Matt Mings on Being Postmodern and Biblical
Pastoring in the south, I run into all sorts of interesting notions about the Church. I’m a son of the south, so I’m allowed to deconstruct (I think). One interesting phrase I heard of late was, “postmodern isn’t Biblical.” Now, after the initial shock of that statement not even computing with me, I began to sift through the mountain of self-assured misunderstanding that amounts to such a statement.
I think that only a Biblical foundationalist could adhere to this idea. The foundationalist after all will embrace the dead faith of the living far easier than the living faith of the dead. The foundationalist will scrutinize scripture for the plain sense of the Word, but will instead strip the complexity of scripture in a synchronistic approach. A view of life (and faith) that accounts for “both/and” could certainly be proof-texted to death by the foundationalist.
Yet, I find our spiritual ancestors embraced:
- a creating God who occasionally condoned evil;
- a vengeful God who was also a loving God;
- a fully divine God and a fully human God;
- a Church that embraces diversity within unity (a reflection of the Triune God, by the way);
- and a gospel that speaks through a certain people and yet to and through the world.
Amazingly, I discover these things in Scripture. In fact, a cannonical-narrative view of scripture (which is holistic, healthy, mysterious, tangible, knowable, and livable all at once) yields postmodernism. And — like the good postmodern I am — I acknowledge and embrace the fact that our world is populated with a mix of different learning styles that cover the spectrum of modernism to postmodernism. It even appears that each learning style is helpful to the Church in America as we try to discover who God wants us to be right now and tomorrow.
I can think of no world view more Biblical than postmodernism.
Incidentally, I’m reading Beyond Foundationalism right now, so who knows how I would lay out this apologia in a few weeks.
Related Posts:
Category: Rants, Sacramental Living, Scripture Comment »