serving in postmodern times

The Divine Embrace

2007-04-26T12:31:00.000-07:00

The Divine Embrace is a book that was recommended to me by a friend in the ministry. Thanks Bill. I found it to be amazingly helpful in my own journey. There are some quotes that I'd like to think more about and even have some conversation about that will be posted soon. I chose to make any possible conversation part of this blog because I think it has to do with how we need to think about following Christ in this postmodern era... This spurred me on to another Robert Webber work that I had begun and now finished... The Younger Evangelicals...

On Worship

2007-04-26T12:30:00.000-07:00

"The current focus on worship originating in self is probably a reaction against truth without passion and is what happened to me as a result of the Enlightenment and what happened to me when my learning of Scripture through the scientific method left me dry." (Embrace p.233)

"Worship needs both truth and passion. Truth without passion is dry. Passion without truth is empty. Where do we go to find both truth and passion? I suggest recovering worship as the proclamation and enactment of God's story. (Robert Webber, Worship Old and New 2nd ed.)" (Embrace p. 233)

On Prayer

2007-04-26T12:29:00.000-07:00

"Prayer is a weapon God has given his people in the struggle against those evil impulses that drive a person to focus on self and self- interest." (Embrace p. 208)

The Gospel Affects Our Spiritual Life

2007-04-26T12:27:00.001-07:00

"The spiritual life is not an escape from life but an affirmation of God's way of life in the struggles we meet in our personal thoughts, in the relationships we have in the family, among our neighbors, at work, and in our leisure." (Embrace p. 202)

The Gospel Proclaimed in Post-Modernism

2007-04-26T12:25:00.001-07:00

"In the pre-modern world and now again in the postmodern world which we live, Christian faith is being presented once again, however; not as mere ideas to be defended by reason or science but as a story to be embodied, that is, to be lived." (Embrace p.202)

The Desert Father's on Sanctification

2007-04-26T12:21:00.000-07:00

"The fathers stress the Pauline admonition to 'press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me' (Phil. 3:14). There must be no stopping in the pursuit of virtue. 'Prepare yourself for continual labor; struggle and effort, allowing no thought of alleviation.' Never for a moment imagine that 'the virtue is already gained in its perfection.' (Ibid., 177)
Also, do not assume that you can ascend to your goal quickly. 'Make gradual progress your rule, moving from below upwards.'" (Embrace p. 192)

Rebellion as Self-Love

2007-04-26T12:18:00.000-07:00

"The self-love of narcisism is one of the greatest problems we face today. Obviously personal care and appropriate personal attention to self is no sin. But popular culture, especially the media, constantly promotes self-interest. 'it's all about me' is a slogan the Christian needs to replace with, 'It's all about God.'" (Embrace p. 189)

On Community

2007-04-26T12:14:00.000-07:00

"God's family pursues God's purposes for the world and participates in God's vision in the world by showing the world what a community of people in union with God is to look like." (Embrace p.163)

Repenting

2007-04-26T12:13:00.000-07:00

"Christian spirituality, on the other hand, begins with the day-by-day repentance, a continuous change that takes place in the mind, the heart, and the will. Repentance is to hear God's story...every day." (Embrace p. 151)

3 Steps to Embracing God

2007-04-26T12:10:00.000-07:00

"Peter sets forth the three steps it takes to consciously recieve God's embrace: (1) repent, (2) be baptized for the forgiveness of sins, and (3) recieve the gift of the Holy Spirit. Here, then, is how a person responds to the passionate embrace of God." (Embrace p. 147)

On Spirituality

2007-04-26T12:08:00.001-07:00

"Spirituality is our union with God through our union with Jesus Christ accomplished by the power of the Spirit....Thus the spiritual life is a calling to become fully human after the likeness of Christ, who, being united to God, has shown us what humanity, united to God, was intended to be." (Embrace p. 103)

On Mystery

2007-04-26T12:04:00.000-07:00

"The contemplation of God, of his person, creation, incarnation, and re-creation of the world, is a different kind of knowledge. It is a contemplation on the mysteries, namely, the mystery of God creating, the mystery of God incarnate, the mystery of the cross and empty tomb, the mystery of God's presence in the church, and the mystery of Christ's return to claim his lordship over creation. The contemplation of these mysteries moves us to live into these mysteries, participating in God's life for the world." (Embrace p. 87)

The Younger Evangelicals

2007-04-26T12:02:00.000-07:00

The Younger Evangelicals, another volume by Robert Webber, really challenged some of my thinking about the way we should be church instead of doing church... I don't agree with alot of what Webber is saying, or to put it more accurately, my experience isn't exactly what his is, but so much of what he says is really important and is worth conversation.... Thanks J.R. for the reccomendation.

