MOVING FORWARD, LOOKING BACKWARD, PART ONE: Postmodernism (Cont.)

In the last post from "Moving Forward, Looking Backward," we looked briefly and generally at Christian responses to postmodernism and specifically at Middleton and Walsh’s critique.  Now we move on to a very quick look at the Emergent Church.

The Emergent Church

            Middleton and Walsh’s critique
deals a difficult blow to believers of Christ who hold that the church needs to
embrace postmodernism, yet this is exactly the suggestion of many faithful
believers. Carl Raschke presents one of
the most in-depth arguments for an evangelical embrace of postmodernity in his
book, The Next Reformation.[1] Seeing modernity as a detriment to faith,
mystery, and a relational-dynamic God, Raschke argues that to embrace
postmodernity is to recover what Luther and the Reformers (and ultimately
Scripture) intended in the first place.[2] In
other words, deconstruction will lead to a return to biblical form of faith.[3]

Raschke
goes a few steps further than most Emergents are willing to go. He does not seem simply to be
recommending the works of major postmoderns like Derrida, Lyotard, Heidegger,
and other postmodern theorists as helpful correctives to postmodernism, but
rather as a better and more biblical understanding of the way the world
actually is. In The Next Reformation, after ninety-eight pages of exegeting the
works of Derrida and others, he writes, channeling Luther, “The Next
Reformation will be about faith, and faith
alone. Here we stand. We can do nothing else.”[4]

One
is shocked at the stark contrast between Luther’s and Rascke’s uses of the
phrase. For Luther, countless hours of
study in the Scriptures and a confession of a conscience held captive to God’s
Word precede the bold statement before the Diet of Worms. For Raschke, long hours of studying and
writing about the beliefs of postmodern philosophers and literary scholars
precede the statement.

Other
Emergents take a softer tone, respecting the concerns of postmodernism, but
seeking out new ways of doing ministry that will reach a postmodern generation;
yet they remain cynical towards the idea that postmodernism can proffer any
long-lasting or meaningful answers to the trappings of modernity. McLaren is a bit of a mystery on this, giving
Raschke’s book a back-cover endorsement, but writing elsewhere:

So if you just want to be postmodern,
you’re missing the point. That’s just
too easy of an aspiration: all you have to do is go with the flow of culture,
and you’ll probably get there. If you
want a challenge, though, aim to follow Jesus in the world – really in it – but
not of it, whether in its modern or postmodern forms. That
uncharted adventure will take you a lot closer to the point.[5]

Perhaps to
help clear up the confusion a little, it would be well to take a brief look at
Emergent. The “Emergent” church is a
small but growing group of believers who have entered into what McLaren has
called “a conversation, not a movement.”[6] Being a conversation, then, it is by no means
monolithic in its outlook. The
conversation itself seems to be a bit chaotic at times, as evidenced by large
Emergent gatherings that involve a sensory overload approach to communicating
Emergent themes.[7] Thus far its appeal has been to those “urban,
disproportionately young, overwhelmingly white,” and it has been likened to the
“Jesus Movement” of the 1970s in its being “so closely entangled with the
self-conscious cutting-edge of U.S. culture.”[8]

At times, it almost appears as
though Emergent has thrown up its arms in defeat at the idea of attracting a
wide variety of people to one congregation. Indeed, Dan Kimball’s work includes comments and quotes by none other
than Rick Warren, perhaps the most successful architect of “seeker-sensitive”
ministry to date.[9] What is telling about this is the strategy
behind Warren’s
seeker-sensitive methodology – targeting and attracting others who are like
those already attending this or that particular church. Kimball even begins his chapter on
seeker-sensitive services with the following quote from Warren’s
book, The Purpose-Driven Church:

Whatever type of people you already
have in your congregation is the same type of people you are likely to attract
more of. It is very unlikely that your
church will attract and keep many people who are different from those who
already attend.[10]

If this is
the mentality of some Emergent church leaders, it is no wonder that it is only
attracting young people drawn to a postmodern worldview. Nonetheless, Kimball tries to press beyond Warren’s
seeker-sensitivity, which he sees as being thoroughly modern, to a
seeker-sensitive attitude, which is more in line with the pluralism we find in
postmodernism.[11] Creating a spiritual atmosphere – involving
more religious art, candles, and anything else that might contribute – is the
priority if a seeker-sensitive church is going to reach young, postmodern
people.[12]