I received a comment with regard to a previous post which included this question:...I will take the bait and ask: Will, would you share with us your general views and perspectives on the postmodern church?*Cough*, ahem, a good question - and one that relates well to the Connections project, although here I will give my general $0.02 worth.
Firstly - the term "postmodern church" needs unpacking. Unlike other adjectives which speak to the nature of the church (e.g. "holy church" or "church of God"), this adjective should more properly (or perhaps firstly) be used to refer to the situation of the church (e.g. "The medieval church"). The postmodern church is the church that exists in the context of postmodernity and deliberately engages with that context.
And that's important because that engagement has two sides - parts where the church and the context are "in phase" and parts where they are "out of phase." In other words, the postmodern church is sometimes cultural and sometimes counter-cultural when it engages its postmodern context. The debates, views, and perspectives that surround the "postmodernity & church" issue in the end come back to an argument as to how the cultural/counter-cultural engagement needs to be balanced or expressed.
Let me seed my thoughts by considering some "tenets" of postmodernity which I have abridged from Millard Erickson's Postmodernizing the Faith. This is not an exhaustive or precise list.
- Knowledge/truth is subjective/experiential
- Abstract knowledge is uncertain
- All-encompassing theories are impossible and inherently evil (all “metanarratives” “totalise”)
- Better knowledge ≠ Better life
- “Progress” is rejectable: Ancient is good.
- Truth is discovered in/through relationships
- Science is questionable.
The postmodern church is in-phase with this notion because the gospel has always been _more_ than just doctrine, and salvation has always (meant to have) been something different to passing an exam, or agreeing to a sequence of propositional truths. The gospel is meant to be experienced - salvation is about rebirth, regeneration, attaining the blessings of being in Christ by the grace of God the Father - these truths are not meant to be examined but met, embraced, grasped, and enjoyed with conviction, joy, trembling, thanksgiving etc. etc. etc. The postmodern church does not shy away from the experience of the gospel. In fact, it's something that the postmodern generation is crying out for. When trying to explain this to pre-postmodern people I often tell this story (link).
Of course, the church speaks counter-culturally, as well, in regard to the issue of knowledge and truth. We remain insistent that the truth we experience is not a purely subjective truth but a truth that is grounded in reality, in history - and is therefore exists outside of our agreement or disagreement with it. Someone once asked me - "Will, do you actually believe in Jesus, or just in the idea of him?" We actually believe.
Similarly the church is "out of phase" with postmodern culture when it comes to "all-encompassing theories" (or "metanarratives" in the jargon) - we do not and can not reject the all-encompassing reality of God and his work in the world.
However, the postmodern church is "in phase" when it recognises the postmodern rejection of "metanarratives" is based on a framework of assertions of power. And the church is therefore sympathetic when it recognises how the lies of this world have been used to assert the power of sin and human rebellion. Pick an "ism" and the church will at least have a critique of it - capitalism, communism, humanism etc. etc. - all are or have been used by a sinful humanity to assert a view and lend power to a few.
Many would assert that the church has been guilty of the same thing. And we must ask the question - Do we assert a worldview so that we can have power over people? The sad fact is, that when the church loses the gospel, we have been guilty of this - systems of sinfulness and sacraments are set up so that the church has power of life or death, membership of society or not - the Christian metanarrative has been used to "totalise" - i.e. to assert the totality of reality and so force people to submit to powerful "ministers" and "mediators" of salvation.
But the gospel, while universal and objective and indeed a "metanarrative" for history and human life is, in truth, unique in that it does not work on the premise of power assertions. It's easy to get lost in weird and wonderful philosophical analogies, but the call of Christ is not so much "match your narrative to mine, submit, submit!" but "see how our narratives interact?" The gospel is the interaction between two people in the end - God made man, and the ones to whom he calls - and so is a transaction based on relationship, not assertion of power.
It is at this point that the postmodern church faces it's greatest difficulty. The postmodern generation (in its search for experience) is one of the most spiritual generations in history. Yet to suggest that spirituality can be found and expressed in church just simply doesn't compute. Church is about power, not about spirituality, in the popular postmodern mindset.
In the end, the postmodern Church, is the post-Christendom church, the church that exists without any power and status except that of the gospel alone. And because of that dependence on the gospel, the postmodern church excites me.
There are many places where postmodern culture resonates with the gospel - or at least provides a means of communicating the gospel. Let me finish with a couple of points:
- The postmodern church engages the cultural value of "Better knowledge ≠ Better life" because God has chosen the weak and foolish to show that he is God. And the knowledge we are to grow in - a knowledge of God - is relational.
- The postmodern church engages the cultural value of relationship and "authentic community" as a valuable means of engaging with truth. The communal and collegial nature of Christianity is obvious in Scripture.
- The postmodern church engages the cultural rejection of human optimism - that human progress is not always good (in fact often idolatrous), that science cannot give all the answers - because we all have a need of Christ.
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