On Church Structure

2007-04-26T12:01:00.000-07:00

"When relationships are structured on mutual servanthood and not power, the world sees a glimpse of heavenly reality where the powers have been put away and God's shalom over the entire created order." (Younger p.149)

"He is Lord, not only of personal salvation, but also of all relationships and structures. His lordship of structures calls us to live and work with each other by the servant leadership which Jesus modeled. He was not the CEO of his disciples; he was their servant." (Younger p.149)

Tullian Tchividjian on "Doing vs. Being Church"

2007-04-26T11:58:00.000-07:00

"Our focus on doing church has certainly overshadowed the bibilical focus of being church, and this comes at a time when our culture is growing weary of slick production, while growing hungry for authentic prescence...they want engagement by the Church: engagement with historical and cultural solidity that facilitates meaningful interaction with transcendant reality." (Younger p. 129)

Tullian Tchividjian on "Yearning for the other"

2007-04-26T11:53:00.000-07:00

"They are desperately reaching not just upwards but backwards. They yearn for a day gone by when things seemed more constant and less shallow. They want to tap into the treasures of the past as they search for staying power that seems unattainable in the present. They are weary of the pressure to become, while they long for the privilege to be. Therefore, they want different music (not just words but style) and different people with their sights set on a different world. They long for someone to speak to them with authority about someone other than themselves and about a time other than their own. They are not as interested in what they can become as in who they are and where they came from, historically speaking." (Younger p. 128)

On Rejecting Modernism

2007-04-26T11:51:00.000-07:00

"I found the Enlightenment promise that all things, including satisfaction and contentment, could be found 'this side of the ceiling' was a lie." (Tullian Tchividjian, Younger p. 127)

On the Bible's Relevance

2007-04-26T11:43:00.000-07:00

"Frei proposes a radical solution. Suppose we do not start with the modern world. Suppose we start with the bibical world, and let those narratives decide what's real, so that our lives have meaning to the extent that we fit them into the framework. That is, after all, the way a great many Christians- Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin- read the Bible for a long time. If we do that, then the truth of the biblical narratives does not depend on connecting them to some other real world. They describe the real world." (William C. Placher, Unapologetic Theology: A Christian Voice in a Pluralistic Conversation)

On the Gospel in Life

2007-04-26T11:39:00.000-07:00

"The salvation story centers on the incarnation and subsequent events. God entered our history and became incarnate in Jesus. In the union of the divine with the human in the person of Jesus Christ came the "lifting up of human nature into an everlasting communication with the divine life."(Ibid., 86)" (Younger p. 86)

On Freedom

2007-04-26T11:38:00.000-07:00

"True freedom, which is the choice to be in union with God and with God's will, is now lost." (Younger p.86)

Why Church?

2007-04-26T11:34:00.000-07:00

"Today, young people come to church because "it stands for something." But the gospel it stands for is presented as "story," not a noncontradictory, rationally defended, logically consistent fact apprehended by cognitive aquiescence." (Younger p.49)

living to serve among Muslims

2007-03-06T11:47:00.000-08:00

"Communicating the truth to Muslims for understanding."

A guy who lives in the Middle East spoke in chapel today. I am not identifying him for security reasons... he spoke about connecting with Muslims. These are the notes I took, they sound exactly like connecting with PMs

You need to be sure that the words are understood.
The speaker must understand what the listener is hearing.

To Muslims the deed weighs as much as the word.

Historical context is important to understanding and communicating the truth.
Collective identity, not individuality is important in understanding context.

Job, life choices and activities are our idenity in the West
verse
family, family heritage and relating to Muhammed in the muslim world.

In the West - choice
In the East - history

Religion is a birth thing not a personal choice.

