They were both trim, one with reddish, close-cropped hair and glasses, the other man a lankier build, with wavy dark hair. They glanced up as the door opened. I gave a slight nod their direction, stepped to the counter and ordered a latte.

“Lis?” I turned when I heard my name, took the proffered hand of the sandy-haired fellow. “Tony,” he said, identifying himself. “Good to meet you.”

This was Tony Jones, identified by Zondervan Publishing House (and others) as a leading voice in the Emergent movement, identified by more than one well-known preacher as a threat to what is sacred in Christendom.

“This is my friend Jeff,” Tony said, introducing me to Jeff Dykstra as I sat down in the third easy chair. “He’s visiting from out of town.”

As it happens, Dykstra works with World Vision and is currently residing in Zambia, southern Africa. He graciously excused himself, taking his laptop to another table, although I was early for my appointment.

I was there to talk with Tony about the Emergent movement, which is, even according to people who count themselves as part of it, hard to define. It’s a mash-up of old and new, Jones says. “People are interested in a new way … of practicing Christianity. This ‘new’ way, to be sure, is rooted in the old, which is part of the reason that so many are so intrigued by it.”

Solomon’s Porch, for instance, an Emergent church in Minneapolis pastored by Doug Pagitt, uses the Book of Common Prayer in its services, as people sit on couches and easy chairs arranged in a semi-circle (nearly a circle, really) around a high stool, where Pagitt sits as he gives the Sunday evening talk. Other Emergent congregations develop their own patterns for worship, but no particular style is proscribed.

People in Emergent fellowships who were Christians before they started attending are likely to be those who have become weary or disillusioned in their previous church experience. There is often a sense of relief, a sense of finding a place where God (rather than the Church as an institution) is the focus, a place where questions (even difficult and challenging questions) aren’t met with alarm or anger.

But the openness to questioning is seen as a dangerous invitation to chaos by some. And in fact, since history is hard to assess as it is happening, Jones is aware that the course navigated by Emergent churches is not without risk.

It’s a tricky middle path, Jones writes in his new book, “between the certainties of evangelicalism and the openness of liberalism, and the jury is out as to whether this middle ground is really a tenable place to stand.”

There are many who would say that the Emergent movement is not on solid ground.

“What you have here is a form of false religion,” John MacArthur said in an interview with Paul Edwards on WLQV Detroit. “… a form of paganism that basically wants to be thought of as Christian because it gains a certain ground. But the underlying bottom line of this whole emerging movement is they don’t believe in any doctrine, they don’t believe in any theology. They don’t want to be forced to interpret anything in Scripture a certain way and the out is, ‘Well the Bible isn’t clear anyway.’ In other words, we don’t know what it means; we can’t know what it means.”

“Emergents seem so free-form, so loosey-goosey, so anything-goes,” says another author. This one happens to be Tony Jones, himself. In his book “The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier,” scheduled for release on March 3, Jones comments that the lack of structure “leads some to believe that emergent churches are particularly susceptible to spiritual and theological abuses.”

Jones addresses many of the criticisms directly in the new book. He even welcomes criticism. Some of them “make me a better theologian,” he notes. They provide impetus to dig more deeply into the teaching of the Bible.

The Emergent church is suspect because it has no formal creed. But to talk to Jones, to read his writing, is to hear an unequivocal expression of what he believes, including a clear defense of the triune nature of God. And he doesn’t equivocate in his decision to be a follower of Jesus, doesn’t apologize for his worship of God the Son.

“The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus is the pivotal event in the history of the cosmos,” he says, without apology, without hostility, with a sense of gratitude. Definite words, not squishy words.

He looks at his watch. The youngest of his three children is sick, and he’s picking up the 6-year-old from school.

More questions will be asked in another phone conversation, but right now it’s time to go. Jeff comes back over to the corner and the two guys hug, give their farewells, head into the rest of their lives.


ACTION POINT:
There will be a book signing and a Q & A time with Tony Jones at 7:30 p.m., March 11 at the Barnes & Noble in the Galleria Shopping Center, 3225 W. 69th St., Edina, (952) 920-0633.