Theology for the Masses

In this wildly ambitious work, Moreland seeks to cure Christianity from the malaise that plagues – the death of drama; he is mostly successful, though not for the reasons he would give. Written for a popular audience, the Kingdom Triangle is divided into two sections; the first attempts to show us the “crisis of our age,” attacking Naturalism and Postmodernism as the destroyers of drama. The second part is more hopeful, and is Moreland’s attempt to construct a solution to the problem by means of three foci: knowledge, the soul and supernaturalism. With his insistence upon objectivity and reluctance to engage the best of Christian postmodern thought, readers risk being more entrenched against any other approach to knowledge and theology. However, the other parts of the work shine in comparison. When Moreland is attacking naturalism and working to instill drama he is much more effective. This combination of strengths and weaknesses make this book a minefield for the lay reader. There is much good to be had, but one can easily get the impression that all postmodern and emerging Christians are to just as feared and protected against as the Catholic Church.[1]

Drama for your mamma (and the rest of the Body of Christ)

The chief contribution of this work is Moreland’s drive to instill drama in our lives. Moreland’s use of drama is interesting and is the most important theme in the book. Moreland sets it up as the life full of meaning and purpose contrasting it with the drabness of everyday life. His awareness of the hunger for drama is startling and speaks to a need which likely resonates with much of his readership. Wise are the ways Moreland suggests Christians resurrect drama and acute are the causes he identifies for its crucifixion. He identifies the narcissism, individualism, passivity, and immaturity of the self that our popular culture produces;[2] and advocates the flourishing of the self, which includes the development of self-denial, character, and the spiritual disciplines.

Don’t, Stop, Manifesting the Spirit…

Perhaps the most controversial part of the book for the target audience is Moreland’s insistence that we recover the activity of the Spirit in our daily lives. He calls this “being naturally supernatural”[3] and attacks Cessationists. In great contrast to his dealings with Postmodernist Christians and Catholics, he advocates love and charity towards people on different places on the continuum of the Spirit’s activities.[4] This advice is much needed in the North American Church today. He primarily challenges Cessationists by appealing to personal stories and the numbers of Charismatics in the world. Oddly enough, Moreland does not use Scripture to challenge Cessationists. Given his high view of and condemnations by means of Scripture, one would have expected the same here. Ultimately, his wisdom, gentleness, and honesty are instructive in this section.

I refute him thus!

“I refute him thus!” was Samuel Johnson’s exclamation as he broke his foot upon a rock in an attempt to refute Berkley’s idealism.[5] It is also method of attack Moreland employs in his critiques of Naturalism and Postmodernity.[6] Moreland’s treatment of Postmodernism is the chief disappointment Kingdom Triangle. Moreland, the unapologetic modernist, [7] constructs the frailest version of postmodernism possible for the purposes of rendering asunder with the mighty blows of the three-sentence-proof. Moreland goes so far as to dismiss and critique of his characterization of postmodernism by saying: “For one thing, my description of postmodernism is an accurate account that fairly captures and understanding of postmodernism … [so] I can hardly be accused of offering a caricature of the movement.”[8] This rather grumpy, defensive, and dismissive tone is found throughout his discussion of Naturalism, Postmodernism, and Knowledge. Moreland unfortunately, for one of Evangelical Christianity’s most highly regarded philosophers, reduces all of postmodernity into a “synonym for deconstructive relativism.”[9] Too often Moreland attacks his constructed postmodernism[10] with simplistic proofs which bypass the real issues at hand. An excellent example of this is his discussion of objectivity and language.[11]

This seems like a rhetorical strategy to appeal to the value of common sense and anti-intellectualism of his intended audience. This, combined with a lack of real engagement of the best of Christina postmodern theory will hinder the intellectual development of his readers in the wake of Modernity’s decline. It reeks of entrenchment rather than engagement.

The Gentle Curmudgeon

One final criticism of Kingdom Triangle is the bipolar writing style that Moreland employs. When attacking Naturalism and Postmodernism and constructing a theory of knowledge, Moreland writes in a grouchy, dismissive, and immature tone. He repeatedly deems things “sad” and uses brute force to argue his claims (see his listing to all the verse in the Bible that contain the word knowledge).[12] This is contrasted with the genuine love and concern from which he writes his other chapters.

Conclusion

Ultimately this book is a mix of the best and worst from Moreland. Moreland argues for the best possible modernist/foundationalist Christianity, and attacks the worst postmodern secularism, which he ties to all Christian postmodern thought. However, With the exception of the chapter on Knowledge, Christians would be wise to heed his words concerning the resurrection of drama. I would modify Moreland’s argument (that Naturalism and Postmodernism have caused the death of drama) to the Church’s acceptance of Modernism and lack of a response to its death have caused and sustained the death of drama. It is a shame this was not a two-volume work.

