Why we can and should talk about something else.

by Kevin A. Miller

I’m sitting here on a gray, snowy Saturday, looking out at flurries and longing for that warm, sunny time before we’d heard the word postmodern. It’s hard to remember now, but a decade ago, seminars were given on preaching, not on “Preaching in a Postmodern Age.” Books were written on plain ol’ youth ministry, not “Postmodern Youth Ministry.” Of course, we were all unenlightened, unwashed then, locked in a dead, Newtonian modernism.

How quickly we’ve learned.

Even six years ago, Leadership could publish “The Riddle of Our Postmodern Culture,” because the concept was largely unfamiliar to ministers. Now we all toss off words like “deconstructionism” and “abductive.” We’ve been blessed by conferences that are cool and collective, and we expect our websites to be flash-animated and our coffees dark-roasted.

Proponents of postmodern ministry (PPMs) have made important points for the church: We live in a time of transition from one worldview to another; Christianity must not be constricted by the prevailing worldview; the Incarnation is a central doctrine of Christianity that calls us to be incarnational in our culture; we need greater mystery, beauty, and experience in our worship of God. I agree. In fact, I think I did beforehand, but PPM writings have sharpened my convictions.

On other topics, I agree to a point. PPMs have called for metaphor, narrative, and surprise in preaching; after all, Jesus taught in parables. Good reminder. But the same Testament that gives us the elliptical parables gives us the straightforward exposition of Peter in Acts 2 and the dense argumentation of Paul in Romans 9-11, not to mention the name- by-name genealogies of Matthew and the linear history of Acts. Let us recapture indirection but not canonize it.

PPMs want us to listen to the postmodernizing culture, to enter relationship and accept our common brokenness. Who would argue? But while we love the relativist, let us hate the relativism. It puzzles me why postmodern theory has drawn such praise from Christians, when its essence (beneath the turgid prose) is that there is no objective truth. The “rules” of science or morality, pomo scholars contend, are as arbitrary as the rules of baseball. But as Dinesh D’Souza reminds us, “Postmodern theory suffers from the weakness that the postmodernists themselves don’t believe it.” When they get sick, they check into a modernist hospital, and when they fly, they step onto a plane built by engineers whose work must not be as random as the postmodernists claimed.

We’re told that “the world you and I were prepared to lead and minister in is over.” But modernism is proving to be a hardy old guy who doesn’t quite die, no matter how many obituaries are written. Just as pre-modern witchcraft and superstition flourished during and after the Enlightenment, so will modernist approaches survive into a postmodern world. Indeed, modernism will remain powerful (though interacting with postmodern ideas), since we live in what Jeremy Rifkin dubbed the Biotech Century. The postmodern movie-makers will be our bards, but the modernist gene-splicers will be our wizards.

Until recently, PPMs have overlooked (or sometimes, delighted in) the fact that, as J. I. Packer writes, postmodernism is parasitical: it lives off the achievements and failures of modernism but offers nothing positive of its own. Its only construction is deconstruction. True, some edifices need to be demolished, but architectural awards are not given to wrecking crews.

Thankfully, Brian McLaren, an author of several books on postmodern ministry, writes in his latest that he has “a desire to move beyond a critique of modern ministry (a hobby that can be dangerously preoccupying).” And he and others are beginning to offer something creative and generative. Soon we’ll know what it’s like, really like, to live and minister in the pomo church. We will have enjoyed the candles and icons and warehouses and begun to answer what you do with children, how you deal with conflict and leadership failure, and how you finance it all. The entire church will benefit from those lessons.

I’m fully prepared to admit that when we boomers were young, we faddishly embraced church-growth ratios and sociological analysis; we praised these modern tools as the salvation of the church. So it’s poetic justice for us now to sit in the back of the room, the balding and befuddled, as the next generation praises the postmodern matrix as the salvation of the church.

But we’re both wrong. We’ve already got a salvation for the church, and he will not share his glory with any current cultural form, no matter how valuable or necessary it may be. If the church uncritically embraced modern culture, the solution is not to uncritically embrace postmodern culture.

