Monday, July 13, 2009

postmodern innovators

I am just now re-beginning Michael Wittmer's Don't Stop Believing and immediately I'm loving it. Rather than getting hung up on broad, volatile terms whose definition feel like a moving target, e.g., emergent, Wittmer starts right off with an excellent grid depicting modernity v. post-modernity and conservative v. liberal.

3716992501 0697A1D6F4

Wittmer then gives this timeless warning, the "quest to correct the abuses of previous generations must not lead ... to err on the opposite extreme."

What we seek is Truth and right practice based on that. Wittmer states;

Authentic Christianity demands our head, heart, and hands. Our labor for Christ flows from our love for him, which can arise only when we know and think rightly about him. Genuine Christians never stop serving, because they never stop loving, and they never stop loving, because they never stop believing.

In light of that, Wittmer continues his analysis of today's weltgeist.

It is one thing to jettison a former generation's additions to the Christian tradition; it is quite another to question foundational elements of that tradition. We must do the former to own and embody the gospel for our day. We must avoid the latter, or we will lose the very gospel we are attempting to apply.


More to come later ...

2 comments:

David Rudd said...

i know i should read this myself, but based on the chart you have does mike characterize himself as a "conservative postmodern" or more that he's writing about how to be conservative in a postmodern context?

ricki said...

I'm not sure how he assesses himself but he certainly desires to be Postmodern Conservative and from the way he writes, that's where I would put him.

reftagger