Writing our way to clarity

I have books by Scot McKnight

, but it’s only recently that I started reading his blog. McKnight suggests that we approach books by authors like McLaren and blogs (I’m not going to use the e-word) differently than we would other forms of literature:

For this reason, I suggest that what is most compatible with the Emergent conversation is the literary form called the “essay”… Essays don’t like definition and final conclusion and they are not arguments but ruminations and reflections and attempts to bring order and clarity to one’s thoughts — and letting everyone in on the action… The point of it all is this: these writers “wrote their way to clarity” (if they ever got there, and some didn’t — like Fowler) and it was by thinking their way on paper that they came to terms with what they were thinking. But they knew they weren’t setting down final thoughts for all time. Can you think of a more Emergent literary form than the essay? Until enough “essay” their way through issues and “blog” their way into their own mind we really won’t know what it is all about. And it takes awhile, but there is no need to hurry because there are so many “thinks to thing” about.