Train of thought (Impending Derailment)

Postmodernism, Jesus, the Church, and Christians: An excerpt from the mind
of Kaleb Penner.

Disclamer: This is a train of thought. In my mind. Manifesting itself on my
computer screen and your inbox. These are my thoughts. I cannot really
control them, I am merely exporting them from the brain. You also need to
keep in mind that I don't understand 87% of what I think about. I think
about postmodernism, which I know very little about and probably what I do
know is proabably not even correct. I think about the church and Jesus and
God. Who can understand THAT stuff, haha And I think about me, which is
probably the most confusing thing one could ever think aobut. PLEASE
understand these are my **thoughts**. DO NOT READ THIS LIKE AN ENGLISH
INSTRUCTOR, a BIBLE SCHOOL PROFESSOR, a THEOLOGICAL GENIUS would. This has not been proof read or re-read. This is just typed, and late at night too.

Read this like a friend would, a fellow person. This is a train of thought,
not a thesis paper or a mission statement. Thoughts, ideas, running
commentary, play by play. engage it, question it, and respect it.

Begin

In my Sociology of Family class today, we were talking about Postmodernism
and what that is. Nobody really knew, and it is indeed hard to describe even
for expert sociologists. Not many people know what postmodernism is, but
growing up in a church and a christian conservative home, I felt inside me
that postmodernism was a bad thing. Where this came from I am not 100% sure.
I asked a friend tonight if he knew what postmodernism was. He said he had
no real idea. I asked him if he thought it was good or bad. He felt very
strongly that it was bad. I will come back to this later.

I want to come back to the classroom. I was not entirely engrossed in the
professors lecture or questions, but there were two statements that were
made on postmodernism that stuck out to me, and they were that postmodernism
is "a shedding of old values and a shedding of old labels". This made me
think. I asked the professor then, if postmodernism was a movement toward
the most basic elements of society, in terms of labels and categoriazation
and standards, and the statement was met with affirmation. So now what I
understand of postmodernism is this, in a truly postmodern society, there is
no set standard and thus there are no deviants from that standard. Example:
If a standard marriage is between a man and a woman, it becomes necessary to
label those who do not conform to this standard. Thus, Gay and Lesbian
marriages. If the standard family is a mother, a father, and their children,
then it is necessary to label those who are from single parent families. If
a certain profession is standardly a male profession, then we label those in
the profession who are female.

So what I understand of the shift towards postmodernism that society is
expeiencing, it is the breaking down of traditional labels and traditional
values. Why? Why this shift? Well people have gotten sick of tradition. That
seems to fit the bill. Why should we get married before we live together?
Why should we save sex till marriage? Why should the man run the household?
Why should the woman stay home? Why should we go to church? Why should the
parents make all the decisions around the house? Why should the definition
of family not include gay and lesbian couples and their children? (The
postmodernist movement started around the mid/late 60's, and some of the
questions stated here were more significant and new earlier in this
movement, and some didn't arise until later) In otherwords, People are
looking at the traditions and standards and questioning them. In essence,
people seem to be asking this question. "What is the point?" and they aren't
getting a convincing answer.

Ok, getting back to this idea that I have had that postmodernism is a bad
thing. Having come from a strong christian background, I have always known
that sex is saved for marriage. I have always known that a man marries a
woman, and I have always known that I should go to church. I have always
known that church was every sunday, and I have always known that the bible
is the truth. I have always known that drinking is not good, smoking is not
good, and drugs were not good. This is a fairly traditional and conservative
christian family I come from. SO it is easy to understand where this
uneasiness about postmodernism comes from. It is easy to understand why
people in church talk about postmodernism as being evil. On the surface, the
shift towards post modernism means more drinking, more premarital sex, more
gays, more lesbians, lower church attendance, and in general what seems to
be an across the board increase in mindless self-indulgence. OF COURSE this
is bad! Where are the morals? Where is the respect? Where is the obedience?
Nowhere to be found! Postmodernism is evil!

But people did not wake up one day and decided that divorce was really not
that big a deal. Indeed it was a shift. A few couples asked "What is the
point of staying married?" They found no resonable answer, so...divorce!
Many people saw this and said.."Oh my gosh, that is wrong!" But then more
and more people started asking that question, for more and more reasons and
more and more of them could not find a good answer. Now divorce is socially
acceptable.

Postmodernism: shedding old values and labels. Why? Because people are
questioning what the point of the old values and labels are. Actually, many
people skip the questioning and just plain reject the old values and labels.
My question (one of them, anyway) is this. Why does the religious community
see this a bad thing?

On the surface, it is postmodernism is "bad" because people are shedding old
values and labels that were biblically sound, resulting in unbiblical
behavior, therefore postmodernism is evil. However, if these people are in
fact asking "what is the point?" of adhering to these old values and lables,
and are not finding answers adequate enough for them, then why were they
adhering to those values in the first place? If the question "what is the
point of doing this?" cannot be met with a satisfactory answer, then it will
never be something we do from our heart or will love to do. There is
something to be said for obedience and also for faith, but even when we have
no answer for "what is the point?" and we can see no purpose for our actions
or lifestyle, as christians we can default to obedience or faith or some
combination of both as the point. BUT how can we expect those who are not
followers of christ to do that? We cannot. The church cannot. Jesus didn't.

