I've noticed a trend lately among Christian writers, thinkers, and leaders: they are framing their approach to faith as an alternative to left/right categories. Some stake out a via media between two poles, while others critique the very essence of the polarity altogether.

I'm not alone in noticing a growing third way sentiment. Scott McKnight's excellent Christianity Today article, "The Ironic Faith of Emergents", points to the same trend. He notes that McLaren and other emergent Christians offer him hope of a third way of faith - a faith without the strictures of neo-Fundamentalism that also avoids the loss of theological clarity.

I've also spotted third way thinking in the works of N.T. Wright (his approach to eschatology in Surprised by Hope comes to mind), Tim Keller (see his introduction to The Reason for God), and Tony Jones (The New Christians testifies that emerging types don't fit liberal or conservative molds). There's even a British magazine devoted to the Third Way.

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