These are three highly pertinent questions. Thanks for articulating them. The first two certainly have to be faced up to by the emerging church. The third one only really has to do with the objectives of this site.

1. Yes, it does beg the question - and to be honest was meant to. To my mind, though, the problem is less one of how we construct truth statements than of how we read the biblical narrative. What does John 3:16 mean, in the first place, in the narrative-historical context of first-century Judaism as it was framed by the distinctive theological perspective of the tradition associated with the apostle John? Until we understand that properly, I don’t think we will be in a position to affirm it as truth, interpret it for a postmodern culture, or stick it on our bumpers. The way I see it, the ‘message’ will have a lot more to do with explaining the existence of a people that sees itself as an anticipation of a radically remade creation than with the narrowly conceived hope of personal salvation.

2. There is a real concern that the content of faith will be reduced to a set of questions, a blur of disbelief. Personally I think that fear will eventually prove to be unfounded - I see a vigorous, realistic, and compelling retelling of the biblical narrative emerging from the fog that will have the potential to inspire faith, worship and mission. But people can imagine that they see all sorts of curious things in a fog. Perhaps it will take a strong wind to blow the clouds away.

3. When I first started Open Source Theology, I rather naively thought that there might be some sort of ‘product’, that people would deliberately collaborate in at least mapping a coherent new theology. That ambition has faded, but I do still feel that these conversations contribute to the development of an implicit theology, a shared mindset, that is rather fluid and variable but which is beginning to aquire some measure of coherence and identity. Perhaps the point is simply that it is a much slower and more complex process than I originally imagined. Give it another five years and maybe we’ll at least have an alpha version, who knows?