Leadership Journal

Two weeks ago I had the temerity to publish "A Postmodern Rant," which ignited from readers a burst of rhetorical fireworks stunning in its color and intensity. A glimpse:

Mods on Pomos: "PoMoism is an overblown reaction that has no future because it can't create anything. It is reactionary and empty. It is now primarily the domain of middle-class American university students. As I've traveled and talked with students in Beijing and Sao Paulo and Manila and dozens of other cities on other continents, I've noticed that none of them are interested in postmodernism. Most of the world would love to be modern! Even in America, I've never heard African-Americans or Hispanics getting excited about PoMo ministry."

Pomos on Mods: "Probably the greatest damage the Modern church has created is the Christian subculture that is absolutely maddening. Among its contributions are bumper- sticker theology with such gems as "Get Right … or Get Left." Or how 'bout the CCM industry with its superstars churning out meaningless dribble in a wannabe attempt to imitate secular music? Christian art is oxymoronic at best. Have you been in your local Christian bookstore lately? … Perhaps next month, someone will market a Bible for fat teens who eat too much at McDonald's … Then there is the beatification of the Republican Party. If I were a registered Democrat, I wouldn't be caught dead in most Modern churches. The current model for church leadership is CEO-like rather than Christ-like. I get a kick out of seeing our pastors in district meetings trying to out-PDA one another. Is this the church that is the hope of the world?"

Pomos on Kevin Miller: "What a party pooper. He's like the sulky kid who hates change" and "Deal with it" and "Don't be so pomophobic."

I'll spare you the remaining 16,479 words in the file.

Reading the emails, I realized that when the word "postmodern" is applied to "ministry," it means too many things. Defining two primary meanings will allow me to clarify what I'm for and against.

1. "Postmodern ministry" means a ministry intentionally influenced by postmodern theory.

Briefly stated—though much more could be said—postmodernism, an academic theory popular in literature and philosophy departments over the past 30 years, challenges truth-claims as personally or socially derived. Pomo theory attacks modernism's reliance on so-called objectivity, and more broadly, its overconfidence in reason, its mechanistic approaches, its individualism, its arrogance.

No one wrote me to defend postmodern theory. I don't know why. So in order to clarify my position, I'm left to present the case for postmodern theory as PPMs (proponents of postmodern ministry) I've read have made it:

Case: Postmodern theory levels the playing field. Under modernism, Christianity has been spat upon by the scientists, higher critics, and even co-opted religious leaders, who tried to expunge its superstition from rational discourse and from society. Now our truth-claim ...