Wednesday, July 27th, 2005
Over at PostKiwi’s Generations in Conversation I’ve reflected on Don Carson and Brian McLaren and their varying interpretation of the word ‘post’, as in ‘post modern’. I argue that ‘post’ does indeed refer to coming after in terms of time or space. But ‘post’ does not necessarily mean discontinuity. In some cases trends are accentuated rather than left behind. I like the phrase, “This, and more”. It’s what I live by. I am never ultimately defined by any category. I am liberal, and more. I work in literary culture, and more. I am modern, and more. I am Christian, and more.
At PostKiwi I’ve put in themes and variations I used at a multi-media conference two years ago. They’re for post apocalyptic, post bellum, post charismatic, post christendom, post classical, post coital, post colonial, post communion, post diem, post diluvial, post doctoral, post echo, post embryonic, post entry, post Evangelical, and post existence.
Here’s Post Liberal to Post Mortem. What do you think? What would you add to these definitions?
Post Liberal
school of theology founded in the 1970s by Hans Frei and George Lindbeck, affirmed the decisive significance and the integrity of the biblical narrative.
Post Literary
Communication no longer dominated by written text.
Post Lingual
Post-lingual hearing impairment is a hearing impairment where hearing loss develops due to disease or trauma after the acquisition of speech and language, usually after the age of six.
Postliminous
Postliminium
The return of a person to his/her own country and privileges - especially a person who has been away in exile. (liminal refers to threshold).
Postlude
(Music) a final or concluding piece or movement2 a voluntary played at the end of a Church service. (As in ‘after game’.)
Postmenopausal
of or occurring in the time following menopause.
Post Menstrual
of or occurring in the time following menstruation.
Post Meridian
after noon
in the afternoon or evening
Post Meridiem
ADVERB & ADJECTIVE:abbr. P.M. or p.m. or p.m. After noon. Used chiefly in the abbreviated form to specify the hour: 10:30 p.m.; a p.m. appointment.
ETYMOLOGY: Latin post mer diem : post, after + mer diem, accusative of mer di s, midday.
Post Millennialism
The doctrine that Jesus’s Second Coming will follow the millennium.
Post Mistress
After the Affair
Post-modernism
of or relating to art, architecture, or literature that reacts against earlier modernist principles, as by reintroducing traditional or classical elements of style or by carrying modernist styles or practices to extremes.
Post Mortem
1 occurring after death
2 analysis or study of a recently completed event
Tags: Brian McLaren, Don Carson, Emerging Church, postmodern, Postmodernity
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Monday, June 27th, 2005
So what do you think about online quizzes on theological worldview? Here’s the one currently being used as a public quick self-diagnosis, created by Steven Harris from the UK, known online as Sven.
(See Sven’s blog at the World of Sven,
on which he’s pictured in his hoodie (see picture to right). See Sven’s list of quizzes at Quizfarm.)
I’d take issue with the limits of this online quiz. What about the contemplative side of theology? Or the Eastern orthodox? I suspect the question on icons is used for measuring Catholic theology. How about ‘non-realist’ theology - not that I’d score very highly in it! Fascinating to have the photograph of Brian McLaren tied with the quiz. I’d like to include a few other people there too.
Ok - the test does align me with the Emergent/Postmodern slice of faith. But also with the Evangelical and NeoOrthodox slices, with a twist of Catholic. In the graph below you can chart my journey of theology towards being postfundamentalist, post Evangelical, post charismatic, post Catholic, post liberal.
- Started off as a teenager surrounded by fundamentalist, Evangelical and Reformed leaders in a hybrid Presbyterian church. Signed up with creationism and last days doctrine. Learnt all about Calvin’s tulip. Heard that the spiritual gifts have ceased and pentecostals are of the Devil. Didn’t buy it.
- Dived into the charismatic movement as a sixteen year old.
- My fundamentalism/creationism fell apart during Anthropology 101. Went through an intense phase of rebuilding faith on a relational base.
- Joined a charismatic Catholic covenant community in my third and fourth years at Uni.
- Campaigned for nuclear disarmament as an expression of commitment to the future.
- Engaged in contextual and relational approaches to evangelism and social justice as a youth worker.
- Gave up the end times anxiety as a husband and father.
- Linked up with the Vineyard movement at Wimber conferences in Auckland
- As a theology student discovered theologians who expressed what I’d be intuiting: Barth, Moltmann, Torrance alongside Matthew Fox, Karl Rahner and Hans Kung.
- Developed a kingdom of God missional paradigm for ministry.
- Worked ecumenically in youth ministry in New Zealand and around the world.
- Linked up with alt worship scene
- Found postmodernist writers expressing the world view I’d come to hold.
My Quiz Results
| |
You scored as Emergent/Postmodern. You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don’t think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this.
| Emergent/Postmodern |
|
82% |
| Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan |
|
71% |
| Neo orthodox |
|
64% |
| Roman Catholic |
|
46% |
| Classical Liberal |
|
39% |
| Modern Liberal |
|
36% |
| Charismatic/Pentecostal |
|
29% |
| Reformed Evangelical |
|
29% |
| Fundamentalist |
|
7% |
What’s your theological worldview?
created with QuizFarm.com
Emergent/Postmodern Brian McLaren
 |
Tags: Brian McLaren, Calvinist, Catholicism, charismatic, fundamentalist, Internet, NeoOrthodox, postcharismatic, postmodern, reformed, Theology
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Thursday, May 26th, 2005
Over at PostKiwi’s Generational Posts I’m working through a review of PostMission, the work of GenX writers from global mission agencies in 2001. They engage with a mix of generational theory and postmodern theory as they engage with the conflicts between younger and older missionaries.
One paragraph of the review provoked a response from Phil Johnson.
My summary
“They examine the modernist Evangelical focus on individual morality, with its preoccupation with sexual sin. Holiness, they say, has been reduced to personal individual sins linked with sexual behaviour, dress codes, divorce, alcohol taboos, tithing, abortion, swearing, and dirty jokes. Postmoderns are more concerned with moral issues such as weapons of mass destruction, environmental destruction, womens’ rights, Third World debt, racism, exploitation of child labour.”
Phil: The perspective that evangelicals have been fixated on personal individual issues (especially sexual mores) is partly true but also runs the risk of misreading and distorting history in evangelicalism…
Read more at Generations in Conversation
Tags: Emerging Church, Evangelical, Gen X, Generations, Internet, Mission, postmodern
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