Book Review: The Out of Bounds Church? By Steve Taylor

May 12, 2005 Posted by Roger OvertoncloseAuthor: Roger Overton Name: Roger Overton
Email: rogeroverton@hotmail.com
Site: http://ateamblog.com
About: Roger Overton is currently pursuing a Masters degree at Talbot School of Theology. He has addressed various churches, schools and youth camps throughout the United States. Roger was co-editor of The New Media Frontier (Crossway, 2008) and God and Governing (Wipf & Stock, 2009). Roger can be emailed at rogeroverton@hotmail.com.See Authors Posts (570)

What
do DJs, tourists, and postmodern philosophers have to do with church?
Apparently quite a bit. This recent book by Steve Taylor, a pastor in
New Zealand, is subtitled “Learning to Create a Community of Faith in a
Culture of Change.” Mr. Taylor draws from Karl Barth’s comment about
the task of preaching being to sit with the newspaper in one hand and
the Bible in the other. “I sit on the fault lines of a cultural shift.
In my right hand, I hold a video remote. In my left hand, I hold the
gospel of Jesus… Ours is the task of communicating the gospel in an age
of change.” (19)

The
book is in some sense a blueprint for how the church, or Christian
communities, can apply the gospel to the changing culture. Each chapter
is a postcard from an emerging church somewhere in the world. Each
postcard highlights some activity that reflects the goals of emerging
churches. Throughout the book there are also comments by different
people in the margins that expand, footnote, or softly critique what
Mr. Taylor writes.

Postcard
1 sets the stage for the rest of the book. In it, Mr. Taylor draws out
the differences between Frank Zeffarelli’s 1968 Romeo and Juliet and
Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 Romeo and Juliet. Each sought to translate
Shakespeare’s text into contemporary culture. The implication is that
the gospel has not changed, but the culture has, and in order to
communicate it effectively we need to re-translate it.

Mr.
Taylor offers different perspectives on how this can be done. One is to
view the church as continually being reborn. “If God is about
birthing—and rebirthing—and we are to be about the things of God, then
we, too, are called to acts that bring new life into the world.” (50)
“The belief in God’s constant re-creation drives much of the emerging
church. It is less a reaction against old forms and ideas and more a
response to God’s call for us to join in with the continuous birthing
of his kingdom.” (56)

Another
approach offered is tourist spirituality. “Tourism can serve as a
redemptive framework for postmodern mission, in which people are
‘tourists’ on spiritual journeys and the church operates as ‘tour
guide,’ stimulating forward movement and nourishing the quest.” (83)

Perhaps
the most interesting and telling perspective is that of cultural
sampling, applying the activities of DJs to the role of the church. For
Mr. Taylor this means playing television commercials, popular music,
showing art, reading poetry, reading scripture, and much more.

My
thoughts were generally mixed about this book. I think Steve Taylor
makes some good points about communicating the gospel in a global
culture that is almost entirely different than it was 10 years ago.

His
analysis of where the modern church is lacking is accurate in several
areas. One that I appreciated was that of the place of art in a worship
service. For some reason, we tend to consider the reading of scripture,
liturgies, and songs as the only legitimate forms of worship in
service. However, if God gave us abilities for creativity, it seems
those would be appropriate for the worship from Christ’s Bride as well.
Mr. Taylor also has some good theological points that should not be
missed, e.g. “Spiritual seekers can fall into the trap of picking and
choosing a feel-good theology that doesn’t have anything to do with the
truth of living life with God.” (82)

Contrary
to what many critics of the emerging churches have argued, the Bible
plays a role in Mr. Taylor’s view of church. In many of his theological
points he seeks to root his claims in the words of scripture. There
are, however, a few problems with how scripture is used. One is its
role in service, in which a few services that he describes
leave the Bible mitigated to either being one voice among
many voices (154) or having no role at all (55). Another problem is the
way Mr. Taylor exegetes scripture. The most prominent example is his
use of 1 Peter 3:1-7, which he uses to argue that Peter was “sampling
from culture and from the way of Jesus.” (141) Mr. Taylor assumes,
without argument, that some of Peter’s imperatives for how husbands and
wives relate are items from the culture, and this enables him to
dismiss several elements of what Peter says because “our world is not
Peter’s world” (143).

In contrast to Brian McLaren's A Generous Orthodoxy, this was a far
more interesting read and a far more accurate description of what's
going on in emerging churches. For anyone looking to find out what
emerging church is all about, this is the book to read. It exemplifies
the changes in methods for presenting the gospel that are happening,
however, it never clearly presents the gospel. Mr. Taylor tells us we
must remain orthodox and true to God, but what that means is wrapped up
in metaphors of birthing and incarnation that are unclear at points.
This is not a defense of emerging churches. However, it's mostly
accurate as a description of the emerging church.

Related posts:

1. Book Review: The Emerging Church by Dan Kimball
2. Book Review: Sex and the Supremacy of Christ ed by. John Piper and Justin Taylor
3. Book Review: They Like Jesus but Not the Church by Dan Kimball
4. Defining the Emerging/Emergent-Church/Movement/Conversation
5. Modern Reformation #1- The Emerging Church by D.A. Carson
6. ETS 4- John Hammett on the Emerging Church

Posted in Book Reviews, Emerging / Emergent Church, Main Page, Roger's Posts