Once again, I find myself liking the gist (jist?) of what you’re saying, but struggling with one or two points.

 Of course, I love the idea of a church in which we can all get along with each other - be we Catholic, Protestant, liberal, conservative, whatever. I’ve been more liberal than most of the congregation of mh church for the past few years, and am eternally grateful to have a Christian family so willing to love and accept me despite our disagreements.

 But this family was found in a fairly conventional charismatic evangelical church. It is quite possibly the most unemergent church in the UK! We sing Matt Redman songs, drink Ribena at communion, have tea and coffee after the service, and during the week the building is used as a pre-school and first aid training centre. Nothing ground-breaking there, right? And yet, for four years, it has been my Christian home - my family. The congregation has not embraced my what-they-deem-to-be-liberal views on the atonement, or salvation, other faiths, or Harry Potter, but has warmly, and firmly, embraced me. You won’t find a perfect systematic theology at my church. Hell, the theology that you will find there is full of holes and half-developped thoughts. What you will find is community, embrace, and acceptance.

 You seem to use words to their effect as characteristic of the emergent movement, but like I say, my church is not emergent or post-modern. It is staunchly evangelical. I’m no fan of the theology, but am a great fan of the community and the desire to love, embrace, and work with people that may have different beliefs. So does this mean that my church is emergent without knowing it? Or does it mean that these are values that the church has stood for for 2000 years, albeit with varying degrees of success? I’d say the latter.

 I don’t think Martin Luther set out to start a denomination. Nor did Henry VIII. Nor did Roger Williams, or the Council of Ephesus, or (why not?) St. Peter. What these people did was to see an issue with the church veering away from its original mission (or what they deemed its original mission to be), and try to steer it back on track. Denominations developed as people began to follow the movements. It seems to me that this is precisely what the emergent community is doing. This isn’t a problem; I’m not complaining. I’m all for different denominations. But it seems that this is exactly what the Emergent church is doing. Great emergent thinkers have seen problems in the church, tried to fix them, and in doing so, started a new denomination, as people started to follow their teachings. Interestingly, if we’re going by your description of the movement, it has very similar aims and objectives to the United Reformed Church; perhaps slightly tweaked.

 Do you see my point? I tend to ramble. What I’m trying to say is that in its trying to work ecumenically with people of all Christian denominations, it is actually creating a new denomination. Is this a bad thing? I don’t think so. Like I say, I’m in favour of having lots of denominations (I’m also a great fan of the ecumenical movement). But what is this new denomination all about? It seems to draw in all sorts of people who are dissatisfied with the mainstream (evangelical) church - fine. But what do we once we have gathered (I say we, because I appear to have wandered into this generic new building myself)? We gripe about the mainstream church and its theology (all the while saying that theology is not what is important). It seems that a lot of talk of dismantling is going on behind the man’s back, but little is being done in terms of positive action; building, designing, creating.

 Forgive me if I sound aggressive. I must admit I am adopting a slightly more militant view than I normally might in order to get some clarity!

 Does that make any sense?