This is an interesting time for Emergence or Emergent Church or post-modernism or post-orthodoxy. I guess the name historians will put to this little episode may depend on their sense of humor.

For a while emergents could pretend that their critics didn't get it. Guys like Carson, MacArthur, Mohler, Sproul, and Wells just didn't understand our times; not like these wunderkinder understood our times.

Turns out that when the Church Basement Roadshow bus ran out of gas, it was something of a metaphor. Not even those schooled in strategic foresight saw what was coming.

Actually, the movement has been out of gas for quite some time. People have drifted off, blogs went dead, posts were vacated, promises were made, complaints were aired, affirmations were offered, moments of excitement were occasionally reported, energy was up (we were told)...and nothing continued happening at a pretty fast clip.

But now certain internal voices are raising questions about this "conversation", and asking questions of Emergence is very different from asking questions of Evangelicalism. If you questioned Evangelicalism you were creative and imaginative, if you question Emergence you are fearful and unloving.

...Brian McLaren said in a video that those of us who take them and others to task are held in bondage to fear and thoroughly un-loving; my motivation for analyzing the theology and beliefs of leaders within the emerging church is fear-based and inherently un-love. One word: ridiculous. I am not fearful; this has nothing to do with fear. In fact, the loving thing to do is in fact confront, prod, and question.

Jeremy Bouma says nothing doing, he ain't no scaredy cat, he's confronting, prodding and questioning. You ought to take a peek at Bouma's theological musings. It might be worth getting his take on it. He came into, passed through and has gone beyond. You might say he is one of the few who've actually emerged from the other side.

Mike Morrell, our own dim-witted futurist, sat down and placed a lot of words end to end pretty much in a random fashion so as to put a smileyface on all this. He's linked to quite a few—what should we call them?—judgments of the work of Brian McLaren. Some of them borrow quite heavily from the Emergent style handbook, if you know what I mean: you might not want to click on those links if an impressionable child is at your elbow.

If you go down his post about three screens or so, you will find three links. One is calling McLaren a true son of Lucifer (an insult I can't imagine Lucifer finds flattering), the third one I won't repeat, and Mike tells us that he left "some of the worst ones out".

Yikes. Blogging in the way of Jesus.

Mike ends his post with this whimper:

May all of us - missional and emergent, evangelical and mainline, Catholic and Pentecostal, gay and straight, deconstructionist and Radically Orthodox - fling ourselves upon the Throne of Grace and mercies of the Father, Son, and Spirit, one God, who alone saves and restores.

Amen?

Well, we'll see, Mike, but I don't think that's a throne, I believe that's just one of those ratty emergent couches.

Maybe it's just time for another rummage sale.

What are you guys asking for Pagitt's trombone?