soft v. hard postmodernism

C. Michael Patton has written this easy to understand piece explaining the differences between hard and soft postmodernism. He rightly concludes that one cannot be a hard postmodernist and be Christian and then he explains the benefits and the serious risks associated with being a soft postmodernist - which is were emergents seem to fit.

[H]ard postmodernism should be seen as a threat. It is not possible to be a hard postmodernist and be a Christian. Soft postmodernism on the other hand presents the church with many lost virtues of grace and irenics (theology done peaceably). For this we can be thankful. But we must guard the truths of Scripture with the conviction that the evidence has presented. Our traditions may or may not be wrong, but that is for the evidence to decide. There also are non-essentials that need to be spoken about with conviction, even if we might be wrong in the end. In short, let us be balanced in our understanding of the issues on the table and let us not lose the conviction that the truths of Scripture produce.

Justin Taylor picks up on one of of Patton's statements, "from my experience in and reading of the emerging church, there is no reason to assume that emergers deny any essential doctrine of the Christian faith." and adds this from Doug Geivett.

I do not mean to suggest that Grenz himself has crossed the line theologically. I am not aware of any specific doctrine of the classic creeds of Christianity that he has explicitly denied. What I am concerned about is what his methodology implies about what it means to affirm any doctrinal formulation or theological proposition whatsoever. To understand this, it will not do to look for his signature at the bottom of this or that statement of faith. This, by the way, is not only true for Grenz, but for everybody in this room. To come to grips with what that signature signifies we must repair to the anteroom of epistemology. Since that is my specialization of philosophy, I would be remiss if I did not register my concerns.

So let me be clear, it is not that Stanley Grenz has unequivocally repudiated any core doctrine of Classic Christianity, or deliberately sabotaged the faith once for all delivered to the saints; it is rather that he has paved the way, brick by brick, for others who come after him to upstage him, as it were, and carry the method to its natural, and I should think, unwelcome conclusion—that if Christianity is true, there is no way to know that it is true or even to be justified in believing that it is true, and indeed that Christianity is nothing more than a conceptual framework which as such bears no relation of correspondence to reality and so really is not true after all. In his own hands, the device of postmodern epistemology that informs his constructive work as a theologian may issue little more than a disconnect between method and constructive results. In the hands of another figure, however, the result might not be so innocuous. For what Grenz recommends provides no normative guidance for doing theology that would prevent use of the same tool with the expressed purpose of eviscerating the Christian gospel of its essential significance. That there are actual individuals who fully intend the robbing of Christianity of its clout, both spiritually and intellectually, I have no doubt. That Grenz himself intends this, I do not believe. And so the crime itself is perpetrated by others.

These others are collectively personified in a figure of my own invention, a figment of my imagination. I shall call him The Grenz. And though he bears a family resemblance to Stanley Grenz, unlike Stanley Grenz, The Grenz surreptitiously goes about seeking to rob Christianity of its glory. From the incarnation of Jesus Christ to the atonement and the hope of everlasting life, there is no truth of the matter, and therefore nothing that one could know and could be justified believing. There is only a world conjured by the person who fancies himself a true believer. The story I have to tell is in effect a story of how The Grenz stole Christmas.

I think this is excellent. I share the 'fear' of many that emergents have opened a dangerous door and that they are using language that when heard by an unbeliever, does not compel faith but rather permits unbelief. I think this is bad. But I do not see as so many others seem to see, the outright heresy pronounced on this whole group. The continuance of this charge not only fails to help but reinforces to the emergent the things which really do need to be questioned. The organized church has some serious problems in that it upholds its traditions and extra-biblical truths as equal to the Word of God and are absolutely unwilling to re-evaluate some of that.

I think the emergent camp has much to learn from the Evangelical and some of what they are doing is very scary. On the other hand, the Evangelical sins when they 'beat' the emergent for questioning and accuse them of things they are not guilty of.

I am not a "why can't we all get along guy?" but it seems to me that the emergents are weary of the Evangelical beatings and the Evangelicals are not able to speak or listen in a way that is Christ-like or helpful.

I thought the Patton and Taylor posts were helpful.