DA Carson and Emerging Missiology
- Does Don Carson do the Emerging Church any justice at all in his critique, Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church (BCCWTEC)?
- If you are "emergent/emerging" and have read this book, what were your first thoughts?
- What has Carson missed in his treatment of this subject?
I know many within the EC have been highly critical of Carson's views. Yet, for the most part, and taking into account I have only read about half the book, I have found his work to be fairly balanced. He has highlighted the strengths of the movement as well as the weaknesses.
Over the next couple of days I want to briefly talk about a few of the things Carson deals with that struck a chord with me and raised questions in my mind as I have been exploring the EC.
The first of these is:
- the post modern ideal of tolerance and a tolerant society
- secondly absolutism
- thirdly, something Carson also mentioned in his talk while in Australia a few months back, the decline of post modernism is other parts of the world,
- and finally - as a bit of a side track - the notion of the Just War that Carson briefly touches on (am particularly interested in this because there seem to be some very strong links between the EC and passivism).
If you haven't read BCWTEC and would like to get a bit more of an idea where Carson is coming from, you can read a paper by him HERE dealing which deals with the same topic
3 comments:
Hey Creature, I wonder if Xns (and perhaps Carson - I haven't read his book) confuse postmoderns willingness to explore and empathise with others very different from themeselves with tolerance. And if they have confused a sense of doubt with a rejection of absolutism. Also where abouts does Carson say Postmodernism is declining and what's his defenition of post modernism.
I have some general thoughts on Postmodernism on my blog (Part 1 here and Part 2 here)
Thanks for dropping by Chris.
I'll be covering your first two questions in days to come - I will try and respond specifically in my posts as the points you raise are interesting.
Re. decline of postmodernism, maybe decline is the wrong word to use, perhaps "change" is better way of describing it. He basically says the way the EC understands post modernism or presents post modernism is outdated, that we are perhaps 50 years behind (and I think there is some legitemacy in this comment), particularly when it comes to epistemics (tying back in with absolutism and tolerance).
I will definitely check out your posts on this topic.
Glad things went ok down in Dunsborough. I didn't get down there this year - first time in about 4 years I haven't been down there in one capacity or another.
:)
BTW - he also talks about this in his presentation given in Perth a few months back. You can listen to it at the Forge WA website.
Post a Comment