Thursday, December 20, 2007

What is a post-modern Christian?

I am occupied at the moment with trying to understand what it means to be a post-modern Christian. This is how I see things at present:

* "Modern" Christians are those who believe there is a truth and I/they/it know it. Modern Christians come in at least two flavours: liberals and conservatives/evangelicals. The former believe that science, logic, and reasoning lead to truth. Thus theology needs to be refined on the basis of these and anything that does not agree with these is to be discarded. Conservatives/evangelicals believe the bible contains the truth and so everything, including science, must be interpreted in the context of the bible.

* "Postmodern" Christians are those who believe there is no truth or, alternatively, that truth is relative. The experiences and history of an individual define what is true for that individual. What is true for one person may not be true for another.

The "postmodern" approach appears to be in the ascendancy at the moment. The modern approach is identified as the root cause of the current division in the church. Each "faction" has its own source of truth, leading to different conclusions, bitter debates, and struggle for dominance. The postmodern approach appears to solve these debates by refusing to accept the existence of truth. Each person can believe their own thing. Thus we can be united in our goal of following Christ, regardless of the fact we have different understandings about what "following Christ" means.

The problem for me is: I don't see how a group of post-modern Christians, with diverse perspectives, can ever make a communal decision? Individual decisions are OK. Each person can choose their own way. While others may not like the decision, because it doesn't affect them, they can let it go. However, once the decision becomes communal, that is, the decision will affect all people in the group, there will be different suggested courses of action, based on each person's perspective. The lack of any objective truth, then makes it impossible to choose between the options as each is equally valid.

I use the term "progressive" to describe my own approach to Christianity. I think the "liberal modern" approach is good because (philosophical discussions about the scientific method aside) science, logic, and reason give us a solid base. I think Christianity must be informed by these. However, since God is outside the realm of science, that is, God cannot be proved or disproved using the scientific method, there is clearly room for "mystery" or "unknown" in our faith. So individual experience, story, and myth must also be considered.

In decision making, this view allows decisions to be made, as subjective experiences can be "weighted" by human knowledge, to suggest the better course of action. The inclusion of different experiences prevents a blind acceptance of what we "know" and keeps us aware of the need to re-evaluate as knowledge grows and experience change.

At the end of this, I now wonder whether "progressives" are just postmodern liberals?