Jack:  Let me return the favor; I owe you a cup of coffee from last time.

Jack set down the cup and dragged over a chair from another table and straddled it.

So if these guys are as dim as you say, how do you explain the success of this movement?

Nat:  Well first, I don't see it as a success. Not yet. The spokesfolks are, wisely, I suspect, not in a big hurry to offer any meaningful measures of success. None of the cohorts I've seen are encouraging. If you were to compare the typical indicators of success, I think you would find a pretty sad picture. They certainly fall short of the standards set by real churches. Their operations could easily be funded out of the pocket change that falls through the theater seats at Willow Creek. One pastor I spoke with excused the shabbiness of their accommodations by suggesting that their priorities were more noble. But that just made me wonder how many bags of flour could have been shipped to Burma for the price of their sound system and their framed eyesores.

One of the groups I visited split in two when the founding pastor left, and the hard feelings certainly have left a musty smell; not that this is unknown in branches of Christianity, but it is especially ironic among those who claim to bring us restoration, acceptance, inclusivity and generative friendships.

The future of their Emergent Gatherings is threatened and that, I imagine, will affect esprit de corps and contribute to differences they can't seem to resolve even now. They seem to have worked out that these roll-your-own denominational conventions require "budgets, pre-event planing meetings, and evaluation-the very habits and institutional ruts that the event was designed to supplement." Might as well be a Southern Baptist.

Real life has a way of intruding.

Anyone can charge people 90 bucks a pop to chin-wag at a seminar. A website is next to nothing to throw onto the web, and the quality and volume of their writing suggests there is the fervor of weekend activists but very little indication of the progress of an idea. Check out The Ooze or Geez Magazine: they appear to be moribund enough to start filling out some toe tags. Personal blogs are far more lively. The artwork is very tired, very commercial and very stale. There are private and amateur artists out there doing far more interesting things on the web.

The external facts do not suggest vitality.

Jack jotted down the names.

Ooze is dot com, Geez is dot org. What we are looking at here is not Reformation; it is bafflegab, indoctrination, re-education without the guard towers. You should read up on them, and I would suggest you start with Wikipedia—not because it is a reliable source, but because Emergence has introduced itself as being "open-source" and Wikipedia is often cited as illustrative. I should be embarrassed by that claim if I were them.

Jack:  So you think they are dead in the water?

Nat:  Oh no. On that account it is too soon to tell. I'm just saying this is not 1517 and these are not Reformers. The errors they embrace are significant enough to justify the criticism they provoke. Unfortunately their critics are not arguing from a position of strength. This is one of the main reasons I find the movement fascinating. It's not that the movement is muscular, it's that everyone on the playground is in casts, on crutches and carrying inhalers.

Second, it is a very friable movement. People can get together to moan, but the more they moan, the wider the cracks get. Wimmin's issues, gay marriage and ordination, condom distribution, "Make Affluence History", the food crisis battle...it looks like the Democratic Party on campus: the van backs up and placards are passed out to the most compassionate generation in history and a good time is had by all. But they seem, as a group, to be about as cuddly and collegial as fundamentalists.

But most importantly, an idea doesn't have to be true and it doesn't even have to be cogent to gain a following.

Jack:  What is their idea?

Nat:  No one knows.

Jack:  Surely they say something!

Nat:  Oh, they say enough, but when you are touting things like free-form, open-source, profanity, ambisexuality, category-defying characteristics...it is very hard to know what their words mean. Soccer moms will be irritated. Businessmen will be aggravated. Children will be annoyed.

What they say is that there are three characteristic things: disappointment with modern American Christianity, a desire for inclusion, and a hope-filled orientation.

Jack:  What do those things mean?

Nat:  Ah! Not exactly the solas, are they?

Jack: Solas?

Nat: There were five solas that articulated the essence of the last Reformation: sola Scriptura, sola fide, sola gratia, solus Christus, soli Deo Gloria. Latin for Scripture alone, faith alone, grace alone, Christ alone and the glory to God alone. They precisely articulated a very real departure from Catholic doctrine on the questions of authority, manner of justification, means of salvation, the singularity of a mediator and the glory of God as an end. It was clear to everyone. Even people who poked sheep for a living could understand it.

To compare this reformation to the last one is a cruel joke.  Sloppy ideas, cheap art, shabby music, crummy sanctuaries, mindless conversation on chintzy sofas...