Effectively Engaging Pluralism and Postmodernism in a So-Called Post-Christian Culture
A word of warning seems appropriate. As always in these kinds of developments, an all-too-convenient tendency to select the more extreme expressions of a new movement as universally indicative of its internal character in order to discredit the entire group ought to be avoided. With that kind of logic Luther and the Protestant Reformation were condemned because of the ecstatic extremities of a few fanatics such as Thomas Müntzer and his Zwickau “prophets.”18 Furthermore, that same line has been repeatedly used by some to repudiate revivals ever since, ranging from the Wesleys and the Great Awakenings to the rise of Pentecostals. Time has proven it inapplicable and inappropriate. We should guard against repeating the same error regarding Christian attempts to engage pluralism and postmodernism in a post-Christian culture. Oftentimes how members of the movement itself address their own extremists may tell us more about what we need to know to make an accurate assessment of it than the mere fact that it does have obvious extremists in its midst. Again, Pentecostals ought to be especially sensitive to this point.
In closing, I list a few practical guidelines for making sense out of the maze of postmodern meanderings.19 Postmodernism is not so much an era as an attitude, though one becoming more and more prevalent. As we have seen, many in the emerging church movement are abandoning what they consider the stodgy framework of last century’s models, but they are building something they do not yet know what. The rules are still unclear. Postmodernism is more of a recognition that the old (i.e., modernity) is passing away. It is not in and of itself the establishment of something new. But something new is being built. The shape of it is just not known yet. This makes traversing the postmodern landscape at times delightful and at other times dangerous. Along with the thrill of blazing new trails comes real risk. Here are a few hopefully helpful practical recommendations or suggestions for Pentecostal clergy and laity, whether church leaders, missionaries, pastors, or other readers of Pneuma Review:
- Take the word of God at face value and obey it;
- Adopt conditionally the answer science gives;
- Get to know people outside the Christian community;
- Read more broadly—beware just taking the Christian author’s opinions as fact;
- Abandon certitudes and keep your relationship with Christ on a living basis;
- Allow instrumental doubt and don’t try to resolve hard questions with pat answers; and,
- Reason through problems, even when there is no obvious solution.
Perhaps most importantly, we should all prayerfully seek revelation from the Holy Spirit regarding our worldview and the way it’s applied in our life and ministry.
PR
To preview The Gospel in a Pluralist Society by Lesslie Newbigin: http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Gospel_in_a_Pluralist_Society.html?id=q6tEnRYaHI8C
Notes
1 See “Post Christian” at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postchristian.
2 Ninian Smart, “Pluralism,” A New Handbook of Christian Theology, eds. Donald W. Musser & Joseph L. Price (Nashville: Abingdon, 1992), 360-64 (360).
3 William C. Placher, “Postmodern Theology,” A New Handbook of Christian Theology, 372-75.
4 Cf. Winfield Bevins, “Retro Faith: A Christian Response to Postmodernism,” Pneuma Review 10:2 (Spring 2007), 37-40, and Dony K. Donev, “Postmodern Rebels,” Pneuma Review 10:2 (Spring 2007), 41, with Millard J. Erickson, The Evangelical Left: Encountering Postconservative Evangelical Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997), 140, 50-51.
5 See Wilbert R. Shenk, “Lesslie Newbigin’s Contribution to the Theology of Mission,” http://www.newbigin.net/general/biography.cfm.
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