Review of The New Conspirators
posted by Tim Nafziger on 05/05/08 at 12:11 AMTo put it simply, Tom Sine's The New Conspirators: Creating the Future One Mustard Seed at a Timeis an encyclopedia of the new movement in the Evangelical church in Australia, Canada, Britain and the United States.
I received a review copy of The New Conspirators: just before leaving for Vietnam a month and a half ago. I carried the book with me through 3 long train journeys, fully intending to read it on each one. Then, quite unexpectedly I found myself with a large amount of time in a clinic room while my traveling companion recovered from a collapse due to altitude sickness.
We were in the mountain village of Sapa (see photos). A fog hung over the region the whole day, broken occasionally by rain. Indigenous people were the main clients of the medical facility and their colorful woven clothing gave the place a distinctly exotic feel. I found the setting infused my reading of The New Conpirators with a certain immediacy. His chapter on "Coming Home" stood out to me in particular.
As an introduction to the emerging, missional and mosaic (multicultural) church and New Monasticism the book covers a huge amount of ground. Each church, initiative or organization is described in two to three paragraphs, with an occasional story warranting a few paragraphs more.
Sine is very thorough. My recent knowledge in this field is focused in the UK and he covers most of the groups I worked with from the Post-Christendom Series to the SPEAK Network. In other cases he goes into very concrete details such as when describing the church who sold it's building to buy affordable housing and create a community for mixed income folks in a low income neighborhood.
One of the frustrating aspects of this approach is that it doesn't leave room for any discussion of failures, mistakes or criticisms of the movement. Describing a few initiatives that failed could be a great way for budding new conspirators to learn from their mistakes.
Beyond the journalism of reporting on all these different initiatives, Sine also provides an overview of the new conspirator's theology and analysis of our society. For those who have read Anabaptist and/or justice oriented Christian writers his basic points will be familiar:
- The teachings of Jesus are a radical challenge to the "global mall" that is emerging as globalization's vision for the world.
- Helping the poor is a central part of the gospel and not just a tactic for conversion.
- We should learn from early church practices like radical hospitality.
- Corporations are colonizing our imagination.
- The "good life" isn't everything.
- Bruce Cockburn is cool.
Mennonites should be paying attention. Many of these new conspirators are reading Yoder and inspired by Anabaptism. In some cases they over idealize us. I've had the painful task of breaking the news to more than a few of them that the majority of Mennos voted for Bush in 2004. Some of them, like the New Monasticism community of Missio Dei in Minnesota, have gone ahead and joined Mennonite Church USA.
Unfortunately, Sine seems to be part of the school of thought that believes the only path to unity among evangelicals is completely avoiding any mention of sexuality, let alone homosexuality. This seems a bit short-sighted given that sexuality and LGBTQ issues are unlikely to go away, especially among the younger generation.
Overall, I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in a catching up on some of the hopeful trends among young Evangelicals. And that should be all of you.
Tim Nafziger is a activist, writer, organizer and web developer. He lives in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago with his wife Charletta where he attends Living Water Community Church. Recently, he helped to start the Young Anabaptist Radicals blog. For more about his life, read his first blog post.
Tim, I am glad your global wannderings gave you time to take a look at the book and your encouraging words are appreciated. You are on target in poining out that growing numbers of these new conspirators really are shaped more by the influence of Anabaptist authors than the evangelical roots from which many of them spring. Your also right to point out that regretably too many Mennonites have traded in a more Anabaptist world view for one that is often more influenced by the views of the religious right. My hope and prayer is that Mennonites of all generations could spend more time with those of you who are a part of the varied young Anabaptist networks and rediscover afresh the biblical call to a more radical whole life faith, more missional congregations and much greater investment in the work of justice, peace and creation care in a world that needs to see a more compelling expression of God's compassion. peace, tom sine www.msainfo.org