Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Tony Jones: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier


Listen here:


Our guest this week, Tony Jones, is a man on a mission.  Having served for the last several years as national coordinator of Emergent Village, he has just published what some are calling the best introduction to the almost decade old  emergent movement.  Tony's new book, The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier, is a tour de force through the origins of the movement as well as a constructive response to the movement's critics.

Tony was a sport during this interview.  You'll notice in the audio that the sound is a bit garbled at points.  Something happened with the program I was using, and my voice was almost imperceptible to him.  However, he graciously carried on, outlining some of the major points in the book.  To make up for the lack of "interview style back and forth" I decided to intersperse Tony's comments with excerpts from the text (hoping to give it a pseudo-This American Life flavor).

The New Christians is a great read, and a much needed addition to the discussion about the state of Christ's Church.  Speaking personally, it was a 2x4 of God's call upside my head.  Tony is dead on with his assessment of much of the state of the church.  The only question now is "Are we going to listen?"

Have a great Holy Week,
landon

0:01: Intro
1:43: Introduction to Interview with Tony Jones; What is the emergent church?
3:35: Jones on his faith journey; grew up in "old school mainline" church in a youth group with a Young Life flavor
6:04: Jones on being invited to Campus Crusade for Christ, kept questioning the system
6:53: Jones on visiting local mainline church during college
7:20: Excerpt from The New Christians, Chapter 4: "The Theology, Stupid"; Dispatch 9 - The emergent movement is robustly theological
8:22: Jones on how the church's theology needs to change; "They're getting the Gospel wrong"; the Gospel should be indigenous
10:00: Jones on the origins of Emergent
10:22: Excerpt from The New Christians, Chapter 6: "Inside the Emergent Church"; Dispatch 19 - Emergents downplay the role of clergy
11:52: Jones on the new understanding of authority; the rise and example of Wikipedia
12:52: Jones on the desire of people to have a voice in church as they do on the internet
13:33: Excerpt from The New Christians, Chapter 3: "Who are the emergent christians?"; Dispatch 7 - an envelope of friendship should surround all discussion of doctrine
15:10: Jones on the brokenness of the world; an emergent view of political diplomacy; 
16:30: Jones on growing up in Mr. Rogers' world; "When you grow up in Mr Rogers' world, you see the cross of Christ as a point of reconciliation"
17:29: Jones on the importance of the internet in reshaping the social structure of our society
18:21: Excerpt from The New Christians, Chapter 1: "Leaving the Old Country"; Dispatch 1 - little importance put on denominational differences 
19:25: Jones on the lack of allegiance to one Christian ideology
20:32: Jones on clergy being tied into the "church system with that health insurance and that pension fund"
21:40: Jones on church members as "free agents"; Brian McLaren's Generous Orthodoxy
22:30: Jones on the difference between conservatives, liberal, and emergents
23:10: Excerpt from The New Christians, Chapter 5: "After Objectivity, Beautiful Truth"; Dispatch 12 - embracing the whole bible
26:22: Jones on emphasizing one part of the Bible at the expense of the rest; the Revised Common Lectionary omitting portions of the weekly readings
28:35: Jones on the problematic nature of the Bible; the biblical text reflects human nature in its complexity; tragedy is "horrifying but not shocking"
30:06: Excerpt from The New Christians, "Epilogue: Feral Christians"
31:57: Outro

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