Muslims are taught that the decline of the islamic empire was the result of straying from correct teaching... [Compare to modern jihadist teachings that are dividing muslim generations in west
how to reach? I need to blog about this]

some steps
1) understand identity
2) importance of language - live in the language
3) respect Islamic culture and history

living in a middle eastern ctiy
1) provide a safe and familiar environmment... Be aware of what is happening around us
2) permanance
3) community - being in community
4) orient our lives toward culture
5) relationships in the language and culture

I think there are amazing parallels to working among PMs

a talk on postmodernism

2007-03-05T23:52:00.000-08:00

At a missions conference recently, I was able to hear a speaker who really seemed to understand postmodern folks (like me?).
"A Message from America's Future"

The 'emerging generation' is postmodern (PM) in thought.

There is no return... [hense, we are where we are and we will not go back to modernism]

from the middle ages to the enlightenment
authority was seen in the person [Pope] and changed to knowledge [as authority]

[NOW] the new basis of authority is what I deem so

the European Church bought into values of the enlightenment...

WWI and WWII showed the failure of modernism and the church which emphasized reason was off track and had failed, thus the church died in the UK and elsewhr in Europe

4 tenants of PM

1. rejection of absolute truth

no one really believes this... There is plenty of wrong and everybody knows it... It really is a rejection of the claim of having absolute truth - especially against the church... RESULT: We need to learn to listen... it's not about me being right, it's about Jesus being right for Me... its the church more than the Gospel that PM mocks... we don't give up on truth, we need to be humble to know we do not have a corner on it

2. anti expectation, sorry, I didn't get this

3. cynicism, hopelessness, pessimism

modernism failed, PMs become anti optimistic

PM began in EUR after WWII, WHY? WWI AND WWII shwd modernism failed ...

being not just talking

show Jesus is real

4. rejection of objective and emphasizing of subjective

we cannot explain everything, we must emrace mystical things and realize that we cannot answer all questions, show them how to love Jesus not just the truth about him

The speaker was Alan Waldecker.

evil

2006-11-18T06:24:00.000-08:00

I picked up Tom Wright's book Evil and the Justice of God (IVP, 2006). I was struck by this idea:

"This... is a kind of response to the problem of evil. Postmodernism, in recognizing that we are all deeply flawed, aviods any return to a classic doctrine of original sin by claiming that humans have no fixed "identity" and hense no fixed responsibility. You can't escape evil within postmodernity, but you can't find anyone to take the blame either."

Wright goes on to give an example from England when no one was held responsible for a rail accident becuase you can't find anyone to take the blame either...

This seems to match up with the idea of plurality that I think seems to be a "doctrine" of postmodern thought.

Christian Apologetics

2006-11-17T19:45:00.000-08:00

"religious pluralism is a normative thesis about diversity..."

"the bad news: no religion is true
the good news: it doesn't matter; it will all turn out okay in the end"

"religious pluralism looks a lot like secularism w/ incense"

if i am beginning to understand this issue... i am understanding that Jesus is a great model for the dialogue needed with postmodern friends, he was a great question asker, he acted with compassion...

another worthwile resource is

2006-11-07T13:57:00.000-08:00

this blog called the JesusCreed

a link to a helpful article

2006-11-07T13:49:00.000-08:00

by Earl Creps on "Disciplemaking in a Postmodern World" its worth a look...

the blog of Mr. Creps is here

another summary of modernism

2006-11-01T16:17:00.000-08:00

as a modernist, i need further clarification of modernism so that i can further comprehend postmodernism... i have found this summary by Erickson helpful...

"In general, modernism was seeking for an explaination that would cover all things. So the great systems of the of the modern period were omniexplanatory. Darwinism accounted for everything in terms of biological evolution. Freudian psycology explained all human behavior in light of sexual repression, and unconscious forces. marxism interpreted all events of history in economic categories, with the forces of dialectical materialism moving history toward the inevitable classess society. These ideologies offered universal diagnoses as well as universal cures." p. 164

why we should understand...

2006-10-31T17:21:00.000-08:00

Millard Erickson gives an excellent introduction to the issue of understanding postmodernism in Christian Theology.

"Modernism, with its 'belief in the rationality of the universe,' has been the hallmark of the of the twentieth century. Today, however, there has been growing dissatisfaction with the modern view. The result has been the emergence of the postmodern movement, which is affecting every area of intellectual endeavor, including theology. It is important for Christians to understand postmodernism and to construct a theology to evidence awareness of and response to it. Some aspects of postmodernism are compatible with and supportive of biblical Christian theology, while other parts are antagonistic. Christian theology needs to support and use the former while rejecting the latter." (p. 158)

Scripture and Culture

2006-10-31T16:49:00.000-08:00

N.T. Wright has laid some interesting words to be considered... (by the way, I am just quoting because I do not claim to have any answers worth writing - yet)

"The continuing and much-discussed interplay between "modern" and "postmodern" culture has created a mood of uncertainty within Western society at least. There are three areas that can be easily identified." (Last Word, p. 6) NOTE, I will list only two of these points on this post...

