traveling light

Halfway Through...

Well, I'm about halfway through this book. It's not what you would call an "easy read" by any stretch - D.A. Carson is a true theologian, and this book has a real scholarly feel to it (which is thus far my only complaint about the book - not too "layman" friendly at all) There's just a lot of meat to it, and a lot of big, abstract theological words and concepts addressed. I think it'll probably take me at least another full read-through to really get it to sink in...honestly, right now if someone were to ask me about it, I feel like I could only explain the book in "broad brushstrokes". That being said, I feel like I AM gleaning some good information from it and maybe excercising the ol' brain cells a bit. It's basically an exhaustive analysis and critique of the emerging church, as well as an explanation of what "postmodernism" is (and how it is different from "premodernism" and "modernism", which are also explained.

In other (related) news, today I finally had the chance to listen to the much talked about debate-errr, "conversation" :) between Doug Pagitt (Solomon's Porch) and Bob Dewaay (Twin City Fellowship) that took place last January. Honestly, I found the first half (where they each took turns speaking individually) rather un-inspiring. However, the second half, which was quite literally a conversation between the two of them, was both fascinating and revealing. The contrasts were so visible. It left me with no doubt in my mind which viewpoint I agreed with, and no doubt in my mind that the opposing viewpoint was even more off-base than I'd originally thought. I was also struck by the great "pride in the name of humility" that was SO evident by one of the participants. At times it was a difficult debate to listen to, since one person was obviously very well spoken and the other was not, however as the conversation continued those differences seemed to fade. Anyway, very interesting! I think I'll need to give this another listen before sharing more thoughts on it, just as I'll have to give that book another read...(could you tell reading and listening comprehension were my worst subjects in elementary school? :))

posted by Nikki @ 9:46 PM