For the participants in this movement, changes in our culture call for changes in the Church. If the Church doesn't adapt, it risks loosing connection with the next generation. While changes in our culture are the reason for the emerging church, according to Carson, protest is what characterizes the movement--protest against traditional evangelicalism, protest against modernism, and even protest against recent forms of doing church, like the seeker-sensitive church and megachurch.

Carson points out the positive effects of the movement such as contextualization, emphasis on authenticity, recognition that we interpret Scripture in our own social location leading to blind spots of our interpretation, and an interest in evangelizing those often overlooked.

Carson offers criticism for the emerging church in the area of its epistemology (i.e. the study of how we know things or think we know things), which is that of postmodernism’s. The emerging church is reluctant to pursue truth and quick to categorize something (God-related) as a mystery. The emerging church, according to Carson, fails to face the tough questions, to use Scripture as the norm, to handle “becoming” and “belonging” tensions in a biblically faithful manner, and to handle facts, both exegetical and historical, in a responsible way.

Carson provides numerous biblical texts to help us scripturally handle truth, knowledge, and pluralism. He then concludes the book with a meditation on 2 Peter 1 on how we can benefit as Christians from understanding both experience (an emphasis of the emerging church) and truth (an emphasis of traditional evangelicalism).

An evaluation of Carson’s assessment of the emerging church is dependent on one’s own position. No doubt those in the emerging church movement will believe that they have been at least somewhat misrepresented and that Carson has missed some positive aspects of what they are doing even from a traditional evangelical position (like an emphasis on missional living). Those outside of the emerging church will be greatly pleased that someone has at least attempted to define this movement and critically assess it.

This book is important for those inside and outside of the emerging church. For those inside the movement this book allows them the opportunity to interact with someone else’s critical evaluation. For those outside it provides from an outsider’s perspective what this movement is all about. It also helps all of us to reflect on what Christ demands of us, both positively and negatively.

Review by Bob Klund