Postmodernism Proposed

A church I attended a couple of years ago was given to all sorts of fads and trends in a vain effort to be vital or relevant. It embraced or flirted at different times with “Alpha”, “40 Days of Purpose”, “Clive Pick”, “The Passion” and numerous other things. I fought most of them tooth and nail by making a case with the leadership. It all fell on deaf ears.

One more attempt at being relevant was a church-sponsored seminar at a Bible College on the topic of reaching postmoderns. I attended – not so much because I don’t know how to “reach” postmoderns, but because I wondered what fresh pap would be squeezed into the already besotted minds of church leaders as yet one more distraction from the simplicity that is in Christ.

I want to say that the seminar contained some excellent material. There was an example of a church who came right down to the grass roots and served the needs of hurting people by, for example, buying wrecks and fixing them up to give to those who couldn’t afford cars. This widened their scope of operations in searching for work etc. Nothing inherently wrong there. But neither had it anything to do with reaching postmoderns. It was simply “Christianity 101 Redux”. If they had stuck with that and given it a Biblical underpinning all would have been well. It wouldn’t have been about reaching pomos – but it would at least have been Christian.

But the enemy of our souls and of our glorious Lord and His kingdom is a bit smarter than all that. He doesn’t feed pomo nonsense undiluted into feeble minds. He waters it down with some truth first. He prettifies it with real Christian stuff. But inside is a ricin laden pellet with enough toxin to kill a whole community.

I won’t go on. The next post is my report to the church leadership based on what I witnessed at that seminar. You can imagine the effect it had, or didn’t have.

For a much smoother and more scholarly take on the subject of making oneself look like the world for the purposes of witnessing see this article - and read the comments section, too. As a bonus you get the rare sight of the left (and IMHO better) side of Phil Johnson’s face – not once, but twice in the opening graphic. No need for a vote - the "eyes" have it!