Scot McKnight on D.A. Carson

D.A. Carson once participated in the writing of a book called "Power Religion: The Selling Out of the Evangelical Church?" which criticized, among other things, the Vineyard movement of which I was part. Not that Vineyard doesn't need the occasional critique or correction, but Carson's work was heavily biased and not grounded in reasonable research (apparently he's normally known for being a careful researcher, but this time was definitely an exception).

The Vineyard commissioned Wayne Grudem to write a definitive response to Carson's writings (PDF available here), which I always found ironic -- Grudem was a professor at the same seminary as Carson, and yet Carson didn't check the veracity of his opinions with Grudem before publishing them. There's also no record (that I've been able to find, unless someone can help me on this one) that Carson ever responded to Grudem's writings.

Anyway, D.A. Carson's much-anticipated book on the Emerging church, "Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church: Understanding a Movement and Its Implications" is due to be released on May 19, 2005 -- the same day that we finally get to see Anakin Skywalker become the evil Darth Vader in Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith. I'm sure there's no prophetic significance to the convergence of release dates.

Many bloggers have been awaiting/dreading the release of this book, as earlier taped lectures of Carson on the Emerging church lacked solid research and made a lot of people feel misrepresented. A former teaching colleague of Carson's, Scot McKnight, who respects Carson as a theological thinker and colleague but doesn't necessarily always agree with him, has been blogging at his site about a pre-release copy of the book that Scot received. I've been reading various blogs regarding Carson's upcoming book for awhile now -- most notably Brother Maynard and Andrew Jones (the Tall Skinny Kiwi) -- but I thought I'd put in a plug for Scot's insightful interaction with Carson's writings. And because I've already seen that Scot interacts respectfully with people who comment on his blog, I'm happy to include him with the Journeymates here.

I only hope that, this time around, Carson is willing to dialogue, maybe learn a bit more about the emerging church, and join the conversation as a concerned friend and not a distant armchair critic (apparently he's never even attended a single emergent church or conference, so the term "armchair critic", while not flattering, may be the most appropriate).

Visit Scot McKnight at The Jesus Creed. He'll stretch your mind in good ways!