Title: Deep Church
Author: Jim Belcher
Publisher: Intervarsity Press

The debate between the traditional and the “emerging” church has been raging for well over a decade now. Is the emerging church with its postmodern leanings destroying biblical Christianity? Is the traditional church nothing but a dead and useless institution held captive by modernism and the Enlightenment?

While some people have managed to get a good handle on the questions surrounding the debate, I suspect most are just confused by it. There are a great many Christians who want both strong biblical theology and authentic community, and feel like they’re being asked to choose between one or the other. That’s why Jim Belcher wrote Deep Church.

In this book, Belcher offers those caught in the middle a “third way,” one that he believes overcomes the divide between the traditional and emerging church by embracing what he calls “the Great Tradition,” the historic orthodoxy found in the early church creeds.

What’s Good

As a critique of the emerging church/traditional church debate, Deep Church is extremely thoughtful—perhaps the most generous that I’ve read so far. Continue Reading…