"First, the big, older stories of who we are and what we're here for have been challenged and deconstructed. This is, in a sense, turning modernism's rhetoric on itself. Modernism (the movement which began with the eighteenth-century Enlightenment) made its way, through writers like Voltaire, by attacking the big, overarching story told by the church. Postmodernity has now done the same to all the great stories by which humans bring order to their lives ('meta-narratives'), not least the stories of 'progress' and 'enlightenment' which modernism itself made its stock-in-trade. The Bible... Like all metanarratives,... is instantly suspected of being told in order to advocate someone's interest. It is, people suspect, some kind of a power-play." (p. 7)

"Second, the notion of truth has been under scrutiny and indeed attack. Many today operate with two quite different types of 'truth.' If we asked, 'Is it true that Jesus died on a cross?' we normally would mean, 'did it really happen?' But if we asked, 'Is the parable of the Prodigal Son true?' we would quickly dismiss the idea that 'it really happened'; that is simply not the sort of thing parables are. We would insist that, in quite another sense, the parable is indeed 'true' in that we discover within the narrative a picture of God and his love, and of multiple layers of human folly, which rings true at all kinds of levels of human knowledge and experience."(p. 7)

"...Now postmodernity has pushed us in the other direction: toward supposing that all 'truth,' including the supposed 'facts' of scientific experiment, can be reduced to power-claims."(p. 8)

He then states a strategy he wishes to pursue:
"...I shall be arguing neither for a variety of modernism, nor for a return to premodernism, [see Sire] nor yet for a capitulation to postmodernism, but for what I hope is a way through this entire mess and muddle and forward into a way of living in and for God's world, and within the communtiy of God's people, with Christian and biblical integrity." (p. 10)

I really had no idea when I began this project that I would quote N. T. Wright so much.

the self: another shift

2006-10-30T18:54:00.000-08:00

"Sartre said, 'Existence precedes essence.' We make ourselves by what we choose to do. "

"For Nietzsche the only self worth living was the self of the ...Overman, the one who has risen above the conventional herd and has fashioned himself."

a shift:

"premodern" theistic notion that human beings are dignified

by being created in the image of God

"modern" notion that human beings are the product of their DNA template, which itself is the result of unplanned evolution based on change mutations and the survival of the fittest

"postmodern" notion of an insubstantial self constructed by the language it uses

to describe itself

Sire - p. 181-2

a pattern of shift in ethics

2006-10-30T18:47:00.000-08:00

"premodern" theistic ethics based on the character of a transcendent God who is good and has revealed that goodness

"modern" ethics based on a notion of universal human reason and experience and the human ability to discern objective right from wrong

"postmodern" notion that morality is the multiplicity of languages used to describe right from wrong

Sire summarizes that "Postmodernism can make no normative judgement about such a view. It can only observe and comment: so much the worse for those who find themselves oppressed by the majority."

Sire: Universe, p. 183

knowledge

2006-10-30T18:07:00.000-08:00

Sire quotes francis bacon: "Knowledge is power,"

Sire contrasts postmodern thought:

"With postmodernism, however, the situation is reversed. There is no purely objective knowledge, no truth of correspondence. Instead, there are only stories, stories which, when they are believed, give the storyteller power over overs."

hmmmmmm

then: Sire then tells us that Michel Foucault emphazises this relationship: "Any story but one's own is oppressive."

and: Sire states... "To reject oppression is to reject all the stories society tells us. This is, of course, anarchy, and this,... Foucault accepts"

lastly, Sire simplifies with a pattern of philosophical movement:

a "premodern" acceptance of a metanarrative written by God and revealed in Scripture

a "modern" metanarrative of universal reason yielding truth about reality

a "postmodern" reduction of all metanarratives to power plays

(Universe p. 181)

truth?

2006-10-30T17:30:00.000-08:00

it seems that one of the names coming up in my reading is Nietzche... James Sire provides this by Nietzsche on "truth"...

