Friday, May 13, 2005

A bad hair cut in the post modern age

I found post modernism hard to define from the outside. Most moderns miss the subtle
shift
of thought we like to call the paradigm shift.
I was/am still painfully aware of my modern tendencies and at first felt awkward even trying to change my way of thinking. I think the most common mistake a modern makes is labeling PM as
a movement, like the great “revivals” of old yet with a more hideous dark side they fear.

I ran across a painful example of how blind and off the mark the modern church was as I was getting a hair cut one day. A young lady around 19 or 20 was cutting my hair and I asked her if she had a belief in God. She said she never really had thought of it… I then asked her if she ever went to church…. She said, “it is not relevant in my life right now”. WOW! What a statement!
I continued to talk with her… at first she seemed a bit cautious as if she thought I had another motive. I did… but not to get her to church, but to find out, if there was a church that she would attend how would it have to be, to be relevant. She began warming up… and as I got to the crucial info, the older lady cutting hair nest door piped in, “I’m with the so and so church, and I have been after this little girl to go to my church for a long time”.
The reason she did not attend a church became obvious as this other lady talked and talked about her church…. And how “relevant” it was.
The conversation with the young woman was over, she clammed up tight and finished cutting my hair.

Moderns seem to miss that the age of modernism has ended and we are changing. Post modernism is in the middle of discovering it self and we must as the Body of Christ seek to
find ways to bring Christ to these people of this age. Moderns forget that they too have had and have a hideous side to them…. We PM people can smell it a mile away. Like the story of the the "Gospel" being brought to the American Indians and the destruction of their culture. One thing we PM'ers know is what is foney, we are beyond Mr. Pompeil.

I am Emerging…. Not as a movement or phase I am going through, but as a change of the core of my being as I grow to understand the need of this people for the purity of the Gospel and not the games of modernism. Do they all think alike, no but the core is as this article states, they are being brought up taught humanist secularism and relativism, which sadly is a result of modernism.
No God, no truth, no relation, no wonder and awe.

Blessings,
iggy

2 comments:

JP said...

Nice post iggy, love all the pics with the links. I too struggle with my modern/post-modern thoughts living in a post-modern world surrounded by mostly modern thinking christians....I agree its not a movement but more of a relational aspect to our faith. Thinking a bit differently, more community based. Listening more. Hearing their stories and bringing them into a true relationship with Jesus

Hugo said...

I know the frustration inherent in trying to build bridges with others who are "not of the fold" and then have those beidges burned when well meaning people try to get those unchurched souls to be just like them.

Some of the best conversation I've had regarding faith and God are with those who don't have the vocabulary to *sound* like they're believers even when they only nominally believe.

Keep fighting the good fight! :-)

Blessings & Peace,
Hugo