I'd like to give a big shout-out to all my emerging friends and give props to all those responsible for the TAG fiasco in Claremont, CA. I've never seen that quantity of gas put to so spectacular a use since the Hindenburg passengers disembarked in Lakehurst, NJ.

TAG, or "Theology After Google", was a stroke of genius, and whoever thought that one up should get a commemorative whoopee cushion. That was the work of a commanding intellect.

For my part, after experiencing the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions, I like to recollect in tranquility and make some small record of my personal journey. (People are always asking me about my personal journey, and this strikes me as something that would really hold their attention.) And it was in the midst of this tranquil recollection that I began to recap what were for me the high points.

I think there were four, really.

First, I admired the wordplay. I do not believe that a group of people ever enjoyed saying so little while spewing so much jargon; and where would emergence and progressive Christianity be without the jargon? Even the crude language, I felt, put presenters and attendees alike at ease. It was like listening to children using their first profanities: these were not the honest expletives of intemperate minds; this was the shared, self-conscious celebration of naughtiness.

I think the western church has not fully explored foul language as a spiritual discipline. Thanks for pointing the way.

Second, I thought the impulse to invite a rag-tag bunch of inarticulate moonbeams up to the platform to share their mental spasms was priceless. Watching eager but disordered minds grope for a complete thought turns out to be high-order comedy.

Third, I very much enjoyed "A Theological Firing Squad". A series of banal questions was aimed at a number of bland intellects. Questions like "Christian theology after Google says what about what you can put in your mouth and where you can put your genitals?" will strike your typical American Fundamentalist as gratuitous, but I think it's clear he'll have missed the deeper point you were trying to make.

But it was, I must say, painful to watch these underachievers desperately trying to sound breviloquent, epigrammatic, and pithy. That session should have come with a shot of novocaine.

Fourth, I feel like I was introduced to some seminal thinkers. I'll forever cherish the time spent listening to Callid Keefe-Perry. I have met a few gnomes in my life, but I don't think any of them claimed to be a "spoken word artist" or an "independent scholar of postmodern theology".

I think the world has too few spoken word artists and independent scholars of postmodern theology, and if Callid Keefe-Perry's name does not soon gain world-wide attention, I will suspect foul play in high places. That this man hasn't won a Nobel Peace Prize shows we are doubtless in the End Times if not the actual Great Tribulation.

I have been a creator my entire life.  There are dozens of photographs of me making and crafting as a child: creating games to play with my brother and sister,  reveling in paste and paper, and imagining worlds that I could explore on my own, dazing off into the middle distance as I envisioned far-away lands.  That child is still very much a part of me, and given the pressure of society to Consume instead of Create, I am very glad that he has survived.

If there is any possible way to bring a similar conference down to the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, please let us know. Our metroplex has several venues which might accommodate the crowds such an event would draw, and I can't imagine a more fitting response to the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo, especially what we like to call "Bull's Night Out".

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

If you want to see something quite uninformative, check out this assortment of clodpates. These intellectually homeless people are not saying anything important, but they think they are. And that's significant. If you want to know something of a person, pay attention to what he thinks is important.

Here is a collection of people who've met to discuss what they think is important: the ramifications of Google on their theology. Technology liberates theology, one of them says. And while the speakers are doling out their insights, people in the room are twittering, and when a speaker says something the more reflective ones think is especially trenchant, they shout out "TWEETABLE".

Very festive.

Doug Pagitt's shirt came fresh from the hamper, obviously, but do not let that distract you: keep uppermost in your mind the fact that Doug is a "Social and Theological Entrepreneur"—what in the "Agrarian Age" was referred to as a snake-oil salesman. He is talking about our "Inventive Age". You'll probably find that unhelpful.

Listen to Steve Knight give his take on the gospel and, ironically, watch him struggle with his presentation software.

And listen to Jana Riess as she introduces her Twible: "What Can We Say About God in 140 Characters or Less?" She apparently doesn't like much about her god, and she offers a few reasons she considers him OCD.

At some point there was a designated time for audience response: everyone ("even a white male", Tony Jones reminded them) was invited to the podium to "say what you learned/say what you think", and of course a resentful black woman got up to complain that there weren't enough dark googlers to suit her sense of racial justice. One little sweetheart inarticulately expressed her hope that we "use these tools responsibly and ethically". Another black guy rose to talk about his "thought revamping" and to convey in a very relaxed and meandering way his "grave concern for the impoverished community...very sensitive to the divide that continues to increase...how much of a minority I am...this could be sort of representation of the obstacle of getting to the black church and how we think about things but I don't think about things like that...interesting to see how this gets into the different color communities..." blah blah blah

One guy expressed gratitude: "I have thoroughly enjoyed as much as the conference I have enjoyed the relationships", and then he went on to say something totally incoherent but which was very important to him personally.

