Generally, India is moving forward into a global power; its economy is growing at an unprecedented rate, and the church is also growing rapidly. The middle and upper classes are getting wealthier, but the majority of the population lives on less than $2.00 a day. The 60% of the population that lives in villages and towns live on subsistence living, and 40% of the population is illiterate. People who leave the villages and move to the large cities are often illiterate and become displaced as they try to make a better life; in some cases whole families end up living on the streets, because employment is difficult to find and housing is very expensive. It is heart breaking.

My colleague, Dr. Willie Boyseen from South Africa and I were focused on the vision the Lord gave me; we tried not to be sidetracked by the poverty, and the hopelessness that dominates the nation. We were often tempted to give money to help the poor and those feeding the poor, but when we remembered the words of Jesus who said, “the poor you always have with you,” we became more resolute to the vision to help preachers to preach more effectively and be true to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Usually when people accept Jesus into their lives as Savior and Lord, they become excited and want to share their faith with others. Often before you know it, they are pastoring churches with several hundred people and in some cases a group of churches. These were the people we desired to help most: those already in ministry. We shared with them what we have learned about preaching. The presentation of the gospel should be preached simply and clearly without spiritualizing the text, steering them away from teaching wrong doctrine but praying for the sick and the needs of people in the church. On every occasion pastors left the seminars better preachers of the Word. They were always thankful and often remarked, “I now know how to prepare sermons.” Many pastors have to preach every day.

During our time in India we taught approximately 350 pastors in three preaching seminars. The first seminar was for approximately 100 pastors at Love-N-care Ministries in Visakhapatnam. We were told that some of these pastors are tribal people and were former animists. At Love-N-Care Ministries they are taught to read and write and then to preach.

Editor Introduction: Postmodernism, The Church, and The Future  

Postmodernism, The Church, and The Future
A Pneuma Review discussion about how the church should respond to postmodernism

Suggestions and Comments from Readers

Reader T.S. writes:

I thought this critique of postmodern thinking on today’s college campuses was insightful: “The postmodern idolatry is that all spiritual ways of life lead to the same place. Any local truth is a valid truth. In the postmodern mind, they’re all paths to being good and doing good.”

This was from an interview with James Choung, called “From Four Laws to Four Circles: James Choung has found a way to tell the old, old story to a new generation” Christianity Today (July 2008). http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/july/11.31.html

Here is another, older critique by Os Guinness warning of the dangers of becoming too-relevant. http://www.christianitytoday.com/outreach/articles/trustingculturalgospel.html

In another article by philosopher William Lane Craig he says, “The idea that we live in a postmodern culture is a myth. In fact, a postmodern culture is an impossibility; it would be utterly unlivable. People are not relativistic when it comes to matters of science, engineering, and technology; rather, they are relativistic and pluralistic in matters of religion and ethics. But, of course, that’s not postmodernism; that’s modernism! That’s just old-line verificationism, which held that anything you can’t prove with your five senses is a matter of personal taste. We live in a culture that remains deeply modernist” (in “God Is Not Dead Yet: How current philosophers argue for his existence,” Christianity Today, July 2008, emphasis his). Find this article online at:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/july/13.22.html  

In the next issue (Winter 2009), Tony Richie wraps up our discussion with:

“Becoming All Things, Spoiling the Egyptians, and Occupying Culture till Christ’s Comes: Reflections on the Recent Postmodernism Conversation”  

Skye Jethani, “Apostles Today?: Rediscovering the gift that leaves churches and well-connected pastors in its wake” Leadership Journal (Spring 2008). It is significant to see an introduction to “apostolic ministry” in Leadership Journal, a sister publication of Christianity Today.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2008/002/15.37.html  

James K.A. Smith, “Teaching a Calvinist to Dance: In Pentecostal worship, my Reformed theology finds its groove” Christianity Today (May 2008), pages 42-45.

Calvin College Philosophy professor Jamie Smith says that it is in the Pentecostal/charismatic movement that his reformed theology finds its fullest expression.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/may/25.42.html  

Evangelical Review of Theology 32:2 (April 2008).