So, PPMs, let’s make a deal. I’ll stop saying “seeker sensitive” if you stop saying “ancient/future.” I’ll accept that you’re trying to engage a culture you know and love, if you’ll accept that I’m trying to engage a culture I know and love. You’re not a heretic; I’m not a Luddite. I’ll declare a moratorium on modernism if you will declare nomo pomo. Let us hasten the day that PPM McLaren longs for, when “we can use ministry and gospel and neighbors and grace and other words we love, never needing to use the ‘p-word’ again.”

Kevin A. Miller is editor-at-large of Leadership and yes, he’ll be attending the Emergent Convention (http://www.EmergentConvention.com), a postmodern gathering that runs concurrently with our National Pastors Convention in San Diego next month (http://www.NationalPastorsConvention.com).

WHAT’S NEW AT LEADERSHIPJOURNAL.NET

TOO TRANSPARENT http://ChristianityToday.com/le/2002/004/15.108.html Amid personal crisis, I wanted my church to know the truth. Instead I said too much. Al Detter

Our regular elders meeting was set for that evening, but after two police detectives visited my office in the morning, my news became our agenda.

“My son was charged today,” I told the elders. “He was involved in the fire that burned down the children’s wing of the church.”

I took an induced 90-day leave of absence.

On Sunday, my wife, Marie, and I stood before the congregation and told them the news. So much had happened to us in recent years, there wasn’t a lot of our tribulation the church didn’t know. But the trials, and the pledge I made to myself to be open about them, had taken their toll on my ministry. I wasn’t sure–after 22 years as senior pastor of Grace Baptist Church–that I would return from the unexpected time off.

Read the rest of this article: http://ChristianityToday.com/le/2002/004/15.108.html

—— GROWING EDGE http://ChristianityToday.com/le/2002/004/31.101.html The Church You’ve Always Wanted

RESOURCES YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT

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CHRISTIANITY TODAY NEWS

THE HIGHER SELF GETS DOWN TO BUSINESS. http://ChristianityToday.com/ct/2003/002/1.34.html An old movement appears anew–in the corporate world.

WEBLOG: PRESBYTERIAN SPECIAL ASSEMBLY ON GAY CLERGY CANCELLED http://ChristianityToday.com/ct/2003/104/21.0.html Plus: Baptist missionaries won’t be allowed to return to field until they’ve signed faith statement, and other stories from online sources around the world.

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WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING

LAST WEEK’S POLL RESULTS Should churches cancel afternoon/evening activities on Super Bowl Sunday?

No. The church should not bow to the football god: 63% Sort of. Use it for community building/evangelism: 32% Yes. people would rather watch the game: 3%

Total Votes: 681

THIS WEEK’S POLL QUESTION The Pomo Conundrum Which of the following best describes your view on postmodernism and the church.

* Take postmodernism seriously; its impact will be felt for generations. * With some signs of pomo mindset in my church, I want to know more. * Pomos had a point; now advance beyond criticizing the modern church. * Postmodernism may be real, but not in my church. * It’s a fad, soon to be replaced by another hot topic. * I’m tired of the whole thing.

Go to http://ChristianityToday.com/leaders/index.html#poll to cast your vote. See how your answer compares to others’.

ILLUSTRATION OF THE WEEK

WHAT ABOUT THE FOUNDATION?

A few weeks ago, I did a lectureship at Ohio State University. As I was being driven to the lecture, we passed the new Wexner Art Center. The driver said, “This is a new art building for the university. It is a fascinating building designed in the post-modernist view of reality.”

The building has no pattern. Staircases go nowhere. Pillars support nothing. The architect designed the building to reflect life. It went nowhere and was mindless and senseless.

I turned to the man describing it and asked, “Did they do the same thing with the foundation?” He laughed. You can’t do that with a foundation. You can get away with the infrastructure. You can get away with random thoughts that sound good in defense of a world view that ultimately doesn’t make sense. Once you start tampering with the foundations, you begin to see the serious effects. Yet the foundations are in jeopardy; the foundations of our culture do not provide coherent sets of answers any more.

Citation: Ravi Zacharias, “If the Foundations Be Destroyed,” Preaching Today, Tape No. 142.

For more illustrations, visit: http://PreachingToday.com/

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