Lastly, I might have wished for more direct discussion of the fate of the mainline churches.  Are they sidelined?  Are they still viable?  Can our historic liberal denominations live into the new practices that they are themselves writing about, being shaped by deeper worship, teaching contemplative, going missional, and more faithfully guided by their best doctrinal traditions?  The New Conspirators is not at all irrelevant to mainline churches, even if many of the stories are not of your typical Lutheran or Presbyterian or Methodist parishes.  Many of his illustrations are, in fact, from mainline settings (including his good knowledge of Anglican ministry in the U. K.) if admittedly from some of the more innovative and experimental congregations.  Again, this is a part of his own heart, and he and Christine speak often for traditional mainline denominations, so I would have wished for just a small bit more about that as a context for forming new conspirators and how that might be encouraged.

These are just minor quibbles though, and I invite you to consider getting this, for all of the good reasons named above.  The New Conspirators: Creating the Future One Mustard Seed at a Time is perhaps Tom Sine’s crowning work, or, as Alan Hirsch puts it, “vintage Tom Sine.”  He does his social analysis, does social visionary thing, he tells tons of inspiring stories, he documents new trends and invites us to be aware of the (perhaps) strategic influences of several new streams within the broader Body of Christ, even as we live out the implications of these in fresh ways contextualized to the contemporary world and its ways and needs.   He has tons of interesting foonotes and a great sample of on-line resources.  Sine invites you and me, readers, to become friends, well-aware and awake, networked and involved, in spiritual renewal of the sort that is, indeed, “whole life discipleship”—living it up, finding our purpose, taking discipleship seriously, living in a world “between Mustard Seed and McWorld.”  Yes, through his whole body of work, and now in this new masterpiece, he invites us to “imagine the future that is already here.”

Byron Borger, Hearts and Minds Books, PA USA

The book is organized broadly into five “conversations” (which functionally are chapter clusters). Broadly speaking, Tom begins and ends with discussion of the forms of churches which are emerging in contemporary culture, and in the middle of those markers he discusses emerging culture with a global perspective.

The first conversation labels four new streams of church that are arriving in recent days: emerging, missional, mosaic and monastic. Emerging churches are those intentionally seeking to serve the postmodern context and are described similarly to those in “Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures” (Eddie Gibbs, Ryan K. Bolger). Missional churches are birthed out of missional theology in the vein of Lesslie Newbigin and their leaders are more often seminary trained and focused on multiculturalism than those in the emerging churches. Mosaic churches are intentionally focused on multiculturalism, are often urban, and often are not focused on the postmodern context. Monastic communities are often not focused on church planting and typically are comprised of people older than those in the other streams. Monastic communities are more focused on living among the poor and living a community based spirituality 24×7.

The second conversation is about taking the culture seriously. It examines the post-9/11 world, the development of a global youth culture and economy. It continues by challenging the reader to look at consumerism and the messages we get of what ‘the good life’ is, and how that differs from the reality of God’s Kingdom.

The third conversation is about taking the future of God seriously. It looks at Biblical and cultural imagery of homecoming and the in breaking Kingdom of God into today’s world, which we can live into now.

The fourth conversation is taking turbulent times seriously. Contemporary churches must plan for a changing future, not the continuation of the present. We have to anticipate change, even if we’re incorrect about were we think that change will end up. We have to live a different future with respect to care of creation and bridging the gap between global rich and global poor. We must give those in the middle ways to deal with soaring housing, healthcare costs and encourage them to aim for serviced, not for wealth. Globally, including in the West, the poor are getting poorer, squeezed by housing and healthcare costs, and wages which are no longer livable. We can equip individuals and communities to lift the poor out of poverty. And the community of nations can and must help the global poor out of their poverty. The Christian church can re-imagine its role in culture and make deep impact in these turbulent times.

The fifth conversation is taking our imaginations seriously. We can imagine a different church making a different impact on a different culture. Beginning by examining the Scriptures for God’s description of ‘the good life’, we create ways to shape God’s good life in our lives and world. We purposely, prayerfully live abundant lives. We re-imagine economic stewardship as not serving institutions, but serving the needy. We re-imagine Christian community as a whole-life, holistic family system which intentionally spends time and energy together and in whole-hearted mission. We shape our lives and our church communities for mission. And we ask God to ignite our creativity and imagination.

I read this book at the right time in my life. For several months, I’m feeling a deep call to live simply and authentically. I am more globally aware and related than I ever have been, and it is this connection that gives me perspective on my own life and mission. I am deeply impacted by the way that Tom describes our challenges and the hope that God brings as we break out of old patterns and allow Him to blow through us for the sake of His creation - nature and humanity. I highlighted the daylights out of pages for the fifth conversation, and in the stories that Tom tells of Christians and churches who are creatively doing the work of the Kingdom I find deep joy, life and hope.

My quibbles with the book are few. While I like Tom’s taxonomy of the four streams of churches, I’m not sure that ‘missional’ is really distinct from the other three - in fact, I think emerging churches are really just missional to postmodern peoples; mosaic churches are missional in a multiethnic way, and monastic are missional in community and especially among the poor. I suppose that there are simply missional-missional churches (if you get what I mean by that), but mission shapes the other three forms deeply.

I also found myself going into statistical overload in the well-detailed middle section of the book. The future arriving before our eyes is deeply different than our present, and the difference between global rich and global poor is astounding - but my eyes began to glaze over at the reality of what we’re facing in coming days.