The April 2008 issue features the theme of Evangelical Political Engagement.

“Wounds of a Friend: An unexpected exchange on the women’s leadership debate” Christianity Today (June 2008).

Humble counterpoints are given in the form of admonitions—to those who hold their own positions—in the debate about the role of women in ministry.

Egalitarian: Sarah Sumner, “Egalitarians should rely more on careful exegesis and less on political ideologies.”

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/june/28.41.html

Complementarian: John Koessler, “Complementarians need to recover a fully biblical view of women—and of handling theological disagreement.”

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/june/27.40.html

Editor Introduction: Postmodernism, The Church, and The Future

Postmodernism, The Church, and The Future
A Pneuma Review discussion about how the church should respond to postmodernism

Suggestions for Further Reading

Tim Keel, “An Efficient Gospel?: The modern world was inclined toward reduction, efficiency, and things you can count” Leadership Journal (Winter 2008). http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2008/001/3.19.html

Earl G. Creps, “Moving Target: Reframing Discipleship for Postmoderns” Enrichment (Winter 2008), pages 68-73.    http://enrichmentjournal.ag.org/200801/200801_068_MovTarget.cfm

TS says, “Christianity Today has a number of articles that seem to apply to this discussion. Here are a few I’ve seen.”

• J. Todd Billings, “What Makes a Church Missional?: Freedom from cultural captivity does not mean freedom from tradition” Christianity Today (March 2008). http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/march/16.56.html

• “You Have Heard It Said: Caputo’s What Would Jesus Deconstruct? sends us to take another look at Jesus” in February 2008 is a review by Bruce Ellis Benson. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/februaryweb-only/107-12.0.html

• Richard J. Mouw, “An Open-Handed Gospel: We have to decide whether we have a stingy or a generous God” Christianity Today (April, 2008). http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/april/15.44.html

Hear Jamie Smith speaking at Northwest University for the 2006 Pentecostal Lectureship Series presenting his paper “Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? Azusa Street as Postmodern Revival.” The lecture may be downloaded here: http://eagle.northwestu.edu/chapel_mp3/20060207e.mp3 [link unavailable as of October 23, 2014].

Another perspective in this conversation: see the review of Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis by Robert Huckleberry in this issue.

“To read the Bible as God’s word one must read it with his heart in his mouth, on tip-toe, with eager expectancy, in conversation with God. To read the Bible thoughtlessly or carelessly or academically or professionally is not to read the Bible as God’s Word. As one reads it as a love letter is read, then one reads it as the Word of God.” – Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

“Too often in the body of Christ we are content to let God help us cope when He is fully prepared to fully deliver.” – Jason Knight

“‘Pentecost does not belong to any one denomination,’ says Frank M. Reid, who has been pastor at Bethel – begun by freed slaves in the late 1700s and among the founding members of the African Methodist Episcopal Church – since 1988. ‘It is part of every Christian’s journey. … Every Christian must have a Pentecostal experience – there’s no way around it.'” – Source: http://www.charismanews.com/a.pl?ArticleID=7508

“Forgiveness means the deed is no longer connected with us; we have nothing to do with it, or it with us. Forgiveness is absolute and complete. When we have been forgiven, there is nothing left for which we can be forgiven again. Trying, then, to offer a sacrifice to God to prove our sincerity or to live up to His free gift misses the truth of forgiveness. It would be like tying a string around your finger to remind you not to forget to buy the carton of milk you purchased at the market two days ago! I have been forgiven; you have been forgiven – for all things for all time.” – Daniel A. Brown

“The great Christian revolutions come not by the discovery of something that was not known before. They happen when somebody takes radically something that was always there.”
– H. Richard Niebuhr

Editor Introduction: Postmodernism, The Church, and The Future  

Postmodernism, The Church, and The Future
A Pneuma Review discussion about how the church should respond to postmodernism

Suggestions for Further Reading

Readers have suggested the following as places to find good articles online for further reading on this important subject.

