Me, a Postmodern?

I've been reading a lot about the emergent church lately. It all started when I began listening to sermons by Rob Bell, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids, MI, my hometown. His sermons prompted me to read his book, Velvet Elvis, which I'm sure I'll comment on in the future.

Anyway, I loved the approach taken by Bell; he acknowledged doubts and questions instead of suppressing them. He emphasized the subjectivity we all bring to the Bible. He... Wait. I'm getting ahead of myself.

I soon realized that Bell wasn't the only one taking this approach to Christianity. The emergent church movement, as it is commonly called, is an attempt to engage postmodern people, especially people who have left the church, or have never been involved with church at all.

I've never considered myself postmodern. In fact, my engineering/science background and vocation, and overall scientific approach to life labels me definitively as a modern. But my struggle reconciling evolution with the Bible (or at least the view of the Bible I was taught as a child) has taught me that interpreting the Bible is not as straightforward as fundamentalists might have us believe.

So, the more I read about postmodern ideas, the more I realize that I am (or am becoming) postmodern.

Instead of describing exactly what that means (not that this is really possible) I'll use something I read on the Internet this evening:

"The emerging / emergent church movement falls into line with basic post-modernist thinking—it is about experience over reason, subjectivity over objectivity, spirituality over religion, images over words, outward over inward, feelings over truth."

If that's what it means to be postmodern, count me in. However, I'd like to modify the list of opposing characteristics:

Experience over Reason
Subjectivity over Objectivity
Relationship over Religion
Story over Words
Outward over Inward
Feelings and Truth

I'll give a little commentary on each pair:

Experience over Reason

Reason has it's place. But I've found that reason is inextricably tied to our presuppositions. I learned this when reading Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion and opposing works by Alister McGrath (The Dawkins Delusion) and C.S. Lewis (Miracles, Mere Christianity). Each writer used reason to come to opposite conclusions. Sure, one set of reasoning may have been flawed. Regardless, reason is limited in it's power.

Also, what good is a system of belief if it doesn't affect your experience? This is one of the main problems I've had with my faith up to this point: I have not experienced much of anything that other Christians describe as being part of their faith experience. Minimal peace. Few emotional responses to the Gospel. Rare instances of my perceiving God acting in my life. Now, I realize that I probably don't have eyes to see these elements of the "faith experience". But I'm working on that. I believe that things won't be right until my experience falls in line with my beliefs.

Subjectivity over Objectivity

This one is easy. Objectivity is an illusion. Moderns think they can somehow be objective. They're fooling themselves. We need to identify our subjectivities so we can respond to them. We need to identify (and react to) not only the contexts of the Biblical writers, but also our own context. The latter is much more difficult than the former, but if we don't, I believe we'll always be in danger of seeing only the insides of our own glasses.

Relationship over Religion

I have modified this one to "Relationship over Religion." Religion (in my eyes) is the "stuff" human beings have tacked on to a relationship with God. Religion gets in the way. I'd much rather partake in a relationship with my creator than a bunch of traditions that don't mean anything to me. (Don't get me wrong, some traditions are important, but not all.)

Story over Words

Although the adage "A picture is worth a thousand words" is certainly true, I would prefer "Story over Words". The Bible as a whole is a beautiful story of promise fulfillment, re-creation and redemption. It has unfortunately been turned into an uninspiring book of rules.

Outward over Inward

The Christianity that I grew up with spent a lot of time focusing on what things are right for us to believe, what are the right ways for us to behave, and what is required to go to heaven. There is a constant focus on me, me, me. I don't think this individualistic mindset is very healthy for a community of believers.

Feelings and Truth

The person who included the original pair obviously doesn't agree with the emergent church movement. I know that there are some in the movement who go to the extreme by "relativizing truth". I don't know that I'll ever believe that feelings are more important than truth. But in my experience, there are hordes of people in the church today that think they have the corner on truth. They can't all be right. There is another horde that simply define truth as what their pastor/leader/parent tells them is truth, and doesn't want to investigate these claims for themselves.

Truth is one of those things that is always hidden; we can come closer and closer to it, but it will always be obscured by our humanity.

Feelings are something we all do know. We may not know why we have them or where they come from sometimes, but they are knowable.

This doesn't mean feelings are more important than truth. Something is true, and I believe it is of utmost importance. But can we know what that is?