Today’s church has gotten stuck, there is a huge battle between the modern church and the post-modern church. The modern church being the answer to the reformation and introduction of the bible to the layman. It’s been there a while, it’s dug its roots in and it’s swung hard right on conservatism. In the past few years a new guy has cropped up, the post-modern church. His answer is to abandon the modern church, stick it to him and swing as far left as possible while loosely fitting God and all his friends into their web of beliefs.
The biggest problem with the term post modern is every one has their own definition.
post⋅mod⋅ern⋅ism
–noun (sometimes initial capital letter
) any of a number of trends or movements in the arts and literature developing in the 1970s in reaction to or rejection of the dogma, principles, or practices of established modernism, esp. a movement in architecture and the decorative arts running counter to the practice and influence of the International Style and encouraging the use of elements from historical vernacular styles and often playful illusion, decoration, and complexity.
Decorative arts, some people see post modernism in the church embracing media and new styles of worship experiences as post modern. Some people think this change is great some people dig their heels in and resist it as much as they can. So what should the church’s response be? Is there an answer in the bible that spells it out for us? Is one side or the other right?
I might get some hell fire and brimstone for this but I don’t think either side has it right!
The church’s goal is edification of the saints and ushering new people into HIS kingdom. It is the great commission, and the great commandment. Love God, Love others, and bring others to love God. Now where does modernity or post-modernity fit into that commission? God didn’t say go out and bring others to me but make sure they follow this one narrow path called the fundamentalist interpretation. On the flip side God didn’t tell you to go out and make sure that people should come to Christ disillusioned to the creed and call of the gospel.
Brian Holt wrote a great blog post evoking some great questions over here. Talking about McLuhan and his media theory. This is widely accepted in and outside of religious circles and there are some aspects we need to sit up and take notice of.
The modern church takes a head in the sand and feet firm on the KJV foundation approach to media and the gospel. If you try to tell them different they spout a pre-conceived canned answer at you that is full of King James prose and holier than thou speak. Music is meant for the message and the message for the music. No toe tapping here. If you talk about media and evoking emotion, the only emotion you should evoke is that of the pastor telling of how Jesus delivered the heathen on the front row from a life of rock and roll.
Those modern churches that do apply media come from the stance that the message should never change regardless of the medium that you choose to use.
The post-modern church adopts McLuhan’s full approach that your medium changes your message. This is what most staunch modernists take issue with, the hugely watered down message. Unfortunately most pastors who swing so far this way came out of the modern church and got burned BAD by it. So naturally their response is to offer an ‘experience’ that is wholly different from what they dealt with as a child.
Most post modern churches have an experiential ‘religion’ where the substance is your reaction to the experience. There is a communal approach to the teaching and Jesus goes from savior king to savior friend. I’m not saying that there is not anything wrong with this view, but I don’t think it can be your only outlook on Christ.
Andy Stanley has a message out there talking about how we put God in a box. Our preconceived notion of how God needs to act, react, be and do. I think this is how both sects of churches have responded. We’ve put God in a box and decided how he should act and react within the confines of a certain worldview.
So how should the body of Christ respond to modernity or post-modernity? That depends on if you want to stick God in a box or not. I stick him in a box every day with my own worldview. Our worldview is just the change in message that the medium has given us. (yes I think McLuhan was correct in his statements that the medium changes the message) I also think there are non-negotiable aspects to the gospel but for every non-negotiable there are 100 negotiable ones.
So who’s going to hell today?
he big trend today is podcasting. Go out and download bytes of tutorials, sermons, training, seminars etc. and listen to them for hours on end. iTunes has a great interface for you to go out and collect all kinds of aural candy. There is an entire generation that is being brought up on this self serve bite sized informational media. I am part of this generation. It wasn’t available when i was a kid but I was around as an early adopter of this technology.
