Friday, December 28, 2007

Postmodernism and the Emerging Church

If you’ve been following the discussion here about the Emerging Church movement, and struggling to get your arms around postmodernism, or wishing you knew what that even meant, you should have a look at a 2006 post from the Parchment and Pen blog. Set aside some time to devote to reading Michael Patton's Understanding the Postmodern Mind and the Emerging Church. A couple of quotes to whet your appetite.

The issues that were the center of the controversy during the Reformation are no longer important—certainly not enough to divide over. In other words, the Roman Catholic-Protestant theological distinctions are irrelevant to the emerging church. Why? Because, while there may be a right answer, who is to say who’s right? More than likely, both are right and both are wrong. As well, the Arminian-Calvinist divide is no longer significant. In fact, to the soft postmodernist, both sides arrogantly act as if they have the right answer, when the right answer may not be available with certainty.

…and…

It is interesting to put all this into perspective and see that convictionless churches are usually empty churches. Most postmodern churches, from what I have seen, are not attracting as many people from the culture as you might think. The ideology of compromise is not that attractive. Why go to fellowship with other believers under an umbrella called “few convictions.” On the other hand, churches that have strong leaders with uncompromising convictions are full churches these days. This does not mean that we don’t show grace in the non-essentials, it just means that we don’t have to place all non-essentials on the altar for the sake of unity.

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