Postmodernism, Emerging Church, and Religion

At the beginning of the semester Dr. Drumm came and spoke to the class about postmodernism. What is postmodernism you ask? Well that is the funny thing. Honestly, I have no idea. I have heard many people talk about it, and many people try to explain it, and no one has given a definition that even remotely makes sense. It has something to do with a reaction to modernism. Helpful, right? It has something to do with the way my generation thinks. Dr. Mike Miller, my roommate’s pastor, also came to class one day to talk about it and he helped a little bit. He discussed the emerging church which is a contemporary attempt to make church available to all. The emerging church is apparently the Christian’s answer to postmodernism. Dr. Drumm said that postmodernism is the single greatest threat to Christianity, greater than Islam or Atheism. Well I do not at all agree with this statement. No doubt that Dr. Drumm is smarter than me, but I just can’t agree with him on this point. My reason being, you can go into any church and ask hundreds of thousands of people what postmodernism is and I am willing to bet that 90 percent of the church has never even heard the term before. If that many people have never heard of something, how can it be the biggest threat to our church? The biggest threat to our church today is the church itself. The fact that ninety percent of the church (again a stat I am just making up that I think is probably true) probably does not know what postmodernism is, is a prime example of the church killing itself. If a church is not aware of the issues of the day, how are they going to combat the complacency to accomplish anything at all? Church today has become about getting members and not about reaching people for Christ. I am simply going to use Wikipedia’s definition of postmodernism. This is a simple definition and does not at all encompass the entirety of the idea. “Postmodernism is a tendency in contemporary culture characterized by the rejection of objective truth and global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. A meta-narrative symbolizes all the ideas that we have been told and have grown up learning. Postmodernism rejects any objective truth (although saying there is no objective truth is a self-defeating statement because if there is no truth then the statement itself cannot be true). Postmodernism is a threat because people are becoming less and less concerned with the church and any spiritual ideas or questions. However, if the church is doing nothing to spark this interest, it is the church’s fault. If a person does not hear about Christ, it is not that person’s fault it falls on the shoulders’ of the church. The emerging church is an attempt to show postmodernist that worship and Jesus can be fun. These churches are changing their traditions and practices (and some are changing all core beliefs) in order to reach these intellectuals. I have always hated the fact that churches split because of slightly different interpretations of the Bible. If the churches worked together instead of fighting, postmodernism, atheism, and other religions such as Islam would not be as big of problem as they are. Dr. Stewart came to class to give us an overview of some other religions. I am a philosophy major to we all know that to me it is extremely important, especially in ministry, to really know what and how other people think. If I know nothing about Islam, how am I ever going to witness to a Muslim? The point in all of this is that the church as a whole needs to get its head out of its rear and start focusing on what is actually important. I love Jesus. The words of Scripture inspire me. I am not perfect and I am not all knowing. Far from it. I cannot solve all the problems of the day. However, the church can. People ask how God can exist with so much evil in the world. The question I ask is, “How can there be so much evil in the world when God has put the church here to combat it?” God has put the church in charge of the safekeeping of the world. I don’t know about you, but I would say the church is doing a pretty crappy job. Let’s forget about whether or not Methodists, or Baptists, or even Church of Christ is the right denomination and let’s start focusing on changing the world. Let’s live like Jesus and these problems will cease to be problems.