within “conventional” churches will encounter the struggle between being the church that cares for its own and the church that cares for the poor, widows, and orphans. The final three chapters of the book discuss the concepts of evangelism and discipleship. In these chapters, the readers are asked to evaluate their traditional methodologies of evangelism and discipleship for the sake of developing the most effective means possible to make disciples and teach them everything Christ has commanded.
As with any book written by multiple authors, there are times when the vari-
ous chapters of this book appear to be somewhat disjointed from each other and do not follow a consistent theme. Even with that in mind, there are certainly some significant contributions made by this book. For the average reader with no background in the history of Western thought or philosophy, the historical survey of modernism and postmodernism in the first section is invaluable for understanding why the church is in her current position. The chapter entitled, “Converging on Ethics, Part 2: Who’s Afraid of the Social Gospel?” is probably worth the price of the book. It challenges and convicts both the conventional and the emergent approach to ethics. Overall, this volume is a worthy read and would make a good addition to the library of anyone addressing the problems of the contemporary church.
