Thursday, February 16, 2012

Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional


Feel caught between the traditional church and the emerging church? Discover a third way: deep church. C. S. Lewis used the phrase "deep church" to describe the body of believers committed to mere Christianity. Unfortunately church in our postmodern era has been marked by a certain shallowness. Emerging authors, fed up with contemporary pragmatism, have offered alternative visions for twenty-first-century Christianity. Traditionalist churches have reacted negatively, at times defensively. In Deep Church, Belcher brings the best insights of all sides to forge a third way between emerging and traditional. He offers measured appreciation and affirmation as well as balanced critique. Moving beyond reaction, Belcher provides constructive models from his own church planting experience and paints a picture of what this alternate, deep church looks like--a missional church committed to both tradition and culture, valuing innovation in worship, arts and community but also creeds and confessions. Read more

The Introduction to Deep Church

I have not read this book so please do not construe this post as an endorsement of the book or its contents. In a comment thread on Stand Firm one of the posters makes the claim that one of the subcategories of 'young evangelicals' in the Anglican Mission are 'Deep Church' evangelicals described in Jim Belcher's book. I am planning to read to the book to see if I agree with the description of this group as evangelical. The term 'evangelical' is used very loosely of late, and many described as 'evangelical' Anglicans are far removed from traditional Anglican evangelicalism in their beliefs and practices.

No comments: