My thoughts on Kevin Miller's Nomo Pomo—a Postmodern Rant, where he claims that . . . "Postmodern theory suffers from the weakness that the postmodernists themselves don't believe it. When they get sick, they check into a modernist hospital . . . ". I am about to move my conversation about it to the Emergent bulletin board and dont want to take up too much space here.
Firstly, I dont feel I have the freedom to criticize it. I have been advised by you, my readers, not to stoop. The Emergent team has also determined not react in anger or knee-jerk-defence. And since we are being blamed for deconstructing everything and not building anything postive, we find ourselves in a double bind and might be better off just taking some hits, whether they are accurate or not.
Besides that, Leadership Journal is a FABULOUS journal. In my previous incarnation as a pastor on staff of Seeker-Senstive-Type churches, getting the journal on our desks was like getting affirmation from the President, getting knighted by the Queen. Here were some people who took us seriously and treated us like professionals. They covered topics that no one else would touch - the supernatural, pastoral burnout, how much other pastors were making, etc. You cant get that kind of stuff anywhere else. LJ made us feel good that we had chosen our ministerial profession. Dang, I might start weeping like a baby right now!
It is NOT, however, a journal for that part of the church that is doing organic church models or movements that are not in the traditional mode. Type in "house church" in LJ's search engine and you will find ZIP, ZERO, NADA, NUDDING, NOTHING whatsoever, not even a mention that such an animal exists. Same for "home church" or "organic church" or other names that AN INCREASING NUMBER of young postmodern emerging type people are choosing more and more to name the type of structure that best describes the way they organize themselves.
This means, my dear organic readers, that when Kevin was slamming the "PPM's", those deconstructive, GenXy, postmodern type pastors, he was not . . I repeat . . . HE WAS NOT TALKING ABOUT YOU!
If you are in a house church movement, if you hold to a worldview that is not in the deconstruction style of the 1970's, if you are not in a traditional church strucure(Old-school/GenX/Pomo) but rather are a part of this new thing that God is doing (and that LJ does not acknowlege) then he was not talking about you and you should go on with constructing the new wineskins in a joyful, jovial, dwarf-whistling type manner, praising God that His church is not equal to the sum of LJ subscribers.
If, on the other hand, you are deep inside the very model of a modern major GenX church or the like and you have every elder and deacon on your staff giving you a copy of Kevin Miller's article, or your leadership meeting last Monday turned into Miller Time, then you may want to do some research (of the modern, quantifiable, statistical variety). Here are some thoughts you might want to chase down.
Kevin's models of modernity - hospitals, architechure and bioethics - are they really modern? Are they staying modern or taking on characteristics of postmodernity? You could check out Dr. Giles Scofield's lecture on postmodern ethics in healthcare, look at the benefits of Postmodern Nursing over the dehumanizing effects of institutional hospitalization [ btw, did you know my wife is a RN and worked solely in home nursing with children?]. You could also look at article that shows "recent hospitals use postmodern architectural design and theory in order to mask and disguise the institutional and scientific hospital experience for
children."
And dont forget that Christianity Today (big brother of LJ) has a great article on pomo Church Architecture For The 21st Century by The Sweet Man himself! They also have an article called The Christian DNA of Modern Genetics which tells of the organic and non-modern origins of this discipline, which happened only 3 hours from where I now live, but there are other articles on the net, like "Modem Genetics Is Eugenics" that show the dangers of modernism in this field.
Is Miller really against us? I think not. I like the fact that he took a risk and spoke out. It got a lot of press. Many young people and postmoderns had never heard of Leadership Journal, and now know it exists. Well done, Kev!
I also think he is quite close to us in practise. His recommendation of The Ooze as a postmodern resource is encouraging (pity about the other recommendations) and his article on experience oriented learning and worship shows that he is probably on our side but stuck inside an outdated vocabulary that no longer works.
Does LJ understand postmodernity? You do the math. Many of these guys studied philosophy when Fleetwood Mac were Top 10 and they relate everything philosophical to existentialism, nihilism, relativism, etc. They may not have heard of the different kinds of postmodernisms, epecially constructive, affirmative and intuitive postmodern understandings that are closer to what we hold to than the 70's retro version described in modern terms in articles like The Riddle of Our Postmodern Culture.
But that's OK. LJ is a professional periodical and NOT a scholarly one. These people are practitioners, pastors and not academics and so we can forgive them for talking about postmoden theory without ever mentioning Ferdinand de Saussure (he's the father of postmodern theory, in case you were wondering) and for treating the topic as if it was a flash in the pan.
This is a challenge for us to do a better job in educating our leaders and publishers. They are often fed the wrong info and dont have the street knowledge to discern between what is right and what is written in Christian publications.
I challenge you all not to get upset and react improperly, but rather help out and keep these people informed of what is actually going on. You can start by emailing Kevin at Kevin@ChristianityToday.com and by giving him some helpful info about your world and how it is really different from what he described.
As for me, well, as I said earlier, I think I will refrain from saying anything at all.
NEWSBREAK: Chris and Lisa Seay, of Emergent, are pleased to announce the birth of their newest addition, Solomon, who was born last Saturday in the bathtub of their home in Houston.
Congrats from all of us!
