I'm hearing "postmodern" a lot at Newsong these days. Since this is a matter of interest to me, I decided to add my few cents. I'm guessing that what the leaders of our church mean when they use it are the more surface aspects of postmodernism: edgy art, short films, movement away from texts and words to images to convey ideas, sound bites, rock music, ADHD-friendly services (not to knock those with the disorder, I have it myself) and trendy clothes , along with concern for social justice and the marginalized. None of these things in themselves are bad, and they are often pretty useful. So we on the inside can kinda wink at each other when we use the word.

Yet I still wish Newsong wouldn't use the word "postmodern" so much. For people won't know what the leaders mean by it. Do the they really mean that there is no objective meaning to texts, that texts "deconstruct" because their meanings are always deferred to other parts of the language, whose meanings are further deferred, ad infinitum? That meanings of language are merely constructs determined by power structures of society to preserve their power? That we cannot really represent reality in our minds apart from these amorphous texts that have no real meaning? That we ourselves are constructs of language, and of society? That there is no Truth, only truths, which answer only to practical use?  Do leaders at our church really engage in Marxist critiques of capitalism in their deconstructions? Do they believe that there is no metanarrative, that is, grand story from which all else gains its significance?

I seriously doubt that they hold these things, for they (or at least most of them -- Jesus might jive with Marx to some degree) are not compatible with Christianity, which claims, among other things, that we have revelation from God, a huge part of which is, well, text. Text that has accessible eternal truth embedded in it. The Bible claims that we can know the truth. And Christianity insists on a metanarrative, that there is a grand story of which we are all a part. The Word became flesh. The fact that John used the Greek word "logos," there is telling, for it stood for the rational structure of the universe. And Peter asked us to have a rational defense (I Pet 3:15-16), which presumably involves linear arguments that are rejected by postmoderns. 

Granted, the church in the modern era made a lot of mistakes. The White Man did a lot of evil things when it colonialized others, assuming that European ways were the only true ways to do things. And the traditional church in America is embedded with non-biblical ideas centering merely on tradition, jingoism, and racism. And the belief that human beings through the gradual advances of science will be able expand knowledge and solve all the problems of the world is naive. That is, modernism isn't really of God. But neither is postmodernism. If anything, Christianity is "pre-modern." And not everything the White Man did was bad .

When I think about it, it seems that real complaint of postmodernism is that when moderns rejected God, they didn't do so all the way (you can see this especially in Nietzsche and in the writings of Richard Rorty), for they held that there was a still a "God" of sorts, reality, describable by science and rational thought, to which we are subject. The deep insight that postmodernism is supposed to bring is that we are free to get rid of that "God" as well. No gods at all is the goal. This seems to me to be the heart (as opposed to the mind, which was discussed above) of postmodernism, the rejection of authority. Now that God is dead, we really need to bury him. Or better, cremate Him. 

It seems to me that what motivates the use of postmodernism at Newsong is that when the leaders look at secular society they see a cacophony of different things, things that are not always compatible. They see a world that is becoming more and more globalized, through the internet, and other things. And, perhaps, the culture is becoming postmodern (though I have doubts about this myself). But what of it? Must we do what the culture does? Can't we reserve the right to refrain from imitating the world when it doesn't fit with our best understanding of Scripture? And I'll bet that some people out there are looking for a break from it, and that they'll be disappointed if they enter the church and find the same thing!

I suggest that we avoid using "postmodernism," and avoid trying to fit our ministry within any framework like it. Let's just do what is right. 

These are my two cents. I'm no expert on postmodernism (I'm mostly associating it here with post-structuralism (Derrida) and pragmatism (Rorty), two movements that are big parts of postmodernism), though I've read a little about it, and encountered it in grad school and other places. I'm sure there are others with more familiarity at Newsong. I'd be interested in hearing their take on it. 

One last thing, most people in our culture have no idea what postmodernism means. Those that do will mostly likely think of the post-structuralists or pragmatists I discussed earlier. And a few, those associated with the Emergent Church, might understand it in a way that more closely matches how it is used at Newsong. So either people will not know what it means, or they'll misunderstand what it means, or they'll see it as waving the Emergent Church flag. None of these are productive on my view, as even the last outcome tends to divide.  

Mark Sargent