04 Mar The New Conspirators – Book Review
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The New Conspirators –
Creating the Future One Mustard Seed at a Time.
Tom Sine,
Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 2008, 304, $15.00; Paper
Reviewed by Gary B. MacDonald,
Director of Advanced Ministerial Studies
Southern Methodist University
Perkins School of Theology, Dallas, Texas
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[vc_separator type=”transparent” position=”center” up=”3″ down=”0″]At the mention of the emerging church movement, those of us in the so-called traditional church may often respond by dismissing it as a fad for self-indulgent members of the Millennial generation or seizing upon it as the latest church growth scheme to bring in the 20-somethings to Sunday morning worship.
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Theologian and futurists Tom Sine in his latest book, The New Conspirators, takes aim at such narrow viewpoints, broadening conceptions of the movement’s alternative “streams,” and deepening the understanding of the place of the “conspirators” in the ongoing life and future of the Christian Church. Through the text Sine invites his readers to consider the reform of the church for the new and coming realities of the 21st century.
Sine, co-founder of Seattle’s Mustard Seed Associates community and author of Mustard Seed vs. McWorld and Living on Purpose, spends the bulk of the text exposing the cultural, theological and economic realities as he sees them in a series of “conversations, overlaid first with five questions regarding the accuracy and efficacy of the church’s historical response, and, second with examples of the work leaders within the four “streams” of the “quiet conspiracy.” He asks his readers to consider that the church might have been wrong in its theology and practice around issues of eschatology, discipleship, stewardship, ecclesiology, and mission, and suggests that the growing group of mission-minded Christians at the fringe of the church are at work to seriously engage these areas in response to new global realities.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]