So while the emergent gurus are off re-imagining emergence and redefining this ethos or vibe, and while the people in the couches converse freely about the relationship between their own personal journeys and the "reflections" of assorted spokesblokes, perhaps it is time to reflect on the state of popular Christianity.

It seems that man, except in periods of loss of confidence, when skepticism impugns the very possibility of knowledge, shows thus an incurable disposition to look upon the word as a means of insight into the noumenal world. The fact that language is suprapersonal, uniting countless minds which somehow stand in relationship to an overruling divinity, lies at the very root of this concept.

In the light of this crisis in meaning, it might not be a bad idea to go back and reread Weaver's entire chapter The Power of the Word.

We are at an odd moment in church history—if it's even possible for us to consider emergence as part of church history. We have fundamentalists redefining themselves as an idea (an idea that looks strangely like a pretext) rather than a religious movement with recognizable leaders and approved institutions and which has been a font of pontifications.

Evangelicalism broadly speaking is perpetually reasserting itself as orthodox and socially responsible when all that can be seen with the naked eye is doctrinal confusion and impotence in the "societal realm".

Now this.

How odd—and perhaps not a little ironic—that those in search of a definition for obvious things should be seeking to teach us about noumenal things.