One of the many stylistic elements of Belcher’s book I’ve appreciated as I read it has been the way he weaves memoir/biographical writing into his social critiques of traditionalist and emerging churches. It keeps the chapters feeling less like how-to’s and more like pastoral conversations about how best to move forward.
This final chapter for me was helpful, but also very familiar in its turns and conclusions as you pointed out Scot. I got a lot out of Belcher’s shift in terminology from “resident aliens” (Hauerwas) to “cultural aliens.” I think his discussion of common grace language could have been deepened with more engagement with Lamin Sanneh, Kevin Vanhoozer, and Anthony Thiselton (I’m sure Belcher’s very familiar with them).
I really appreciated the testimonies in his conclusion chapter and bullet-point features of what a deep church is. Thank you Scot for hosting this discussion and thank you Jim for your many thoughts here. I got a lot from everyones comments.

I have yet to read Jim’s fine book so thanks for this good review. As for this last chapter, too much anabaptism/Hauerwas in the emerging church? I have my doubts. My interactions with Doug Pagitt, friends Tony Jones and Brian McLaren is they really don’t get Hauerwas and misread him and Yoder as being dangerously sectarian (a common rip if there ever was one). Perhaps Jim is talking about the wider emerging church but I really don’t see a whole lot here either in this direction.
As for Kuyper, and Richard Mouw etc., I’d like to understand how this furthers the conversation within evangelicalism. Common grace yes … but unless there is a local visible ‘incarnate’ ecclessiolgy (and I believe a closer look reveals just how much this theology is captive to the Majesterial Reformation of Europe and its coincident Christendom habits) this kind of Reformed theology goes the way of the evangelical right or the evangelical left.
Thanks Scot

Too much anabaptism?
Them’s fightin’ words. Too bad we can’t fight.

This was by far, I think, the most disappointing part of the book.
I appreciate Kuyper and the Dutch Reformed tradition on culture (Dooyeweerd is actually cooler than Kuyper). As a fellow Gordon College student in the 80′s, along with Jim, I cut my faith-and-culture teeth on Kuyper.
However — I think the cooption of Kuyper by the religious right has been an unmitigated disaster. I lay this more at the feet of Francis Schaeffer than Kuyper per se, and there also is an unhealthy dose of Cornelius Van Til underlying some elements of neo-Calvinism and the religious right. Nevertheless, the neo-Calvinist perspective is what drives the religious right’s culture wars (even though James Dobson isn’t a Calvinist!).
Getting “beyond” Kuyper is one of the great eye-openers the emerging church has gifted to evangelicals. You can’t have “too much” Hauerwas or too much MLK, Jr. or too much Bonhoeffer — or too much John Paul II / Benedict, or too much Milbank. The tapestry regarding Christian cultural engagement is rich and varied. Why settle for the same old stuff that got us into this mess?

Scot,
Let me just say how grateful I am for your blogging on Deep Church for the past 5 weeks! And many thanks for contributing such a great blurb for the back cover of my book. These two things have gone a long, long way in spreading the word and generating great dialogue around the idea of the deep church. I learned so much from the readers of this blog. So thanks everyone. And if I did not get to all your questions, I apologize. Just ran out of time most days. I may try to get back to a few of the questions over the next couple of weeks and provide an answer.
This chapter, Deep Culture, was one of my favorite to write. Not only because my training is in political philosophy but because it is a big area of division between the two sides. Early on in the process I went to spend time with my former ministry colleague, Marko, at Youth Specialties. I asked him if a clash over culture was at the heart of the debate between the emerging and traditional churches. He said, “without a doubt.” So my attempt was to find a way that two groups, seemingly so far apart in our views on the world, culture, politics, and the State, etc., could find a common ground to work together, in the midst of our differences. As I quote in the book, T.M. Moore writes, ?Parameters can be articulated and a variety of forums created to enable significant members of believers from all communions of the faithful to realize a common voice and stance toward the making and use of culture in all its forms.? This expresses well my goal and hope. My goal in the chapter is to present a third way that ends the standoff and leads to a real consensus on culture. So that is what I attempt in this chapter, knowing that what I lay out is more suggestive (because of space constraints) than exhaustive.
David, thanks for your comments. I hope you get a chance to read the book. I had read your book, ?The Great Giveaway? while I was doing my research and it was always at the back of my mind while I was writing. My goal in the book is not to eliminate contributions from either side, necessarily, but to find a common ground that we can work together on. I feel like the best way forward is to see the church as both institution (which is living and growing) and organism (which includes ?incarnate? ecclessiolgy), a living, growing expression of the life of God and Christ in the world. I may be na?ve but I really believe this would allow Christians from both sides of the spectrum to work together in the area of culture making. I have and continue to learn a ton from the Anabaptist wing of the church as well as from the traditional (small ?t?) side. Both have great insights into what the Scriptures say on our mandate to be ?salt and light.?
Question: I would love to hear what other readers have thought of the need for a common grace language in the public sphere.
I am off to a prayer/communion service with my wife (need to get centered today in the midst of this activity) but will return in a couple hours to comment.
Let?s keep talking.
Shalom,
Jim
http://www.thedeepchurch.com

David,
Honestly, I could not disagree more with you on your views of Kuyper and the religious right. You must not have been listening to Dr. Harper well! he he Harper loves Kuyper and was as far from the religious right as could be! His whole point is that Kuyper provided the perfect antidote to the religious right. Schaeffer, who I adore in many ways, was not relying on Kuyper but Rushdoony! Big difference.
Sorry we have to disagree on that. If only the religious right had read Kuyper more it would not have made so many mistakes! I think to tie the religious right to Kuyper and neo-Calvinism is not only unfair but historical inaccurate. Sorry to have to be so pointed on this. Let’s keep talking…
shalom,
Jim

Can you really have too much Anabaptism? They were the original “third way”!

Intense. As a layman, I’m pretty daunted by all the names and contributers to the current states of things. As a somewhat experienced human, I think I can also safely say that it doesn’t really matter all that much. Is the rock that we build our house on sedimentary, igneous, or metamorphic? I’m anxious to read Jim’s book because it seems intent on solving the puzzle rather than winning the argument.

Jim,
Blessings on the book. I hope to pick up a copy and read it in November. I’m ‘swampolaed’ until then.

Jim (#6) — note that I said the “cooption” of Kuyper by the Religious Right. I agree with you that a “correct” reading of Kuyper (and even more obviously, of Dooyeweerd), doesn’t support many of the positions of the religious right. Yet, the religious right has undoubtedly coopted Kuyper. Have you been listening to Chuck Colson at all for the past 20-odd years? Have you read Nancey Pearcey’s abominable book “Total Truth?”
I think what you’re engaging in here is a bit of “no true Scotsman” argument. No true Kuyperian would swallow Colson and Pearcey’s horrible ignorance of the natural sciences — but then, Colson and Pearcey are what passes for Kuyperian in evangelicalism.

Interesting discussion here on culture. Jim, I was able to follow your argument in your chapter on Deep Culture since I have been made familiar with the Christ/Culture debate through my seminary training. Actually, much of your argument resonated with what I’ve read of John Frame in his Doctrine of the Christian Life. Frame himself is a sort of “third way” between Dutch Reformed Kuyperianism (public theology/common grace) and puritan theonomy (biblical ethics demonstrating the lordship of Christ). Frame is not a theonomist, but still is a transformationalist who believes that Christ’s lordship should extend to all areas of life (a very Van Tilian notion).
Yet, Frame gives good reasons for adopting Kuyperian practices of using natural law and common grace language so as to better persuade secular progressive folk.
Jim, thoughts on Frame’s proposal?

I hit send too soon. Let me retract the adjective “abominable” in #10 above. That’s not fair. Nevertheless, I think Pearcey’s “Total Truth” represents what happens when the Kuyperian perspective is the only one on the table, and IMHO the result is not good.
Daniel (#11) asks about John Frame. For what it’s worth, I think Frame is obviously a brilliant guy, but again, IMHO, there are serious limitations arising from the heritage of Reformed presuppositionalism.
Jim, and the other Reformed types here: why not Hauerwas? Why not Catholic Social Teaching? Why not Milbank?

Daniel #11,
I love John Frame. I took his Christian Mind class years ago before I transferred to Fuller. His books were very helpful to me Georgetown as I tried to understand Neo-Thomism. I think Frame is right about the need for a common grace language to dialogue in the public sphere. He does some great third way thinking.
I would recommend anything John Frame has written.
Jim

John Frame is “third way?” No, John Frame is not third way. Frame is a brilliant expositor and extender of Westminster presuppositionalism. That isn’t “third way,” it’s one very narrow and in some ways deeply flawed (IMHO) slice of Christian thinking about epistemology, faith and culture.

dopderbeck,
I’ve not read Pearcey’s book – but after your comment went and looked at information on it, including table of contents. I rather expect I would become more angry than enlightened if/when I read it.
And I agree – Frame does not qualify as “third way”

But I should qualify the comment about “third way.” I don’t really want to give an impression that “third way” is in and others are out – that is set up boundaries and make judgments.
Rather there is a spectrum, and thinkers fall in different ranges. But presuppositionalism as developed by van Til and elaborated by Frame falls in an area of the spectrum that I also think has some rather substantial shortcomings. I don’t see how it helps us move forward.

To illuminate a little more why I’m concerned, here is a quote from Charles Colson and Nancey Pearcey’s book, “How Now Shall We Live”:

On all sides I hear battle-weary evangelicals saying that we have lost the culture war and that we might as well turn back to building our churches instead. But in light of our historical heritage, we dare not give in to despair . . . . Abraham Kuyper, a commited Calvinist, saw more clearly than any other modern figure that the battle of our times is worldview against worldview, principle against principle, and that in this battle against the forces of modernity, Catholics and Protestants must stand side by side . . . . Today we need the kind of stand Calvin sought and Kuyper so powerfully urged on us. We need what C.S. Lewis called mere Christianity: believers standing together, rallying around the great truths of Scripture and the ancient creeds. Only when such unity is visible in the world will we truly experience the power of the gospel.

This is my fear, Jim. Notice how Kuyper is so easily coopted by Colson and Pearcey into the cause of the culture wars. Notice also how they do the same with what can be called the “Great Tradition.”
Colson and Pearcey aren’t anything near what I’d consider a “third way.” They’re battle-hardened right wingers (if you doubt this, as “Exhibit A” read Colson’s writings about “judicial activism” in First Things from a number of years ago — he came very close to advocating some kind of popular revolt).
I say this with no intended disrespect to their intellects or moral character. They are obviously smart people whom I believe to be personally virtuous. Not everything they have ever said is wrong. I agree with them about many things, including some basic principles such as the sanctity of life. At the end of the day, they are my brother and sister in Christ. However, I believe deeply, passionately, that their brand of Christianity has damaged the witness of the gospel and crippled the intellectual life of the Church in North America. Their approach is the problem; it isn’t a solution.
Now, maybe I’m reading too much into what we’ve discussed regarding your book. Maybe you’d also eschew, say, the way Colson and Pearcey blithely dismiss evolutionary science in the name of “worldview” thinking, or the way they present a neoconservative version of trickle down economics as obviously consonant with Biblical justice, or the many ways in which they misapprehend the role and nature of the judiciary, or they way in which they subtly buy into and promote the “Christian America” thesis. If so, I’d like to hear that. For now, I hear such strong echoes of books like “How Now Shall We Live” that I can’t get past it.

I just wanted to defend my boy, John, to the Hauerwasians and Milbankians in our midst. (I actually enjoy reading both Hauerwas and Milbank. Don’t read my first sentence as an insult.)
Frame is usually seen as a “third way” of sorts in the evangelical Reformed world on a number of issues. On epistemology and apologetics, Frame critiques both the classicalists (Gertsner, Sproul, etc.) and original Van Tilians (Van Til, Bahnsen, etc.). Many regard Frame as a more humble presuppositionalist who isn’t persuaded by brand loyalty.
On culture, Frame is a transformationalist as opposed to the “2 Kingdoms” Lutheran model espoused by Horton, Muller, Wells, etc. Yet, Frame is different from the theonomists, Shaefferians, and fundamentalist right in terms of applying a transformationalist ethic. What distinguishes Frame is more of is charitable attitude, his cultural realism, and strategic mind. The theonomists such as Rushdoony and North wanted society to “crash and burn” before being rebuilt while Frame is more redemptive and restorative in his approach.
I cannot speak for Jim, but I as a Reformed Presbyterian find more agreement with Frame than with Hauerwas and Milbank (though I agree with them in many ways as well) due to his unequivocated commitment to the authority, inspiration, and inerrancy of Scripture. Also, the theme of his dogmatic theology (three volumes thus far) is “God’s Covenant Lordship” which is obviously taken from Calvin, Kuyper, Van Til, etc. In addition, with Frame’s concentration on exegetical theology (something Hauerwas and Milbank don’t do much of), Reformed folk who carry the banner of “Sola Scriptura” are much more at ease.
A roundtable discussion discussion between Frame, Milbank, and Hauerwas would be insightful! Just to see Milbank and Hauerwas go at it would be fun to watch.
For the record, I believe all seminarians need to read Resident Aliens and perhaps some Milbank articles just to stretch their mind and disturb their comfort.