• Brian McLaren, “Good Marginal Thinking: The heroes of church history began as reflective Christians who doubted what everyone else took for granted” Leadership Journal (Fall 2007).

http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2007/004/14.110.html  

• Mark Labberton, “The Lima Bean Gospel: The Good News is so much bigger than we make it out to be” Christianity Today (January 2008).

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/january/19.32.html

Suggestion: “This article is all about how we the church have made Jesus look so bland in a pluralistic society—and what we might do about it.” – TS  

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (quoted at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/aprilweb-only/114-32.0.html?start=2)

“When the Communists took over Russia in 1917, Lenin did not ban the Church, but forbade it to do any good works. Central elements of Christian ministry such as feeding the hungry, teaching and caring for the sick and orphaned were taboo for the Church. Seventy years later, the Church was completely irrelevant. Today, without Lenin, many churches still do exactly that, concentrating only on preaching, with identical results. Take service out of the church, and it becomes irrelevant and weak.”

Eric Swanson

“There are three images in my mind which I must continually forsake and replace by better ones: the false image of God, the false image of my neighbours, and the false image of myself.”

C. S. Lewis

“Christians are to be the good news before they share the Good News.”

Joe Alrich

“Why do folks allow their daughters to dress like an advertisement for something they are not selling? Why are they bringing them up to think that their worth as a human being rests in being someone else’s object instead of someone’s beloved person?”

Mary Walsh (Touchstone, Jul/Aug 2006)

“In these postChristian times, a major pastoral task is to explain Christianity to people who really have no idea what it means.”

Philip Graham Ryken (quoted in Preaching, Sep/Oct 2003, Vol 19, No 2, page 29)

“The strongest pressures we face to avoid Scripture’s teachings are when those teachings run contrary to some popular and cherished cultural viewpoint. One only need consider the Bible’s teaching on such ‘controversial’ issues as salvation that is found exclusively through faith in Christ, to realize that our temptation to compromise comes most forcefully where our culture finds biblical teaching repulsive.”

Bruce A. Ware (quoted in Moody, Mar/Apr 2003, page 37)

Mark Noll, “America’s Two Foundings” First Things 178 (December 2007), pages 29-34.

Historian Mark Noll argues that the religious landscape that existed at the founding of the United States underwent a dramatic change after 1800 and leading up to the Civil War. In order to clarify current discussions over religion and public life, we must recognize that the United States experienced two foundings and restrain our appeals to how history really developed.

www.firstthings.com/article/2007/12/002-americas-two-foundings

Becky Tirabassi, “Young, Restless, and Ready for Revival: On-campus Christians are seeking holiness in unexpected numbers” Christianity Today (December 2007), pages 46-48.

Becky Tirabassi makes a report of revival among college and university students across the United States, when the “bottom falls out” and confession of sin sweeps through assemblies of students longing for real change.

www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/december/32.46.html

Miroslav Volf, “Living with the Other” Enrichment (Summer 2007), pages 30-32, 34, 36-38,41-42, 46.

Dr. Volf takes a look at Christian tradition to ask who is the other and who we are and what our obligation to each other is because of God’s love for us.

http://enrichmentjournal.ag.org/200703/200703_030_LivingWith.cfm

Also in this issue is an article by Craig S. Keener, “Embracing God’s Passion for Diversity: A Theology of Racial and Ethnic Plurality” which is available online:

http://enrichmentjournal.ag.org/200703/200703_020_Embracing.cfm

Editor Introduction: Postmodernism, The Church, and The Future  

Postmodernism, The Church, and The Future
A Pneuma Review discussion about how the church should respond to postmodernism

Suggestions for Further Reading

Readers have suggested the following as places to find good articles online for further reading on this important subject.

Robert C. Kurka, “Before ‘Foundationalism’: A More Biblical Alternative to the Grenz/Franke Proposal for Doing Theology” JETS 50:1 (March 2007).

Albert Mohler, “Christian Apologetics for a Postmodern Age” www.crosswalk.com/1407489/ Updated to: http://www.crosswalk.com/church/pastors-or-leadership/christian-apologetics-for-a-postmodern-age-1407489.html [as of Nov 5, 2014]