"What then is truth? a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms - in short, a sum of human relations, which have been enhanced, transported, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are; metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins."

Neitzsche was to some, a father of postmodern thought...

cited from "On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense, " in The Portable Nietzsche, trans. Walter Kaufmann, pp. 95-96 in Universe - Sire

experience and the Bible

2006-10-30T13:40:00.000-08:00

N. T. Wright invests some thoughts about postmodernity in his book about the authority of Scripture... here are a couple of quotes that I am thinking about...

on experience as authority
"... though this has never been accepted within official formulations, many church leaders now speak of "scripture, tradition, reason and experience" as though the well-known three-legged stool had now been upgraded by the addition of another leg of the same type as the other three." (Last, p.100)

then...

"Adding a fourth leg to a three-legged stool often makes it unstable." (p. 101)

then...

"Indeed, the stress on "experience" has contributed materially to that form of pluralism, verging on anarchy, which we now see across the Western world." (p.102)

then after all that, he offers a different approach...

"We could put it like this. "Experience" is what grows by itself in the garden. "Authority" is what happens when the gardener wants to affirm the goodness of the genuine flowers and vegetables by uprooting the weeds in order to let beauty and fruitfulness triumph over chaos, thorns and thistles. An over-authoritarian church, paying no attention to experience, solves the problem by paving the garden with concrete. An over-experiential church solves the problem of concrete by letting anything and everything grow unchecked, sometimes labeling concrete as "law" and so celebrating any and every weed as "grace." (p. 104)

finally, I add this quote...

"When, through letting scripture be the vechile of God's judging and healing authority in our communities and individual lives, we really do "experience" God's affirmation, then we shall know as we are known" (p. 105)

quotes from The Last Word

basic idea

2006-10-30T13:35:00.000-08:00

over on my course blog, i posted this very basic idea

resources I've used so far

2006-10-30T13:26:00.000-08:00

Here are some resources that I am using to try to learn about this topic:

Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (details forthcoming)
Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (details forthcoming)

While standing in the philosophy section of Barnes and Noble, I was looking through these volumes. I bought these to update my library and found myself following the "links"and reading scores of articles about the terms, times and people of postmodernism, my journey began in earnest. And while I like to visit Cambridge more that Oxford each spring, I like the Oxford dictionary better.

"Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy" (on line)
When you print this article on postmodernism, it is fifteen pages long, so don't kill too many trees (did I really just write that?) I have not, to be honest read the article word for word. But in scanning it I saw many of the same points, yet in more detail than in my earlier reading, as the dictionaries. The click to the article pays of with the first sentence.

"Postmodernity and Theology" in Christian Theology by Millard Erikson, Baker, 2nd Ed. 1997
This is the second edition of the text I used (1st ed.) in seminary and have used over and again. When Laci asked me to get it for him last year, I noticed the new chapter on postmodernity. I recently read this chapter and found it helpful as Erickson gives a thorough but concise survey of modernism which is really essential to understand that which postmodernism is against, anti, after...

"The Vanished Horizion" in The Universe Next Door by James Sire, IVP, 1997
After having read several pieces, I was ready for this. Sire is thick and puts a lot on a page. But he presents the material in such a way that one can see the progression from what was to what is now. Some of his arguments at the end of the chapter seem a bit pat, but... they seem to work too... very helpful to me in synthesizing much of the material I had already read.

The Last Word by N. T. Wright, HarperSanFrancisco 2005
Since authority and knowledge and truth are such important topics in this realm of inquiry, I suggest the follower of Christ read this book. Wright gives an interesting perspective on the authority of Scripture and how it must be understood in context of both the time it was written and the time it is read.

Paul by N. T. Wright, Fortress Press, Mineapolis, 2005
Apparantly to some, this is a controversial volume, but I've thought it helpful, there is just a little within that is applicable to this conversation in "Jesus, paul and the Task of the Church" where Wright draws us a picture of how the church should act and work in the face of the changing culture?

why this blog?

2006-10-28T13:04:00.000-07:00

well, my work is with post moderns... several, maybe most of my colleagues are too... so a dialogue between texts and people who are post modern may prove helpful to an old modernist like me

serving post moderns is launched

2006-10-28T12:57:00.000-07:00

this blog will be a conversation about serving post moderns... it will investigate post modernity and those who think according to it to the end that they may be understood better and therefor, served with the gospel