Daniel (#18) — thanks for this comment. I agree, Frame is a brilliant guy, and I also agree that in the conservative Presbyterian world he’s more of a moderate influence. I understand a bit about his efforts to “soften” Van Til and some of the heat he’s taken for that. Maybe my sense of “third way” is just broader than what most conservative Presbyterians would say. (And I, too, would love to be in the room with Milbank and Hauerwas!!)
However, what’s “moderate” in the conservative Presbyterian world is still “extremely conservative” in the Christian world at large. I know this will sound extreme, but I don’t think anyone who insists on “inerrancy” as a non-negotiable dividing line can be “third way.” To be clear, I think it’s perfectly possible to believe in “inerrancy” personally and still be “third way.” The problem, IMHO, comes with insisting that “inerrancy” is a clear theological dividing line. I think, for Frame, that it is a line in the sand; I’m certain that it is for Verne Poythress, another brilliant Westminster guy who’s work I appreciate but who IMHO cannot be considered “third way.” (And in my view, what weakens Frame’s epistemology most is what I think is his anti-realist view of the Bible. He just takes “total inerrancy” as a starting point, without considering the phenomena of scripture, and everything is built in a circular fashion from there. But that’s just my personal view).
And now I’m back to something that has frustrated me about this conversation for several weeks: no one wants to say clearly whether “inerrancy” is an essential part of the “Great Tradition.” Without a clear statement on this, it seems difficult to me to have a real basis for conversation. It feels to me more like a lecture. The fundamental reason for the non-foundationalist critique from the “emergent” folks is to get beyond an epistemology that is entirely dependent on “inerrancy.” You can’t shoehorn this critique into Van Tilian epistemology, even if Van Til is also technically non-foundationalist. It’s apples and oranges.
If we’re going to have a “conversation,” I’d want to hear this: “we understand the reasons why you’re uncomfortable with the term ‘inerrancy.’ We understand why your prefer Pete Enns to Greg Beale. We accept that you are articulating views of scripture that are within the broad stream of the Great Tradition, even if we don’t see things your way on this question. We won’t fire you from our faculty or kick you out of our church. We can discuss these differences and learn from each other without accusations.”
Can that happen? Honestly, my perception is that it can’t, but I’m open to hearing otherwise.

dopderbeck #19,
This is a great comment. A third way approach takes scripture seriously in the context of the Great Tradition. Scripture has been the measuring rod for other teaching. It carries authority from God and is from God to illuminate the nature and work of God – the foundation on which we stand. It is “reliable.”
But inerrancy as expressed in the “conservative evangelical world” is an addition to the Great Tradition – it is not part of the Great Tradition.
Frankly I think that it is one of the things that we – and I use the term we because I am of this evangelical tradition – got seriously wrong. Motivations may have been right but the conclusion wasn’t.
This is really a key point because for very many (well for me anyway) inerrancy and its various corollaries and consequences was/is the weak link. If the Christian faith, the evangelical Christian faith, requires inerrancy, then the faith falls. I have long felt that as a starting point inerrancy leads to absurdity … unless it is nuanced … but then we may as well give up the term and find an approach to thinking about the nature of scripture that is robust – stands the test.
So an approach to the faith that retreats back into this box – and makes inerrancy part of the boundary – is not “third way”, and is not helping move forward. We at least have to have inerrancy and nature of scripture on the table as a talking point. It certainly needs to be one of the things we can agree to disagree about and still be together as church.

“Belcher sees changes of late here, but says there is not enough theology of church and state or church and economics. He thinks there is too much anabaptism in the emerging movement, and he examines Hauerwas.”
This was one of the most important points in the book. While I’ve learned some important things from Hauerwas and Yoder, I’m not Anabaptist. As to Milbank and Radical Orthodoxy, my mother taught me that if you can say anything nice ?
The Kuyper stuff is helpful. (And here I would echo Jim?s sentiments in #6. It is that radical right institution, Princeton Seminary, that has the Abraham Kuyper Center for Public Theology. ) I find some elements or Roman Catholic social teaching helpful. But as a theological underpinning for ethics, I found John Stackhouse?s Making the Best of It: Following Christ in the Real World one of the most helpful books I’ve read in some time.
One of the common threads of postmodernism is that it embraces paradox ? holding two things together that seemingly can?t go together. Stackhouse brings home the tension that we are to be ever seeking greater shalom for the world in a world where shalom can?t be realized short of Christ?s consummation of the new creation. Both accommodation and complete transformation (from either liberationist or religious right varieties) are, IMO, attempts to escape this paradox tension. I understand that Anabaptists see themselves as coming out from culture in order to effect transformation but I?m not persuaded.
The usual response I get to Stackhouse?s presentation of paradox from the Emergent transformationlists and Anabaptist folks is that I?m really just an accommodationist because I won?t embrace the radicalism of their vision. Yet when I read and hear the quality of their analysis on state and economic issues, most of what I here is under-examined idealism or theological frameworks that have been built with virtually no interdisciplinary dialog.
I do want to say again what a great contribution Jim?s book is to understanding the issues.

