What a corny inflated title, huh? Nvm, I'll let it stick unless the protests become too loud. Anyway, 'please find below' (ugh!) a modified version of yet another survivor of my first blog misfortune:

Anyone involved in the Emergent church movement ought to accept that it's near impossible to divorce the movement from post-modernism. Emergent thinker Brian McLaren devotes three out of thirteen chapters of the discontinuist-cum-redefinionist-flavoured Church On The Other Side towards 'entering', 'understanding' and 'engaging' postmodernism which, he writes in p.159 of the book, "is the other side." [italics mine]. He continues, "What if the postmodern transition is not a problem at all, but a stage in the ongoing adventure of the coming kingdom of God? What if it is less a problem than the end of a problem, if we could just see it accurately?" (p.189-90)

Another 'founding' Emergent thinker, Leonard Sweet - author of the milestone for church-&-pomo, SoulTsunami - has a job title at Drew University as Professor of PostModern Christianity (hardly suitable for anyone NOT embracing pomo in a substantial way!)

But - and this was raised and left unanswered by Sweet in SoulTsunami - who would ever DIE for a postmodern idea? Indeed, why work hard and 'suffer' for a movement heavily defined by relativity (instead of absolutism), personal narrative (instead of an all-encompassing meta-narrative), 'versions' (instead of the Real McCoy Truth), conversations (instead of battles and conquest), 'mere' invitations (instead of hard-core ultimatums)?

In Soul Salsa (the third instalment in a series which began with Tsunami and continued with Aquachurch), Sweet tried an answer, "Moderns liked to draw up lists of principles for which they willing to die. Postmoderns draw up lists of practices we are willing to live by." Read the book for his list of 17 practices to live by. In true pomo fashion, they're short and sweet (all are between 10-15 pages long), non-argumentative, littered with contemporary examples and creatively written with 'homework' at the end of each chapter.

But if postmodernism often involves the juxtaposition of opposites, then maybe the faith's climactic event won't be too uncomfortable with it. See this incredible passage by, of all scholars, N.T. Wright (who's quite an anti-postmodernist himself):

"...the cross becomes the place where paganism's great desire - to find something in the created order that one can worship, from which one will gain strength to be human in a new way - is fulfilled, and so subverted, once and for all. Here at least is a human being, a creature within the world of creatures, who can be worshiped without detracting from the worship of the one true God.

"Here, on the cross, is the one whom to worship is to worship the living and loving God Himself. Here, on the cross, is the one whom to worship is to find a true and full humanness. Here, on the cross, is the Creator God taking, once and for all, the place that the pagan gods had usurped." (p.94-95, Bringing the Church to the World, Tom Wright, Bethany House Publishers 1992)

Man. God. Pagan worship. True Worship.

The Cross of Jesus Christ is an event of paradox, 'irrationality', contextualisation, absolute authenticity(!!), beyond scientific certainty, a Mission calling forth missions, systemic in more than one sense, a divine act of power and love YET containing parallels with paganism and one of its worst manifestations, human sacrifice.

Simply awesome. I'm not going to be able to figure this out. Pre-, ultra-, post- or just plain modern, these labels can be illuminative yet surely inadequate in the presence of a God Who is already there ahead of me. Way ahead of me (smile).