Another white guy got up to opine about why black people were under-represented...at which point Tony inserted himself to ask for people to share ways they hope to use these tools in the local church.

Another guy, having seen pictures of the earth from outer space, expressed a great sadness that we here on earth fight over the lines which can't even be seen from space!

I don't suppose there has ever been a more tedious, banal, self-absorbed, profane, cliché-ridden, and resentful religious movement since the Cenozoic Era.

So, yeah, you should go watch. If you don't believe in Hell before you watch, you will after.

Since the first of the year we have looked at three poems by Christina Rossetti, all short.

They've touched, in some fashion, on resignation, worldliness, and suffering: traditional Christian ideas. Each of these poems offers an honest perception of real Christian experience. None of them is beyond the ability of the average Christian to understand. I don't think the unstrained metaphors will tax any literate mind, and I don't think their relevance will be lost on anyone.

Emergents might break a fingernail on words like satiety and foambow, but they could understand these in time. You should ask yourself why we don't have this sort of poetry anymore. Why do we have Sakler, Scandrette, and McLaren instead?

Notice how Rossetti deals with reality; these are not shallow, pep-rally rhymes like Fundamentalist songs, and they are not thumb-sucking epiphanies like Emergent blog-doggerel. Is it just a lack of skill, or is it a lack of skill plus something else?

We asked the question two Mondays ago and what followed was a lively inquiry into the differences between Doran and Bauder. While that junior varsity competition does shed some light on the Fundamentalist movement, I wouldn't want us to forget the bigger problem.

Are we left to wander the Fife & Bean wasteland by ourselves, or is there some transcendent religious sensibility it's our job to preserve? It is clear our institutions won't do it; it's clear they resent the expectation.

Do we still have something helpful to say about resignation to the first century Christian? Are their subtle tastes something our children should enjoy?

"Surely He hath borne our griefs."

Christ's heart was wrung for me, if mine is sore;
   And if my feet are weary, His have bled;
   He had no place wherein to lay His Head;
If I am burdened, He was burdened more.
The cup I drink, He drank of long before;
   He felt the unuttered anguish which I dread;
   He hungered who the thousands fed,
And thirsted who the world's refreshment bore.
If grief be such a looking-glass as shows
   Christ's Face and man's in some sort made alike,
      Then grief is pleasure with a subtle taste:
      Wherefore should any fret or faint or haste?
Grief is not grievous to a soul that knows
   Christ comes,--and listens for the hour to strike.

---Christina Rossetti

I don't really know the right way to respond to the recent accusation that I am a critic. On the one hand I'm tempted to thank my mother who always encouraged me to express myself, to thank my wife for sticking with me through the lean years, to thank the Academy....

On the other hand, being critical of fundamentalist culture doesn't seem to justify such a high honor. I might have been just as honored by receiving a Nobel Peace Prize for putting on my socks.

But it does give us an opportunity to repeat what I take to be an important point.

We are speaking here about a culture: a set of virtues, values, and aspirations, a presumption about what is permissible and what is unacceptable. Fundamentalism has a culture; it permits things, it honors things, and it condemns things. This is not news. We were saying this in April of 2005, and it wasn't cutting edge stuff even then.

A few are curious to know how I'm different from Fundamentalist culture. To satisfy that curiosity would involve a cumbersome list of dissimilarities, but one of the more obvious dissimilarities is cunningly concealed in the word culture. I am not a culture. I have never been a culture, and I've made no preparations to become a culture.

This is surprisingly important to bear in mind. As objectionable as I might be to some, it's a bit of a reach to equate what I write with what a culture does.

When we look at a culture we see three essential components. Culture isn't limited to the arts, but I will use the terms from the art world. It won't be hard for you to make the applications.

There are the poets, the painters, the dancers, the artists; the people who give expression to ideas the entire society considers. Then there are the critics who bring a certain skill at explaining how successful that expression is. And finally there is the audience. We may tend to think that the audience is the least important because it is the least skilled. In a sense it is the most important because it is really in the audience that these ideas live healthy lives. What an artist makes and what a critic judges is really not all that significant if it doesn't help the people in the audience make widgets, enjoy their leisure, and bury their dead.

