Tony Jones told Krys Boyd that Emergence was not so much a doctrinal position as it was a vibe or an ethos, and that no doubt left some people wondering about the disposition, character, or fundamental values peculiar to the people or culture of the Emergent movement.

In the past we would have had ethoi explained to us through language, and the more articulate the speaker the more descriptive and helpful would be his explanation. With any luck at all we would come to knowledge.

Tony Jones is not particularly skilled at language in spite of the fact that he is the National Coordinator of this thing called the emergent "conversation". One might have expected that fluency, if not eloquence, would have qualified him as a national coordinator of a conversation, but I have learned the hard way that life is full of jarring disappointments.

Tony does the next best thing, he shows us a picture. I know it's not a good picture; once again it is a rip-off, this time a rip-off of those boring Sunday morning local interest stories on TV. Channel 8 sends a cameraman and a hairdo down a local road to chat with a plucky genius who makes funny statues out of rusty car parts.

This is the enchanting tale of a dysfunctional trucker who divorces, attempts suicide and has an epiphany. Grab you some popcorn and watch this.

This guy who can "hold forth and talk about God" failed to off himself successfully and he deduces from this that God didn't want him dead, that he "had something for him".

And before any foul-mouthed emergents write in to accuse me of pulling some smelly eccentric off the highway in order to smear Emergence, I implore you to rush off and watch this little "film", and listen for the place where Tony says that Trucker Frank is "one of the best examples of a new Christian that I have found."

This is the ethos of Emergence.