The Emerging Church Movement may well be one of the more important religious movements in the first half of the twenty-first century. Mainline and evangelical Christianity in the United States are on the decline. Religiously unaffiliated people are increasing faster than any other religious group in the United States and this group is being driven by the millennial generation, which has a religiously unaffiliated population that is reaching plurality status (Robert P. Jones, Daniel Cox, Betsy Cooper, and Rachel Lienesch, “Exodus: Why Americans Are Leaving Religion—and Why They're Unlikely to Come Back,” Public Religion Research Institute, 2016, http://www.prri.org/research/prri-rns-2016-religiously-unaffiliated-americans/). On top of that, it is clear that a significant reason for this is the abandonment of the traditional religious ideologies by millennials and others. The church is seen as too judgmental, hypocritical, and political. In the face of all that comes the Emerging Church Movement, a movement whose leaders have called into question some of the most important traditional doctrines of the Protestant Church. They have challenged the notion of hell (Rob Bell, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived [San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2011]), the exclusivity of Christianity (Brian D. McLaren, Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?: Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World [New York: Jericho Books, 2012]), and revived “death of God” theology (Peter Rollins, The Idolatry of God: Breaking Our Addiction to Certainty and Satisfaction. [New York: Howard, 2013]). They have embraced the postmodern critique and called for a post-evangelical, even post-Christian, Christianity (Peter Rollins, The Divine Magician: The Disappearance of Religion and the Discovery of Faith [New York: Howard Books, 2015]). Many have found this sort of movement intriguing or threatening. Yet what was lacking was a qualitative sociological study to really help us understand what the attraction of the Emerging Church was to participants on the ground.

It is not that there has not been work on this subject. James Beilo's Emerging Evangelical (New York: New York University Press, 2011) and Josh Packard's The Emerging Church: Religion at the Margins (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2012) both in different ways attempt to explore the Emerging Church Movement. Beilo takes seriously the evangelical roots involved (most Emerging Church leaders are former evangelicals) and Packard uses organizational analysis to look at the function and future of the Emerging Church. But what has been lacking is a clear understanding of the root causes of the Emerging Church Movement that address the transatlantic nature of the movement. Into this gap comes Marti and Ganiel's book. Gerardo Marti is a professor at Davidson College in North Carolina and Gladys Ganiel teaches at Trinity College in Belfast. The two together, then, offer an intriguing and transatlantic look at the Emerging Church Movement.

One of the issues that scholars who study the Emerging Church often confront is its incredible diversity. From pub churches to neo-monastic community experiments to mega-churches in Seattle, there is a wide variety of different kinds of religious experimentation that can be labeled “Emerging.” The real question is whether there is something that binds these things together. Marti and Ganiel interestingly do not use either theology or particular practice as that binding agent, but instead argue that Emergents are a group “who share a religious orientation built on a continual practice of deconstruction” (6). This insightful notion that focuses on orientation provides the larger lens by which to look at the movement. Drawing on the implications of this, they argue that the Emerging Church Movement is “an institutionalizing structure, made up of a package of beliefs, practices and identities which are continually deconstructed and reframed by the religious institutional entrepreneurs who drive the movement” (8). Moreover, they argue that even though in terms of raw numbers, the Emerging Church is by no means “sweeping the land,” what it is doing is “contributing to the development of an intriguing, distinctively modern religious orientation” (10). Thus the Emerging Church Movement is having an outsized effect on modern Christianity.

The book is composed of several chapters that investigate and explain different components of the Emerging Church. Having set up their thesis in chapter one, chapter two looks at congregational structures in the Emerging Church. They argue that Emerging congregations should be seen as “pluralist congregations” which value diversity and individualism in their creation of community. Chapter three presents stories of individuals who are part of the Emerging Church Movement. It points out a common pattern among these participants who often have “deconversion” stories of being disillusioned with, and sometimes expelled from, traditional churches. Into this fairly dark period for these participants often came the writings of Emerging Church thinkers. This then leads to what Marti and Ganiel call a “strategic religiosity” which rejects traditional Christian notions and embraces “a strategically framed religious self that is enabled and often nurtured and sustained through congregational involvement” (77). Chapter four focuses on the dialogic aspect of the Emerging Church Movement with its emphasis on conversation and questioning. Here they classify the Emerging Church Movement as “religious institutional entrepreneurs” (80) and this dialogic approach as “collective institutional entrepreneurship” (87). Chapter five focuses on Emerging Church practices, particularly their embrace of non-traditional spaces (pub churches, high school gyms, etc.) and liturgical innovations within services. The emphasis here is to create an environment conducive to a variety of approaches to religious practices that the individual may access. Chapter six examines the wide variety of Emerging Church practices that are directed outside the church. While Emerging Church members are often reticent about personal evangelism, they espouse a kind of living in the world that manifests their beliefs in often tangible and political ways. The authors discuss the work for social justice many Emerging Churches engage in, including the neo-monastic communities that Emerging Church leader Shane Claiborne (The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2006]) has popularized. Finally, chapter seven examines some misconceptions about the Emerging Church and concludes that it constitutes “one of many individualized faith movements” (180). The Emerging Church then functions to create a “cooperative egoism” (191) that embraces individualism and yet still centers it in a community.

Marti and Ganiel's The Deconstructed Church is a welcome addition to the work on the Emerging Church, but likewise stands apart as a masterful explanation of a potentially important movement. This text represents a tremendous contribution to those working on the Emerging Church Movement, but also it has a rich theoretical apparatus that will allow insights into contemporary American religion as well. It is a pleasure to read and will offer scholars much to ponder regarding the future of American religion.