By Will Samson
Will Samson is a PhD student in sociology at the University of Kentucky where he is working on research in the areas of sustainability and Christian community. He, his wife, novelist Lisa Samson, and their family are participants in the life of Communality , a missional Christian community in Lexington, KY.
I think one of the most important concepts in philosophy (Hegel) and sociol social theory (Marx, Habermas) is the notion of immanent critique. Among other things, immanent critique assumes that the best place to stand when offering organizational assessment is on the inside. Advice is better heard from a fellow laborer than from a bystander.
I remember a story from my childhood. A friend and I had decided to turn on the hose, which was connected in the garage. The hose leaked, the garage flooded and we were given the task of cleaning it up. Rather than help, my friend leaned on his broom and offering me suggestions. In fact, he kept quoting from a movie he had seen recently, saying, “Move it along, this ain't ain’t no Lover’s Lane.” It was a lot of years before that joke got funny.
An Emergent Manifesto of Hope, by contrast, is written by practitioners. The authors are pastors, missionaries, and community activists. People from the Evangelical world, the mainline, and New Monasticism. When we speak of hope, it is the kind of hope that keeps us all on the inside of this thing we call the Church, our sleeves rolled up, and our hands on the broom, even when we seem to be sweeping in different directions.
I look forward to the conversations this book will spark and I trust it is a blessing to those laboring in God’s field.