Some resent the presence of the critic. We know fundamentalists do.

But before we accept their judgment we should think about what a society would be like if it didn't have critics. We at Remonstrans had the uncanny prescience to arrange a demonstration.

You will recall our suggestion that you read the poetry of Adele Sakler. Some Emergents came over to thank us for recommending her work, and they did this with a view to discouraging us: they thought that by letting us know that we unwittingly advanced her reputation, we'd think twice about doing that again!

But if you read their justification of Ms. Sakler's work, you'll notice that they had nothing to contribute on the subject of its quality. No one could tell us what was good about it. What did they say?

They commended her for being strong enough in her faith to share her struggles and her doubts. If she'd howled at the moon they would have been satisfied. They respected her blog for being a place where people can come to discuss theology, experiences, and feelings. Even they do not like her work; they engage in exercises of personal validation. How Sakler compares to Rossetti is beyond them.

If you want to see a culture that celebrates drivel, check out Emergence: the dead end of American Evangelicalism. They don't do art over there, they validate personal expression. And while we're sure they see personal validation as a great thing, they forget that the audience gets nothing out of it.

And all of this is not too unlike Fundamentalists who honor inept leadership because they prefer "men of action". They validate activism irrespective of what it produces. Don't ask them what kind of action we should honor, just validate the activism.

Whether the audience is helped? whether the whole is benefitted by the blunders of the few? that escapes their concern.

I'm wondering if this is wise.

I recently spoke with a young composer about what I think music does. What do good musicians try to do? It is not as easy as you may think to explain what great music does. It is harder to explain to someone in our historical moment because so few great artists still walk among us.

It is hard to explain because it is an abstract thing, and if two people sitting in a noisy restaurant can't share concrete examples, the discussion can slip like sand through fingers.

And part of the reason it is hard to explain is because it doesn't happen predictably. It doesn't happen on cue. Not every performance is good; some are not even adequate. Sometimes we are not ready. Sometimes we are ready but we stifle a good thing by expecting the wrong thing; sometimes we can walk right by a wonderful thing because we are looking for something else. An awful lot of people really just "use" music.

Part of the reason it is hard to explain is so few people even know how to listen to music. If you don't know a canon from a rondo, you really don't know what you are hearing. The string of notes that makes for a great fugue doesn't tend to make for a great berceuse. If you don't know what the music is trying to do, you are just left to your own devices. And given today's entertainment environment, people tend to do what I call tune-scavenging.

While looking for something tangible to help make the abstract more comprehensible, I found this.

This is David Stern, son of Isaac Stern, talking about Ivry Gitlis. It may help you to watch it. Here a real, live musician and the son of an artist talks about the work of another artist. Stern is talking about a man who worships music. And before some among us run off to choke on their tongues, remember he is using the English word worship "in the original": weorthscipe.

We used to gather at weddings before God and men to hear someone say, "With my body I thee worship". We don't worship a wife as God, and we don't worship music as God. We worship a wife as a wife, music as music, and God as God. And notice how profaning things and people has led us down a path to profaning God himself.

Can we worship God with profaned things do you think?

These comments may at least get you to look for something you haven't been looking for, and so much of art is a matter of simple looking.

It is ironic that I had that discussion the Monday evening after Monday morning's post; among men for whom labels mean nothing, it is hard to feature a place in the imagination where "every note means something".

Watch it.

Here are two guys perplexed by labels, rubrics and categories and the difficulties attending their use.

Tony Jones sat down and puzzled at length before writing: [Emergents] "have a particular antipathy toward rubrics, labels, and categorizations. They seem to us convenient ways of boxing someone in, which all too often leads to writing someone off."

First is Dave Doran, the Barney Fife of Fundamentalism, a man who has devoted his life to the confusion of seminarians, (often by means of boxing in and writing off). Now those seminarians are seeking accommodations in a part of town he disapproves of. He attributes this emigration to confusing labels.

I guess I find myself back at a spot where most of these discussions end for me these days. I think they are all handicapped by the use of labels from the 20th century which no longer fit and, therefore, don't serve the discussion well. By thinking of three circles-new evangelicalism, conservative evangelicalism, and fundamentalism-all of the energy of the discussion goes into who's in and who's out. The unavoidable problem, though, is that nobody can define in and out at this stage of the game. So, where I differ with Bauder is that I don't think that we can say anything definitive about a group. We need to look at individual men and ministries, find out what they believe and how they apply those beliefs, and then draw our conclusions.