more anabaptism please… More St-Francis or even Sadhu sundar Singh please… that would be third-way…

Michael (#21) — I think RO is one of the more important theological movements of our time. Milbank’s “Christian Socialism” is actually quite Kuyperian, and is very consonant with Dooyeweerd. In fact, I owe to James K.A. Smith’s book on RO that Reformed-type people should think about the connection between Dooyeweerd and RO.
As I’ve tried to say several times now, I do not mean to be dismissive of Kuyper. Kuyper has been “coopted” by the religious right neocons. (See the above quote from Colson and Pearcy, which is merely representative.) They are not “true Kuyperians.” IMHO, Milbank is more Kuyerian than many of today’s evangelical Kuyperians.
I dunno. I’m getting tired of “third way” discussions. Maybe it’s a fool’s errand to seek a “third way.” I’m looking forward to the upcoming discussion on John Franke’s new book. Maybe the Truth is irreducibly plural and that’s the way God designed it.

#23 dopderbeck
Didn’t say he wasn’t important. There is a lot of important stuff I disagree with. When I hear him talk about things trying reinvent the economy based on a gift economy I quickly question how seriously has done some interdisciplinary work.
However, I’m with you on the “third way” language. There are never just three ways. While it can be helpful to view issues in terms of poles, I don’t think of them as opposite ends of a line. Instead they are like the north and south poles of earth. There are multiple paths between each pole. It is possible to have two people are on the equator, halfway between poles, who are opposite each other. “Third way” doesn’t get it for me.

Michael (#24) — GREAT metaphor! Maybe we should talk about the “world of Christian thought” rather than “ways.” That also lets us do “sightseeing” and to have “cultural exchange” and such.

Agree with Michael #24 about many ways to go between two poles; in science or math we would say that “third way” is not simply a one-dimensional interpolation between two extremes. Brian McLaren used a similar illustration in A New Kind of Christian, talking about arguments taking place along a line on the ground when God wanted us to transcend the line and find him in the air above the line.
Of course McLaren in that book was trying to be a “third way” alternative to theological liberalism and hard conservative Evangelicalism. Now we have Belcher’s book trying to be “third way” between the hard conservative pole and people like McLaren. There must be a Goldilocks analogy in here somewhere with people thinking their way is “just right” and therefore deserving of the “third way” label.
Also agree with the point dopderbeck keeps raising — one of the main things holding back “third way” (or whatever you want to call it) progress in the Evangelical church is those who draw a line in the sand with “inerrancy” as a litmus test for orthodoxy. For example, anyone who supported the ouster of Pete Enns from Westminster cannot reasonably be called “Third Way”.

AHH,
Regarding your last line…it depends of course what two poles the person is “Third Way” between. With infinite ingenuity “Third Way” is where I am, between any two people taking opposed positions with which I disagree.
More seriously though…
I would like to define Third Way as following God – which is determined not by the creeds and boundaries of man (one pole), or by the wisdom of this age (i.e. secularism, materialism, spiritualism,…) (the other pole).

Scot and Jim,
While I welcome the discussion, and was glad that Jim referenced my book in his (as it is a part of the book I was most pleased with), I don’t think my book, Out of Bounds Church? is quite being described fairly above. In the PDF mss, I felt Jim was fair in his treatment and it’s probably just the inevitable brevity of a blogpost, but for the record can I note that …
In the book I myself propose a “third way” that is beyond two poles of either accommodation or relevance. I suggest the metaphor of a DJ – who, within a community, samples from multiple places to create a new mix. I argue this because we are now called to be Incarnational in a culture that is well beyond unitary categories.
I suggest this is what the apostle Peter is doing, say in the household codes (1 Peter 3), where he is “sampling” from culture, yet in a way that expresses a new, and redemptive hermeneutic. With nods to Miroslav Volf and his impressive work around Christ and culture.
I stress that a DJ can only exist in relation to an audience, and thus the act of DJing is a deeply communitarian act. (cf the description above of “individual creation.”)
Can I also say how important context is in all of this. Jim finishes with a wonderful story of deep mission in his book. What struck me, reading it, was how the couple described had been IN church before. While I celebrated the redemptive life they have found, it reminded me again of how churched the US still is, and in that sense how it is such a unique context for doing and talking about mission,
steve taylor