These are principles that I firmly believe will help emerging leaders guide local expressions Jesus’ Church through the current postmodern era into the whatever-is-next epoch.
"What's Next?"
http://www.artbywicks.com/poetry%20page%202.htm
http://www.artbywicks.com/poetry%20page%202.htm
The blogs from which this list is taken (see Sept.19-Dec.17, 2007 entries: "backdrop of modernist church," "a worldly church?" "is truth the ONLY issue?" "truth or interpretation?" "secondhand convictions" and "imperfect understanding") also attempt to explain why expressions of true Church according to Jesus, ekklesia, must morph into fresh expressions in order to truly embody the essence of Jesus' desire for His Church in the 21st century.
BACKGROUND: MODERNIST CHURCH
The secular modernist promise was that ideology-embodying institutions would create a utopia-on-earth on behalf of the autonomous individual.
The Great Disillusionment that ushered in postmodernism occurred when Modern Man with his noble ideology, technology, transportation, medicine, and a progressive understanding of history… created highly efficient means of killing men before they could die from the diseases that modern medicine could not heal.
Instead of ushering in utopia-on-earth, Modernism's focus on intellect/reason created hell-on-earth—the fires of Auschwitz.
Auschwitz, the archetypal expression of the modernist “death industry” (Zygmunt Bauman)
Modernism believed that: the intellect can deduce truth with absolute certainty, man will act logically, progress is inherently good, and the real world is material.
And lamentably, many 20th century Evangelical churches embraced philosophical modernism becoming reason-led, ideology-embodying institutions that catered to the autonomous individual. All too often intellect stifled spirit, institution squashed organism, and the individual dominated over community. Biblical essentials were filtered out of local churches’ ethos and praxis due to modernism's surreptitious influence.
FRESH EXPRESSIONS OF EKKLESIA
A widely accepted summary of postmodernism: “In simplifying to the extreme, one holds as ‘postmodern’ incredulity regarding the meta-narratives.” (Jean-François Lyotard, The postmodern condition, 7).
Postmodern people employ a hermeneutic of suspicion
In the pre-modern West the Roman Catholic Church was the arbiter of “truth"; under modernity, Science determined "truth"; in post-modernity, the individual is the final arbiter of "truth" - iTruth.
Modernism was hard, crystal clear ideology characterized by "seeing is believing." Postmodernity is a soft, liquid mood where "feeling is believing" and "friends" are all important.
While modernism’s deleterious effects have been descried, one must also remember that philosophical postmodernism has its own toxins; it inexorably leads to the loss of absolutes.
In contradistinction to the emergent church movement that is increasingly adopting philosophical postmodernism, thus questioning the existence of absolute Truth, Tim Boal observes:
“The emerging church… primarily focuses on the forms and experiences of the local church community and how these contribute to or diminish true community. Many young evangelical leaders support and promote the idea of absolute truth” (Getting Real About the Emerging Church, June 2007).
And a primary motivator of the emerging church movement is reaching unchurched postmodern people for Christ, their structure being “missional in nature” (Bolger and Gibbs, Emerging Churches, 107).
“Imagine that! A reformation built around mission and relationship…”
(D.A. Carson quoting Chris Seay, Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church, 24).
(D.A. Carson quoting Chris Seay, Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church, 24).
Melding emphases of healthy modernist and postmodernist expressions of local church results in a tripartite focus in dynamic tension — the absolute Truth of Scripture, rejuvenating community and pertinent mission.
I believe that a path with promise for the future is that of gifted people (Eph.4:11) accompanying young leaders of missional communities, guided by the Spirit of God, studying and applying the absolute Truth of the Living Word in fresh ways in their localities. This forecasts firm footing and fresh expressions of true ekklesia in the whatever-is-next epoch.