---Dave Doran, president of a Fundamentalist seminary

The second is Tony Jones, the Mr. Bean of Emergence, who understands conservatism just as well as Mike Morrell does. He too boxes in and writes off, but he does it from the other end of the spectrum.

Please allow me a tangent: Was Thomas Aquinas a "liberal" or a "conservative"?  Well, we might at first paint him a conservative, for he rescued orthodox Christianity from a particularly stagnant period by recovering - i.e., conserving - scripture and tradition.  But how did he do that?  By entering into a thoroughgoing dialogue with the Aristotelian philosophy of medieval Islam.  I daresay that if a theologian today were to admit that he or she was dipping into the wells of Muslim philosophy in order undergird Christian theology, that theologian would be condemned as having slipped off the slippery slope.

My point is that the question, Was Thomas a conservative or a liberal? is nonsensical, because "liberalism" and "conservatism" are modern categories, linked to modern (read, analytic) philosophical presuppositions.  If I can make the point even more strongly, they are not theological categories.  Thomas was not a liberal or a conservative, Paul was not a liberal or a conservative, Jesus was not a liberal or a conservative.  And, if I may be so bold, I am not a liberal or a conservative.  Those non-theological categories become less helpful each day.  I suggest we stop using them.  OK, end of tangent.

---Tony Jones, ex-national coordinator of Emergent Village

How do you suppose a good man might live in a world defined by Deputy Fifes and Mr. Beans?

When error comes to us all spry and apple-cheeked, it promises hope to the naïve. But soon it will move to Florida and spend its senior moments in a rocker. We were promised a generous orthodoxy, now we are told that if we don't share their hope, we have no hope at all.

Brian McLaren's blog turned out to be a shameless exercise in self-promotion consisting of the trivia of one man's life and mind told in two basic sentences: those that contain the phrase my new book and those that don't. This is leadership for a generation which violently rejects crass commercialism?

On the other hand, here is the work of another woman courageous and vulnerable enough to express her heart through creative means. Here is the eye of a woman with more to tell us about the world than a church bus full of Fundamentalists.

Ironic in a cruel way, is it not?

The World

By day she woos me, soft, exceeding fair:
  But all night as the moon so changeth she;
  Loathsome and foul with hideous leprosy
And subtle serpents gliding in her hair.
By day she woos me to the outer air.
  Ripe fruits, sweet flowers, and full satiety:
  But thro' the night, a beast she grins at me,
A very monster void of love and prayer.
By day she stands a lie: by night she stands
  In all the naked horror of the truth
With pushing horns and clawed and clutching hands.
Is this a friend indeed; that I should sell
  My soul to her, give her my life and youth,
Till my feet, cloven too, take hold on hell?

---Christina Rossetti

• Brian McLaren continues to develop his views of the entire Christian religion with the conspicuous erudition we take for granted in Doug Pagitt, Tony Jones, and Mr. Bean—assuming those last two are not the same person. Christianity Today has published a review by Scot McKnight, and I do think you should make the time to read it. You should also sample the reaction of CT readers. It's not that McLaren has said anything helpful or that CT is offering anything perceptive, but I don't think we should overlook any attempt Evangelicals make at recognizing blatant heresy.

• Up in the attic of the Emergent Funhouse Adele Sakler tries to make some pomes. Adele is an admittedly distraught woman of perverted views, deviant sexual practices and peevish attitudes. I won't link to her entire collection (you can scroll through a number of her unconsecrated refrains), but I will point you toward something she considers an "acrostic poem"—and I guess it could, given the state of Emergent literacy, be considered acrostic. Or it could also be that she recently discovered the word and still doesn't realize that the strength of an acrostic poem lies in recognizable spellings. All rights have been reserved, but if you want to know why, you'll have to ask her.

• And in closely related news, Maranatha Baptist Bible College promises to make good on its threat to install its fifth president on 18 March. Our editorial staff met together with the landscaping crew to determine whether MBBC chose March 18 in order to commemorate the First Lateran Council in 1123, the burning at the stake of 39 Knights Templar in 1314, or the opening of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in 1861. I suggested that with the word Baptist figuring in the school's name, Thursday might have been chosen because Spurgeon was himself a Baptist. It pains me to tell our readers that my suggestion was laughed to scorn. "Have you ever," I was asked amidst howls and jeers, "ever signed a book on Baptist history out of the library?" I tried to put forward a feeble case but it was hopeless as the meeting turned into a melée of laughter, table-pounding, hooting and head-patting.