I have hesitated to post this for a while because, like many of my friends and colleagues, I am unsure what “Emergent” means and/or doesn’t mean. Let’s face it…it depends on who you ask and who is talking. From everything I have read or heard (from the leaders within Emergent), Emergent is basically a conversation of what it means to be a Christian (follower of Jesus) and the Church in our postmodern world. Therefore it’s a conversation that includes all aspects of the Christian life and community touching on theology, hermeneutics, methodology, etc. If that is the definition, which I think it is, then I would say, “I am a friend of Emergent.” The problem is that it depends on who you ask and how they define Emergent (problem of etymology). If Emergent isn’t just a conversation but instead is defined by a creed, formula, statement of faith/beliefs, then although I may fit into that category (depending on what it was), I wouldn’t want to – I’m just not interested in being a part of it if that is what it means. Part of what draws me into the world of Emergent is the shared experience of being fascinated, confused, awed, mystified, and perplexed with what it means to live the Gospel of Jesus in our ever changing global world.

I don’t know Tony Jones, Brian McLaren, Doug Pagitt, etc. personally but I have read most of their books and have heard them speak on occasion. I have read/heard enough to agree and disagree on various points, but from all I can read/hear they are followers of Jesus, who are trying to navigate their way around our postmodern world.

So…I am a friend of Emergent (as I define it)…a fellow pilgrim on a common journey…confused, perplexed, and profoundly enthused about the future of the Church and the emerging leaders within it.

Imbroglio isn’t a spelling error or a made up word, but it means a complicated confused misunderstanding. I think that defines my theology and spirituality. I know a lot about the Bible, I know (or at least used to know) Greek, I have studied theology, and I have good sense of my tradition in my own church/denomination as well as the bigger Christian tradition and history. Even though all these things are true, I have come to the conclusion that although I think I know a lot about God, in reality I know very little. Although the pursuit is important and vital to healthy spirituality, I also have embraced the humility that I will never fully understand God. In fact, I think I have embraced it to the point that I know, and I don’t think there is a way around it, that I will, as everyone else on the planet, be faced with a complicated and confused misunderstanding.

I am not saying that I think God is trying to confuse us, but that as His creation it is impossible to every fully know Him. I think I can get a glimpse and although I think that glimpse may be accurate, it is only a glimpse and because I am human I will always have misunderstandings about God, my spirituality, and theology.

Imbroglio spirituality can bring freedom can’t it? I think it helps us be humble enough to recognize that we may not have everything understood and in fact may even be wrong on some things. This isn’t to say that Scripture, as God revealed, inerrant and inspired Word, isn’t true and accurate but our interpretations and perspectives may be skewed.

So I journey forward, with my faith in Christ, knowing I worship a God I will never fully understand or comprehend and as paradoxical as it may sound, I find ease and comfort in that.

I had the experience this week of feeling misunderstood. I always try to communicate clearly but there are inevitably times, for whatever reason, that either I misspeak or the other person hears wrong. It is frustrating. I don’t mind it when people disagree with me for something I actually think, but when it is a misunderstanding, it is frustrating.

Isn’t that the nature of language though? Language is prone to misunderstanding – ask anyone who has ever spoken through an interpreter or used a second language. This leads to an interesting question: I wonder what God thinks/feels when someone misunderstands a portion of Scripture? Obviously there is a reason God choose oral and written language to communicate his divinely inspired revelation. He used real people to write Scripture in real times, in real cultures, in real languages, and with real genres. He obviously knew the inevitable problems of language and potential for it being misunderstood. Or what about Jesus, who was often misunderstood by people who listened to him with their own agenda?

These are interesting questions and ones that I don’t necessarily expect to find the answers to, but the search is interesting nonetheless.

I came across this story about a prayer ministry in the US having some prominent Christian leaders gather around gas pumps and praying for lower gas prices. I’m not making this up!!!! And the saddest part for me is that I wasn’t surprised. I am not going to say anything about whether we should or shouldn’t pray for things like lower gas prices; that would take too long to explore. Instead, I want to talk about what it says about the nature and even health of the church in North America. What I find so troubling about this story, is that is a great example of the often sheer self-centeredness of our prayers. Why, with so much turmoil in the world (War on Terror, genocide in Darfur, the mistreatment of women around our globe, domestic and international poverty, etc), would we spend so much time praying for twenty cents off a litre of gas rather than pray for domestic and international peace and justice. Maybe it tells us something about our human nature, or at least about our North American Christian priorities? Maybe it’s even a symptom of a greater disease?