Category Archives: Postmodernity

The Emerging Church in its own words 3

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Chapter 4 of Gibbs’ and Bolger’s Emerging Churches: creating Christian community in postmodern culture is entitled, ‘Transforming secular space’.  Here are some extracts.

Breaking down the dualisms of modernity

‘A consequence of the creation of a secular realm was modernity’s penchant to break everything up into little parts for classification, organisation, and systematisation.  Thus, in the modern period, many dualisms were introduced to church life that had not been problematic before: the natural verses the supernatural; public facts versus private values; the body versus the mind and spirit; faith versus reason; power versus love; and the list goes on. …

It’s all modernism’s fault

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Chapter 7 of Why we’re not emergent (by two guys who should be) explores the ways in which emerging church people have tended to make a bogeyman out of modernism.

Kevin DeYoung summarises the emergent approach:-

Once upon a time the church was a brighter, fairer place.  And then the Enlightenment happened, and the scourge of modernism – systematic theologies, propositions, foundationalism, certainty, creeds, monological preaching, individualism, inerrancy, logic, indoctrination, deductive reasoning – began to crack down on the church.…

The Post-Evangelical – 10

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Nine down, one to go, in this chapter-by-chapter review of Dave Tomlinson’s The Post-Evangelical.  Even though the book has been out for some time (published in the UK in 1995) I’ve gone back to it because it seems to have had a seminal importance in the ‘movement’ now known as the ’emerging church’.

In the final chapter, Tomlinson argues that post-evangelicalism is linked to the shift from the modern to the postmodern.  The challenge is ‘how to express eternal truth in and through this emerging culture.’ …

The Post-Evangelical – 9

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Chapter 9 of Dave Tomlinson’s The Post-Evangelical discusses ‘positive worldliness’.

The author informs us that he was brought up to have a deep distrust of ‘the world’.  The Christian was not to feel at home in the world.  It was there to be evangelised, but not to be enjoyed.  Of course, things have loosed up in more recent years, but the legalistic prohibitions have been replaced within the sub-culture by christianised alternatives.  We have Christian festivals, Christian theatre, Christian computer games, and Christian aerobics set to Christian music. …

The Post-Evangelical – 8

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Chapter 8 of the The Post-Evangelical, by Dave Tomlinson, asks a ‘straightforward’ question: what is a post-evangelical view of the Bible?

First, Tomlinson feels that there is a need to ‘exorcise’ the ghost of inerrancy.  He finds it incredible that anyone thinks it even plausible to believe in such a thing.

Contrary to what proponents will tell us (says Tomlinson), the notion of inerrancy is a relatively modern one, arising out of the fundamentalist/modernist conflicts of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. …

The Post-Evangelical – 7

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Chapter 7 of Dave Tomlinson’s The Post-Evangelical is entitled, ‘The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Something Quite Like the Truth’.  It’s about epistemology – how we come to know things.

Tomlinson suggests that what is going on is that many within evangelicalism begin with some vague feelings of discomforts about various aspects of their evangelical church.  They are bothered about the chorus-singing, perhaps, or the dogmatic tone of the preaching,  – and then develop deeper concerns about the credibility of the entire evangelical paradigm. …

The Post-Evangelical – 6

Walking With Giants Posted on by

The Post-Evangelical is entitled ‘Let Me Tell You a Story’.  This chapter deals with the failure of modern, and the rise of the postmodern, ‘stories’.

What is the new postmodern world that is emerging?

It is a world which understands itself through biological rather than mechanistic models; a world where people see themselves as belonging to the environment, rather than over it or apart from it; a world distrustful of institutions, hierarchies, centralized bureaucarcies and male dominated organizations. 

…

The Post-Evangelical – 5

Walking With Giants Posted on by

In chapter 5 – ‘Woolly Liberals?’ – Dave Tomlinson informs us that he shares with evangelicals a rejection of theological liberalism.  But what he does not share are evangelicals’ reasons for opposing liberalism.

Indeed, he expresses amazement at ‘how paranoid evangelicals are about liberalism’.  Evangelicals are constantly patrolling their boundaries, lest one of their number should trespass into liberal territory.

This is not to suggest, says Tomlinson, that theology and doctrine are unimportant:

‘Far from it; but there is no evidence from the Bible that it is (sic) of ultimate importance. 

…

The Post-Evangelical – 4

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Chapter 4 of Dave Tomlinson’s The Post-Evangelical is entitled ‘Longing to Grow’.  In this chapter, an attempt is made to explain the evangelical ‘problem’ in terms of a couple of psychological models.  ‘The problem’ for Tomlinson, as is becoming increasingly clear as the book develops, is that evangelicals are way too sure of themselves and need to grow up and start doubting things.

A couple of stories are given of people who started off as evangelicals but (you guessed it) became disillusioned with evangelical certaintism and found no welcome for their doubts and questions. …

The Post-Evangelical – 3

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Why are many people irritated by certain aspects of ‘evangelical culture’?  This is the question addressed in chapter 3 of Dave Tomlinson’s book The Post-Evangelical.  A summary and a brief comment follow.

Even in New Testament times, people were arguing that Gentile believers must submit to the Jewish law in order to be real Christians.  Throughout the Christian era, the missionary enterprise has been dogged by similar problems – requiring indigenous peoples to adopt not only a change of heart but also a change of culture. …