Patrick Oden, It’s A Dance Moving With The Holy Spirit (Newberg, Ore. Barclay Press, 2007). Xv + 274 Pp.

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Book Reviews / Pneuma 32 (2010) 431-473

Patrick Oden, It’s a Dance: Moving with the Holy Spirit (Newberg, Ore.: Barclay Press, 2007). xv + 274 pp.

It’s a Dance: Moving with the Holy Spirit, is Patrick Oden’s attempt to spark a new theolog- ical vision for those within the emerging church that focuses on the central role played by the person of the Holy Spirit. Oden, who was obviously heavily influenced by the ideas of Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger while studying at Fuller Theological Seminary, chose to model the chapters of his text around the nine primary practices that Gibbs and Bolger claim are commonly found within emerging churches. These include: the person of Jesus (chapter 2), challenging the sacred/secular divide (chapter 3), an emphasis on community (chapter 4), welcoming strangers (chapter 6), generosity (chapter 7), participation (chapter 8), creativity (chapter 9), leading as a body (chapter 10), and worship (chapter 11), with Oden including an additional chapter focused on right living (chapter 5).

Oden is not your typical theologian. When he wrote the book, he held a BA from Wheaton College (1998), and an MDiv from Fuller Teological Seminary (2002), and described his vocation as a professional fiction writer. It’s a Dance, however, is not your traditional theological monograph. Instead of mounting the usual progressive argument, advancing from one carefully wrought mound of evidence to the next, supported by hard won-citations to authorities in the field like nanos gigantium humeris insidentes (dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants), Oden prefers to tell a story, or what is really more of a dialogue, between Luke, a journalist, and Nate, a pastor/bar tender.

Luke is a writer for the California Clarion, a weekly magazine in Southern California, who is working on a series highlighting some of the different churches in the area from a religious seeker’s perspective. Luke is also a Christian, but one for whom its “been a long time since I’ve gone to church on a Sunday and felt whatever it is that I am supposed to” (1). After profiling a few of the more obvious churches that readers would expect from such a series, Luke gets a suggestion to visit a church called “Te Upper Room” located in Pasadena. When Luke arrives to scope out the church, he is rather confused: “I don’t see a church or anything that suggests a church, only restaurants, bookstores, even a small art gallery. I don’t see anything suggesting sacred space” (7, 8). Luke eventually finds the build- ing corresponding to the address that he had been given, realizing that it is “Te Columba Pub & Restaurant.” He hesitantly enters the building and is greeted by Nate. Nate is described as someone whose “dark hair falls over his forehead in a particularly ordered mess. Instead of a suit and tie, he’s wearing a T-shirt . . . His expression is familiar — a combination of earnest interest and probing assessment” (9). Luke surmises: “I’ve seen many pastors with the look, yet there is a different quality to Nate’s demeanor. I can see it right away. It is both unsettling and curious. His posture seems unhurried and relaxed, not qualities I have associated with many pastors” (9). Even in this very brief preview of the narrative carefully crafted by Oden, someone who is familiar with the world of the emerg- ing church can largely predict how much of the story will unfold: Luke, representing the emerging church’s ideal member, the young, professional, disaffected church drop-out, is going to be drawn further and further into an avant-garde Christian community by an even more unconventionally modish pastor.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2010 DOI: 10.1163/157007410X534102

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Book Reviews / Pneuma 32 (2010) 431-473

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Personally, I find the basic theological message developed by Oden, largely through his mouthpiece, Nate, and the method through which he conveys it, the dialogue between Luke, Nate, and a small cast of other characters, compelling. Oden’s central theological motif is that the Church needs to rediscover the role that the Holy Spirit can play in help- ing believers focus on both the person of Christ, and the living out their Christ-centered faith as authentic Christian communities. Oden, or should I say, Nate, explains: “We have the Spirit doing tricks or thrown on like tinsel around our Christmas tree. But, we don’t know the Spirit or how the Spirit works. Because of this we have no idea who Jesus is, or what he is about. So we’ve been preaching an anemic gospel. It is so filled with our own expectations and interests it has only a fraction of the power we see in Pentecost” (22). What I find less compelling about It’s a Dance, however, is the somewhat tired or clichéd caricature of what the ideal church and the ideal pastor should look like, commonly pur- ported by some individuals within the emerging church. To be clear, I do not have a problem with churches like “Te Upper Room,” or pastors like Nate, as they meet the needs of a growing number of North Americans (like myself) for whom traditional mod- els of church do not seem to adequately convey the fullness of Christian community. I do think, however, that when these churches are employed, to use the sociological concept, as ideal-types, in the production of constructive theology or the process of community building, that they ultimately purport a model of church and a conceptualization of the role of pastors, that can only be replicated by those mostly young, urban, predominantly white, professional, members of the creative class, who are surrounded by “restaurants, bookstores, and art galleries,” which represent an almost edenic paradisial setting for spiri- tual expression and Christian community. While It’s a Dance should be widely read by the many twenty and thirty somethings that sociologist Robert Wuthnow explains contempo- rary North American religious institutions are largely unsuccessful in recruiting, I believe that Oden suggests an ultimately unsustainable model of Christian community for most Christians living in North America. Tat being said, my suggestion for anyone who is interested in the emerging church movement is to buy this book, read it, and carefully reflect on the helpful concepts that Oden develops, only be mindful of the limitations that such a model has for application in particular contextual settings.

Reviewed by Adam Stewart

Doctoral Candidate

University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada

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