I am reading Leonard Sweet's Post-Modern Pilgrims: First Century Passion for the 21st Century World - here is a piece that caught my eye as I work with both youth (this summer), college ministry (I'm coming Kansas), and yet am a part of a body of believers that embodies many generations - and both moderns and postmoderns.
'I plead guilty, and am guilty, of being a man of his time. We are all time travelers. Even Jesus existed in time. The question I have to face in my wn ministry is this: Will I live the time God has given me? Or will I live a time I would prefer to have? Postmodern culture is my here and now. I will take the church back to the cyberage, or will perish in the attempt. I live my life between two metaphors: (1) the pioneer who has arrows in his back, and (2) the slow buffalo who always gets shot I am constantly aware that the difference between a leader and a martyr is about three paces.'
(Please don't misunderstand this to mean that Sweet expects the church to become completely postmodern. He is however aware that the church has completely neglected postmodernity - and is calling the church to realize the times in which it exists - a call to the greater cuture around it - but not a call to conformity -
in fact Sweet uses the term no po mo in his notes to refer to the church saying no the postmodern culture.)
Just my rambling thoughts between shower and sleep
-the cheese
Posted at 01:53 am by The Cheese and The Worms
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Brian Hamilton
June 8, 2004 11:24 PM PDT
I'm not familiar with Leonard Sweet, but he sounds like others of the mainstream church who are taking the bold step towards wrapping their head around this chaos we call postmodernism--brothers and sisters for whom I have great respect. Certainly postmodernity, in all its reactiveness, has much to offer the Church; this many Christian thinkers have already recognized.
However, regarding the sort of spiel you quote here, I pray that the well-intentioned apologist doesn't drift too far into "modernizing" the Church and its message in their attempt to make the Church understandable to a postmodern world. We must recognize that the postmodern world, like the modern world and every world before it, will inevitably be unable to swallow the Gospel in all its fullness until it is transformed from postmodern to Christian.
When we play Christian apologist, our tendency is to minimize Christian distinctives in an attempt to make Christianity sound more like postmodern secular philosophy. We cannot forget that our primary mission is not to convince the world of the truth in Christianity, but simply to live the truth--the brilliance of truth's veracity needs no reinforcements. The distinction between Church and World must remain clear, even while we affirm the truth that postmodernism has brought forth.
We affirm the dynamism of symbols and words, who thrive throughout the ages; this as opposed to a static meaning unaffected by those who use the symbols.
We affirm the rejection of philosophy and logic as the sole, or even best way to discover truth; especially for the Church, we recognize that nothing short of the transforming power of Christ at work in the world can convince us of our fallenness.
We reject the denunciation of all metanarratives and suprahistorical goals, believing as we do in a God at work throughout all of history, with promises soon to be fulfilled. At the same time, however, we humbly lay before the world our own misuse of the metanarrative to dominate and coerce it into "belief." We recognize this as error, and renounce it wholeheartedly.
The Church must certainly learn to live in a postmodern world, but to lose sight of what distinguishes us from postmodernism is to lose sight of the radical Jesus. We continually pray for the discernment in our understanding of postmodernism, and strength to maintain a positive yet distinct witness to the Kingdom. |
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Helen
May 21, 2004 03:00 PM PDT
I love reading things by people more educated than me!! I really liked what you had to say and really agree with your ideas about it. I feel like you hit the nail on the head when you brought up "in the world but not of it." That's the main thing that I feel like I struggle with at times and that others have a hard time grasping as well. |
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