10. Start to seriously question everything, especially your theology and your ideas of what church and ministry is. Let your theology deconstruct, realizing that much of what we are taught and have learned endorses power, authority and control, and is contrary to freedom. Begin to discover what the truth is for yourself. Your search, it is promised, will not go unrewarded.

---David Hayward

Some people think I have way too much fun at the expense of emergents. [My wife holds to a variant of this view: she thinks I have way too much fun period!] And I have to agree that in the religious world right now, Emergence is probably the funniest thing going. There is nothing funny about Fundagelicalism anymore; and there isn't going to be anything funny about it until fundagelicals can figure out what they believe. Until fundamentalists agree on what they are separating from, they cannot be funny. And until evangelicals agree on what the euangelion is, they cannot be funny either. They can be only pathetic and desperate.

Emergents can still be funny because they are not yet desperate: their naïveté makes them oblivious to the absurdity of their errors. They think they are going somewhere very fast, but they keep not getting there. That's genuinely funny.

Take Dave Hayward's statement above. Tell me that's not hilarious.

But I'm not in this just for the giggles, I'm also up for a little instruction, and Emergence is quite instructive. In fact, it would not be unfair to say that I am not as much amused by Emergence as a cause as I am intrigued by Emergence as an effect.

Fundagelicalism made some serious errors, and we knew when it made those errors there was going to be a price to pay. When fundagelicals fell off the pot that was on top of the stool that was on top of the laundry basket that was on top of the ladder that was on the top of the table...we knew it would leave a mark.

Emergence is that mark.

Once Fundagelicals swapped truth (which is eternal) for plausibility (which is ephemeral) it was only a matter of time before their children would be chasing the wind.

Mark Galli thinks that by pursuing "commitment" evangelicalism can rid itself of nominalism, and that doesn't even make sense on paper.

Tremper Longman III is embarrassed by a historical Adam. He thinks Adam's central rôle in our theology is just a result of "programming".

I sat under another troupe of grifters from Dallas Theological Seminary which was more interested in distancing itself from Young Earth Creationism than it was in a genuine understanding of the first three chapters of Genesis. Ironically, at the very moment it was engaged in this chancel farce, useful inquiries were being made into Darwinism.

So what the Church once believed was fact Evangelicals now hold to be metaphor. Unfortunately for everyone, these losers cannot share with us the tenors and vehicles of their metaphors. They not only assault faith, they debase metaphor! It's like listening to Danielle Shroyer talk about story.

Extremely disappointing.

So Emergence should not surprise us. Christianity has been a culture of disbelief for quite some time now. David Hayward flatters himself to think he is prepared to question everything, but we know he won't. He won't question his own competence—in spite of the fact he has practical reason to do just that. He will not question his own intelligence, evidence notwithstanding. He will not question his own premises. I mean what rational person in the 21^st Century can really believe that "what we learned about theology" (how's that for a convenient ambiguity?) serves only to endorse power, authority and control?

I suspect there are more people who believe in martians than there are people who believe all theology and church and ministry are priests' grab for power, authority and control.

It's fascinating that Hayward's advice comes in a convenient list of ten things. The first step in deconstructing your church is:

1. First of all, you have to really want to. It has to be an inner necessity.

I wonder if Dave will start at the beginning and question his will or his inner needs? I wonder if questioning all theology, church and ministry can possibly be grounded on something as rock-solid as any individual's wants and needs.

In the meantime, I'd like to question his psychiatrist.