But those minor details aside, I highly recommend this book for anybody who’s feeling unsettled with the way things are today, and looking for a different future in partnership with God. Beware, though - it’s impossible to read this book and not totally re-examine your own place in the world and in the family of God.

Pat Loughery, Seattle USA

“The only way poverty will become history is for those of us whom God has entrusted with God’s generous resources to critically evaluate our own lives and priorities. It is estimated that today over 200 million Christians live in dire poverty. Isn’t there something terribly wrong, in the international body of Christ, when some of us live palatially and other Christians can’t keep their kids fed? Isn’t it past time to recognize that we live in an interconnected global village in which there is no longer such a thing as a ‘private’ lifestyle choice?”

He also writes on page 227:

“Bruce Bradshaw in his book Change Across Cultures suggests that the Scripture calls us to a much greater conversion - much more than the forgiveness of sins and receiving God into our lives. It also involves the very radical step of inviting the Spirit of God to “transform the narratives that govern our lives,” so that we are empowered to “live a very different story.”

Preach it Tom. You can check out Tom’s ministry at The Mustard Seed Associates.

Todd Hiestand, Pennsylvania, USA

Curtis, In These Places, Oregon USA

When I’m done I’ll summarize the book too, but for now I wanted to throw up a quote or two.

In a chapter Tom wrote entitled “Coming Home to the Good LIfe of the Global Mall” about the church’s entanglement in global consumerism as its great hope, he says this:

Why don’t we discuss the influences of the dominant culture at church? Why don’t we discuss the stories so many of us buy into and their influence on us and our kids? Why don’t we explore the major role these stories play in defining our notions of the good life to which we aspire to come home?

I think part of the answer is that the Western church has historically taken a limited view of conversion. In most churches we are taught that following Christ involves transforming our spiritual lives and our moral values and helping us with our relationships. We rarely hear that God might want to transform our cultural values too.

(p.77)

Here’s Tom’s point: Christians are too easily embracing of the dominant culture’s belief system, as much as we say that we’re countercultural. But we still want comfort, safety, a nice home, good education for our kids, cars that don’t break down, a fulfilling job. We wrap these hopes in the banner of ‘relevance’ if we’re analytical, or worse, ‘God wants us to have the good life’ if we’re just buying in uncritically.

But, what if we took seriously a challenge to rediscover what ‘the good life’ and ‘God’s preferred future’ really meant?

How then would we live?

Pat Loughery, Seattle USA

Needless to say I had really high expectations for the book. I was going to be pissed if Tom Sine was toying with me with this ever so tasty cover.

Well. I’m not pissed. In fact, I have to say that this is a pretty darned good book. As a new conspirator (pun so intended) it was really great to be introduced to my comrades in the Mission, Mosaic, Emerging and Monastic streams. Sine breaks down the conspiracy into nice manageable chunks, but is sure to note that there is a lot of overlap between all of these groups. He then accurately diagnoses the sickness in our culture and addition to what he calls the global mall: the ideals of extreme coolness and high affluence that drive our society to place all of our faith and hope in economic systems instead of God.

It’s kind of hard to classify what this book actually does, because it covers so much ground. It introduces one to New Christianity, deconstructs western and modern Christian ideas as well was popular culture and various idolotries that exist there. It speaks of the plight of the poor and the hopeless, speaks of actions that have been taken, but probably most importantly it encourages and espouses the power of imagination. The New Conspirators says that we do not have live life by the script the has been placed before us, and our options are much greater than simply exchanging one set of dos and don’t for another. We can use our creative muscles to find ways of dealing with our current problems and forge a new path and a new way of life. Read the new conspirators!

Practically Christian, North Carolina USA 

“…many of these young activists have turned away from the influences of the religious right to embrace a more biblically progressive agenda for social transformation. They are consistently much more committed to working for social justice, racial reconciliation and caring for God’s good creation than many of the churches from which they come.”

Derrek Engeler, USA

Emergent Village Blog

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.

Sine doesn’t stop with church movements, he also mentions a few government programs such as Bolsa Familia, a program of the Brazilian government that offers stipends to families in exchange for vaccinations for children and regular health check ups.

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. He draws a clear connection between a narrow view of church and complicity with globalized consumerism:

I will show in this conversation and the next that many of us have unwittingly embraced a narrow, spiritualized eschatology that is so other worldy that it has almost no influence on shaping our notions of what constitutes the good life and better future in the here and now. As a consequence too many of us have allowed the storytellers of the global mall to define our sense of what is important and of value. (p. 73)

Sine goes on to point out that many churches spend very little time discussing any connection between Christianity and “cultural stuff” of day to day life. He says, “My concern is that the imagery of ‘individual soul escape’ disconnects eschatology from daily life and the urgent challenges that fill God’s world.”

His alternatives to this deficiency will be familiar to those who have read Anabaptist and/or justice oriented Christian writrers:

• 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 imaginations”
• The “good life” isn’t everything.
• Helping the poor is mission, not just a “strategic prelude to evangelism”
• Bruce Cockburn’s lyrics are insightful and prophetic.

Again his analysis and theology draw on quite a wide range of Western sources from Canadian Naomi Klein to British theologian N. T. Wright. At least when it comes to Western authors, Sine has read about as widely as he’s traveled, though he could do well to include a few more majority world theologians and writers.

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, North American Evangelicals.

Tim Nafziger, Young Anabaptist Radicals