Emergents tried their level best to be appropriate for Halloween, and here Dave Hayward labors mightily to ensure jolliness at Christmastime. (Dave is not sure if he is Emergent in any official sense, so I think of him as more of a free agent emergent. What follows is the sort of thing that justifies bringing couches into the church. This is why we should listen to more heretics.)

This theological reverie "means a great deal" to him. It may not mean much to anyone else, but he judged it worth his writing down:

The bible itself testifies to the self-emptying of God, the "kenosis", the sacrifice of his own transcendence (read Philippians 2). In a radical movement, God unfolds himself into the world which he loves. The incarnational event, the Christ story, not only reveals and relates this love of God, but actually demonstrates it as God entering into the world and the life of humanity. No longer, then, is God remotely enthroned on high, separated from his creation. Now, he is invested completely, compassionately incarnated into the actual life and history of humanity. The post-crucifixion God is no longer God the Father, for God the Father emptied himself, nor God the Son, for the Son, having completed the incarnational work, proclaimed, "It is finished!" The post-resurrection God then is the Spirit. Where we are gathered in love, there is God, but as Spirit. It is within the time and space of the cosmos, history, our human interactions, the God has condescended to live and move and have his being. It is within the affairs of people where God dwells, where God is found, where God is loved, and where God is served.

Just take a moment to let that sink in. If you've been to seminary, you might want to allow more than a moment.

Vahrael thought my response was offered in a "flipant mannor" and was too harsh for a world that would take more interest in theologification if only...if only it weren't for scrooges like me.

John is worried no one will take me seriously. At first I was afraid that that possibility might throw me into a deep depression so I went looking for some pharmaceutical countermeasures. Between my study and the medicine cabinet I found a plate of warm pfeffernusse, and by the time I'd licked all the crumbs from the plate, I'd forgotten all about John's worries.

Tiggy doesn't really cotton to patriarchal theology because of her view of fatherhood. She's given this serious thought and she expresses her view here with such tenderness and sympathy. It makes me think of the Virgin Mother, who probably had just the sort of father we know existed through "most of history".

In many ways fathers are better now than in the rest of history, but it's only recently that fathers have begun to behave in the ways you talk about. For most of history, fathers have despised female children and wanted sons. They have seen daughters as a burden and as only having value for breeding purposes or in higher circles for forging political alliances. You have to look at this historically - what we see now is only the tip of the iceberg.

Fathers dont' show respect by - not listening, humiliating, being scornful, not taking seriously, being dismissive, perceiving a daughter as a xexual t hreat, dominating through physical abuse and aggression.

Hmmm. And that's just the tip, a tiny fraction of the whole, and why it probably was not such a good idea for God to have revealed himself to us as a father.

In addition, Tiggy suspects "we are all preincarnate".

I don't think humans can really deal with stuff about time, given what we know of time from physics. I had enough trouble getting my head round ‘Back to the Future'. John [that would be John the Beloved Disciple] seems to be suggesting something archetypal.

"Archetypal".

Yes, I think so. Now that I reflect, archetypal is just the right word here.

Definitely archetypal.

For those of you who've been hovering around Santa's Punchbowl for too long, may I remind you that an archetype is "the original pattern or model from which all things of the same kind are copied or on which they are based; a model or first form". So I think we all know where John was going with that.

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Observe the contempt for Revelation. In spite of their desire for community, register the disregard for the larger community of faith beginning with its Apostles and Fathers. Relish the irony of David Hayward (who can't maintain a local community of faith there in Rothesay) cutting himself off from the real community of faith which traces back to Abraham.

Note the expectation that everyone will accept this theological hairball with respect and theological engagement.

And then recall the words of St. Peter—who was at one time perceived to be connected with a certain community of faith—"These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever."