The Postmoderns: Friends or Foes?

[Keith_Strohm]

I, for one, am suspicious of the ECM. It attempts to utilize postmodernism and appropriates elements of Tradition apart from a recognition of the universality of Truth. It forcefully synthesizes elements of Tradition with a postmodern worldview and, thus, appropriates without integrity.

I did a little analysis on the Emerging Church movement on my blog. You can check out the post by going to:

takeyourplace.squarespace.com/take-your-place/2007/2/5/emerging-thoughts.html

My take on it is that ECM is far more dangerous than it appears, because its Postmodern worldview denies and attempts to disrupt the notion that Truth can be known and experienced. While it may agree that God is Truth and un-contingent, it also asserts that all of creation is a contingent reality and can not know or experience the un-contingent Creator without the attempt being co-opted in some way by the things that obscure Truth (like language, for example).

Keith

 

[Ahimsa]

My take on it is that ECM is far more dangerous than it appears, because its Postmodern worldview denies and attempts to disrupt the notion that Truth can be known and experienced.

My experience of the Emergents is that they emphasize that experience of God/Truth is possible; indeed, that such experience is primary, and only afterward are concepts and language used to understand that experience. That makes all language inherently unable to ultimately and fully describe God/Truth, even if language is of course necessary for us to use – a position with which I wouldn’t think any would seriously disagree.

 

[JohnnyReb]

Evangelicals are very critical of the emerging church movement. They accuse it of all kinds of falsehoods, but frankly I believe that is because they are somewhat threatened by the movement, it is willing to reach the new generation where they are at and speak to their way of thinking.

In one sense post modernism is beneficial, because it opens people’s minds to accepting things like miracles, which cannot be explained by pure reason and in modernistic terms.

On the other hand, post modernism denies that we can completely know truth, or know truth. This flies in the face of Catholic teaching or any Christian teaching for that matter.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

On the other hand, post modernism denies that we can completely know truth, or know truth. This flies in the face of Catholic teaching or any Christian teaching for that matter.

How? It seems that Gadamer’s Merging of the Horizons provides a way in which the knowing of Truth can be shared among people. Is that not a handy dandy metaphor for the Catholic Church?

 

[KarenElissa]

On the other hand, post modernism denies that we can completely know truth, or know truth. This flies in the face of Catholic teaching or any Christian teaching for that matter.

It seems that postmodernism comes in degrees, like most other philosophies. I do agree that some postmoderns deny that there is truth, but I don’t think that is in any way all postmoderns. I would also venture a guess that those who are both Christian and postmodern are more likely not to deny truth.

If you think about when the age of reason hit, there were plenty of people who used reason to “prove” there is no God. But there were also many who used reason in favor of God, they used reason to speak to the people around them in a way that mattered to them. And that seemed to work a lot better than the ones who pretty much put their fingers in their ears and ignored what was going on around them.

I think it will be the same way with postmodernism. Sure, there will be people who use it to deny God, but what age doesn’t have those people? But the churches, and people within them, that will both survive and thrive are the ones who learn to speak their language and communicate in a way that they will understand.

I think people my age (25yo) and younger are going to be postmodern whether you like it or not. I didn’t even really hear the word postmodern until recently, but as I read about it, a lot of it fit how I was already thinking. So if people don’t learn to translate the gospel into our language and help us apply it to our lives, the church will lose a lot of very passionate and committed young people. And that would be a tragic thing!

 

[Keith_Strohm]

My experience of the Emergents is that they emphasize that experience of God/Truth is possible; indeed, that such experience is primary, and only afterward are concepts and language used to understand that experience. That makes all language inherently unable to ultimately and fully describe God/Truth, even if language is of course necessary for us to use – a position with which I wouldn’t think any would seriously disagree.

Ahimsa,

Yes, I should have been clearer. We can have an experience of Truth, but as soon as we try and reflect on that experience, we become immediately compromised. Therefore, we can not apprehend the fullness of Truth and, therefore, theological propositions/dogma obfuscate at best and are dangerous at worst. Here’s a quote from LeRon Shults from a Christianity Today:

From a theological perspective, this fixation with propositions can easily lead to the attempt to use the finite tool of language on an absolute Presence that transcends all finite reality. Languages are culturally constructed symbol systems that enable humans to communicate by designating one finite reality in distinction from another. The truly infinite God of Christian Faith is beyond all our linguistic grasping, as all the great theologians from Irenaeus to Calvin have insisted, and so the struggle to capture God in our finite propositional structures is nothing short of linguistic idolatry.

As I mentioned in my blog analysis of the ECM, one of the problems is that theology, in the Emerging Church Movement, remains a conversation about God between humans and not, as it is in the Catholic Church, a conversation with God and His children about Who He Is. Our faith is a living faith–not a collection of dead propositional statements. The Church, in Her reflection on the Revelation of God in Jesus Christ and Her Proclamation of that Revelation is, in Her very essence, that conversation.

Now, I believe that postmodern analysis has its uses. It is possible for Truth to be encrusted by a collection of socially constructed, problematic issues. Deconstructing those to get to the Truth is important. However, uncritically absorbing the pomo worldview often means the implicit assumption that Truth statements can never be usefully made. The notion of a Deposit of Faith is, often, anathema to postmodern adherents.

The ECM selectively appropriates elements of Tradition, while remaining fundamentally suspicious of and intentionally distant from that Tradition.

That’s why I believe it is dangerous.

Keith

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Keith Strohm:

Now, I believe that postmodern analysis has its uses.

:extrahappy:
Keith Strohm:

It is possible for Truth to be encrusted by a collection of socially constructed, problematic issues. Deconstructing those to get to the Truth is important.

:yup:
Keith Strohm:

However, uncritically absorbing the pomo worldview often means the implicit assumption that Truth statements can never be usefully made.

:nope: But doing pomo critically can mean that Truth statements can be made – maybe not usefully – but still made.
Keith Strohm:

The notion of a Deposit of Faith is, often, anathema to postmodern adherents.

To some. But pomo, unlike previous movements, allows something like the Deposit of Faith to be called into the neighbourhood of language.
Keith Strohm:

The ECM selectively appropriates elements of Tradition, while remaining fundamentally suspicious of and intentionally distant from that Tradition.

But this is an uncritical feature of ECM. One feature of pomo is that the boundary between pomo and mo is sometimes blurred. So folks do the talk of pomo but they do the walk of mo. Pomo allows Tradition an equal footing with all other Foundational concepts. ECM appears to do this pomo talk mo walk.
Keith Strohm:

That’s why I believe it is dangerous.

Like anything, it requires a cost-benefit analysis. Pomo is an improvement over the faulty dichotomy positioning which preceded it. Life is not without its risks.

A useful question is how can pomo be reconciled with Ex Corde Ecclesia?