I’m hoping we’ll get an answer. But in any case, I was interested to see that you picked up on this thread of discussion again in response to his post. I’m not necessarily a proponent of postmodernism either, but I don’t see the need to lump it together with relativism and dismiss it so casually when in fact it is forcing us to ask some valid questions.

it doesn’t. the postmodern critique of language incessantly undermines any truth stand because it exposes the various mechanisms (or structures) that make that stand possible.

i’m sure i’m oversimplifying, but i’ve always thought of postmodernism as the playful exposure of assumptions, which is to say that all truth rests on assumptions and all assumptions are cultural artifacts–which doesn’t make them less real but does introduce a certain equivalency. it will also mean that all truth is open to doubt, to correction and emmendation, which is itself an exposure of the inherent deficiency or lack in truth claims.

even if the bible is the foundation for everything, the fount of all Truth, what such an assertion obscures is the fact that we individuals have to read, and by reading interpret, it. our disagreements about what the absolute source of all Truth actually says are big. so we’re left with a source of all truth that all of us are reading differently…

man that confuses and frustrates me. (lol)

anyway iMonk, i like the description of your appraoch, but i wish it were a longer discussion. as one of your cyber students (virtually real, i suppose, maybe even hyper-real) i would like to see a whole blogspot just on your approach.

good stuff, bro, keep it coming!

During the sermon, the pastor showed a “Blues Brother” movie clip to help illustrate a point he was attempting to draw out of the Scripture. I thought it was one of the more “postmodern” moments I’d ever witnessed in any church. No one else in the congregation seemed to catch the irony. I guess the church regularly uses movie clips to make their Bible message more relevant to the culture. (Just don’t ask them to say that explicitly).

I share in general criticisms of EC: I want an explicit exposition of the Gospel. If I am talking about Jesus with someone, I want them to know I am talking about the Jesus of the Bible. OTOH, I can point to Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill in Seattle, an ECer who is in total agreement with those words. I think you or someone else here said it best: the EC has (in large part) a postmodern missionology, but a modern theology. I’m comfortable with that. Why are so many others uncomfortable with that?

“What I want to do is invite him to talk about Jesus, think about Jesus, converse about Jesus and listen to Jesus. That’s my goal.”

If the law of God is written on the hearts of man, we can only hope to open the heart to hear it.

For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) (Romans 2:13-15 NIV)

Does this make you postmodern? Hardly. By focusing on Jesus, not the law, you are not inviting each believer to find their own truth, as much as you are sharing the root of the law itself. Jesus Himself declares this.

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Mathew 5:17 NIV)

Thank you for getting me thinking about this.

We are all absolutely blind. Even the wisest, most knowledgable among us knows essentially nothing, nada, zip. (The ratio of what we know over what there is to know is basically zero. The ratio of any number, no matter how large, over infinity is zero.) Humanity stumbles around ‘missing the mark’ (sinning) at every turn simply because we are in total darkness. Every collision with Reality brings us pain. Now, the modernist would say, ‘Stop, just stumbling around using your imagination, expectations, wishes and desires to guess where things are. Instead use your remaining senses (i.e logic, reason, scientific method) to determine where the furniture is (or isn’t).’ After proceeding for awhile this way, a few minor advances are made. But eventually, like the boy in the Emperor’s New Clothes, the Postmodernists come along to say ‘But we’re still blind! The advances we have made have not led us out of darkness.’

We will never find our way without a Guide who has sight. God is the only one who Sees. He has come to us to take our hand and guide us Home. As he directs us along the way, blind though we still are, we ‘see’ and are kept from stumbling as long as we hold on tight and listen carefully.

Modernist thinking with it’s emphasis on reason and science helped advance thinking and technology in many ways. But it had it’s limits and it’s downside. The Postmodernists do a good job at pointing those out—but offer no real answers. Simply throwing out modernism and returning to each person’s experiences and best guess about Reality isn’t the answer either.

The Christian needs to ask the modernist–how far has your reasoning and science gotten you? He needs to ask the postmodernist–how far will listening to the advice and tales of other blindmen get you? We need to point out to all that the only way out of darkness is to seek the only one who Sees.