Why We’re Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be)
By: Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck
Reviewed by: Kara McCool

“You can be young, passionate about Jesus Christ, surrounded by diversity, engaged in a postmodern world, reared in evangelicalism, and not be an emergent Christian. In fact, I want to argue that it would be better if you weren’t.” These are the words of Kevin DeYoung, pastor and author of this book. By now, many of us have probably heard talk of something called the “emergent church.” According to its founders, the emergent church is not so much a movement as it is a perpetual conversation protesting the ideals of traditional evangelicalism or, in other words, your church. While the emergent church started out asking good questions and discussing good topics (i.e., enriching your community, loving your neighbor, caring for the poor, etc.), their quest for relevancy in reaching a postmodern world drifted into dissolution of biblical absolutes and doctrinal beliefs. In an effort to be postmodern, many emergents (who are typically young, urban Christians) gleefully traded the preaching of biblical truth in evangelical churches for coffee house discussions on spirituality. While both of these formats can successfully coexist in ministry, you cannot trade truth in for discussion! In this book, Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck explore and answer questions regarding the emergent church while reiterating the authority of the scripture and necessity of truth to our Christian lives. As this book so eloquently states, “Here’s the truth – there is truth!”