Aaaah Jesus. Whatta guy. Jesus. Jesus told stories and asked questions. LOTS
of questions. He asked too many questions according to some, he dug too
deep, ot under too many of the wrong peoples skin, and they couldn't stand
him. They hated him. They killed him. They. Who they? The pharisees. The
religious leaders. They killed him. Asked too many questions. Jesus loved
questions. He asked them all the time. He feared nothing. Not even
questions. I mean it would be understandable if he did. I mean don't
questions scare you? 2 plus 2 is what? Just kidding.  Thats an easy
question. But there are hard questions. Personal questions. And are they not
honestly one of the most scary things you can think of? Because hard
personal questions have hard personal answers. Jesus understood that. He
knew the power of questions.

When Jesus said I am the way the truth and the life, how many people
believed him? How many people believed him when he said you must eat my body
and drink my blood? Jesus said some whacked out crazy stuff. AND HE DIDN'T
EXPECT PEOPLE TO BELIVE HIM. "What is the point of that?" people would say.
and off they went. Did Jesus chase after them and wag a finger at them? Did
he call them heathens and shout insults and threats and fire and brimstone
at them? Not once. Ever. People said what is the point? I dunno! See ya! and
off they go. Jesus let them go. Did it hurt him? I bet it did. But he let
them go.

When people question traditions and biblical values asking what is the
point? and saying I dunno, see ya, to one extent or the other, then as a
church, as followers of Jesus, it is not our job to hunt them down. We
CANNOT expect them to simply follow Jesus without knowing the point. That is
empty and false, two things Jesus came to free us from, and two things that
we ALL need freeing from.

Postmodernism has people asking the question "What is the point?" Persnoally
I think this is great, even though I hold many values considered traditional
in high regard. Questions are scary things, and not just for people, for
churches too. But churches must ask "What is the point?" as well. Tradition
for the sake of tradition is shallow and empty. I am not suggesting that
tradition itself is shallow and empty, tradtion where God is the point is
just as glorious as innovation where god is the point is. But if we stop
asking the question "What is the point?" Then how can we possibly know when
God is no longer the focus? And he must be. Always.

Another train of thought: The fact that postmodernism is a shedding of old
labels is awesome. Think about the labels we give people. WHAT an incredible
barrier that is to the work and message of christ. Jesus came for EVERYONE.
Every. Single. Person. That. Ever. Lived. Jesus came for them.  Every single
label you think of. Think of them for a second. Jesus ignored all of those
labels. Because at our core, every last one of us is human. Every last one
of us is loved by God, and every last one of us has a need for Gods
salvation AND gods healing. At our core, we are all united. At our core,
there is no differentiation between saved and not saved, and if there ever
is segregation along those lines, leave that to God, because savation is the
work of God and god alone. Before we are christian or muslim or gnostic or
any of that, we are all created in gods image. God is our most basic common
factor, whether we realize that or not. So this shedding of labels is really
drawing everyone closer together. The walls are coming down. This is scary
for people too, because they are not comfortable around certain people. How
many gay people have you talked to recently? How many places have you been
where you are an ethnic minority? How many times have you been the one with
the accent others find amusing? How many times have you been the "them"? I
have a friend who is gay, we chat on MSN, and last time we talked, he could
not believe how much we are on the same page! But how can that be? I am a
traditional prostestant middle class northern albertan born and raised
chrstian, and he is an ex catholic gay NDP big city dude. How can we
possibly be on the same page? Because before ANY of that, we are people.
There is something magical, something...eternal about that.

This label shedding and question asking is not apart from the church either.
People are asking, especially youth, what really matters? I ask those
questions, and what I come up with is this "Jesus matters and people
matter." Beyond that I think I might be negotiable. I have seen and heard
expressed from many others my age the questionning of reason behind the
millions of denominations we have for one faith. "What is the point?" All it
seems to do is cause division and dissention. So we have this movement away
from these labels and traditions that have been a divising factor for many
people, and we are seeing the emergent church rising, and though I am no
expert, the thing with the emergent church seems to be that Jesus matters
and people matter, which is VERY condusive to unity and question asking and
open discussion within a certain church. If you have a very long list of
things that matter in a church group, then there is little diversity within
that group and it can become a point where anything different can be seen as
way off base.

Finally, it is always good to remember that God is ultimately the author of
this story, nothing comes or goes without his knowing and nothing can be
established without his permittance. After all, the conclusion has been
revealed and is fast approaching. Postmodernism is part of the script. How
do we deal with that? How do we as chrstians live in the here and now? How
do we find our place in this shift that is occuring at such a rapid pace,
which seems to flow against everything we have stood for? By trusting the
author. By making God the point, and by asking questions. Hard Personal
Questions. By believing that God has redeemed all things. By believing that
all things that are good, holy, righteous, true, pure, joyous, noble; all
things BEAUTIFUL are from God, and God has given all things to us as through
Christ Jesus. Believe it and claim those things wherever you find them.
Claim the good. Its yours. We are joint heirs with christ in the kingdom of
God. Practice living in the kingdom right now, and in the kingdom, God is
the point.

You know what? Sleep is beautiful. I'm gonna claim some right now.

Thanks



"WHAT IS THE POINT?" ~Everyone