Notes:

[1] Moreland is deeply skeptical in this work about the orthodoxy of the Catholic Church , warning evangelical Christians to steer clear of their spiritual development classes (p.159).

[2] Moreland, Kingdom Triangle, 142-145.

[3] Ibid., 182.

[4] Ibid., 178-179.

[5] For more on this, see Dinesh D’Souza, What’s so great about Christianity (Regnery Publishing, 2007), 171.

[6] While Moreland and I agree on the perils of Naturalism, Moreland has a too narrow of a definition of postmodernism, see notes 12 and 13.

[7] See his infatuation with the self and objectivity, and unquestionable support of the correspondence theory of truth in Moreland, Kingdom Triangle, 78-88. and dismissal of critiques of modernity, such as the role of language creating worlds rather than nakedly describing them in Ibid., 85, 87.

[8] Ibid., 87.

[9] Franke, Character of Theology, The, 21.

[10] It is difficult to construct a positive definition of the varied modes of postmodernist theory. I follow Franke in maintaining that Postmodernism is best defined minimally as the critique of Modernity which requires “radical surgery.” See Ibid.

[11] Compare Moreland, Kingdom Triangle, 86. with Stanley J. Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996), sec. The Problem of Language.

[12] Moreland, Kingdom Triangle, 114-120. Moreland opts for the brute-force technique for arguing that our knowledge must be certain (by his criteria and his criteria only, which happens to be foundationalist in nature).

A few days ago, I posted a picture which I thought demonstrated the relationship between Modernism, Foundationalism, Fundamentalism, and Christianity.  I’d like to clarify what I am talking about there, here.

By Modernism, I mean the paradigm(s) of thought which owe their intellectual roots in the Enlightenment.  Essential traits of Modernism are as follows:

1. The elevation of reason as the ultimate standard.
2. The elevation of science as the ultimate measure truth.
3. The elevation of the observable as the only source of evidence.

A lot more could be said here, but those are the features I want to highlight.

Foundationalism is a modernistic epistemological framework which attempts to build a solid foundation of undeniable and fully provable (often by the criteria listed above) truth propositions upon which all other forms of knowledge are built.

Many, if not most, evangelical groups subscribe to a Foundationalist framework for building knowledge.  They all assert the absolute truth of the Bible, but, because of their unnoticed acceptance of the modernist and foundationalist framework, they  feel as though they must prove beyond a shadow of a doubt the foundation that is the Bible.  Once this is proved, then and only then can they proceed to demonstrate how the next piece of theology can be added upon the firm foundation that is the Bible.  Once added, then they can logically and rationally add the next brick. 

And so on.

And so on. 

After a while, you can build a nice systematic theology which is rigid and impenetrable.

…

Unless one of the bricks falls out.

Now you have a hole in your wall.  The bricks above now come a tumbling.  Suddenly, most of your wall has fallen down and you are standing there looking a fool holding a bunch of spiritual propositions (or laws).

You are very invested in making sure not a single brick ever moves.

After all, you have constructed theology.  Nay, you have constructed The Theology.  The truth.  It has set you free (to play within its walls, of course). 

…

Unless one of your scientific premises about the Bible, its accuracy (as you conceive it) and historicity (as you want it to be) is proven wrong by science, history, or any other endeavor.  Once you have proven the Bible, it and everything you build upon it suffers the same fear as one of the above bricks.

You see, the Bible is not prime in your endeavor, the scientific demonstration of the Bible’s authenticity is prime.

Because Foundationalists have capitulated to Modernism’s demands of knowledge and truth, we find ourselves arguing that the world is really a few thousand years old. 

We need to move beyond Foundationalism, beyond Modernism.

We need to grasp the edges of the scientific/historical/literary/modernist/foundationalist tablecloth and yank it out from under the Bible.

When we do, we will find that the Spirit of the Living God does just fine on his own.  Instead of needing justified, he justifies.  Instead of being an objective (i.e. scientific) description of reality/history/science, we find that the Spirit speaking through the Bible is the most objective thing in the universe because it describes the world as God wills it to be.

The scary thing is that we have to leave modernism behind.  Any such task is fought with fear because this necessarily means that we have to be postmodern.

This is not as scary as it seems on the surface or in Christian chain-emails.  In fact, though the road is dangerous, steep, and rocky, it allows us so much more.

… and Postmodernism did not give us relativism.  Modernism did.

But I’ll get to that in the next post.

Upcoming: How a post-modern framework might help us in our construction of Theology.  How Foundationalists often mistake the bricks for the foundation.

The other day I was speaking with a friend about the pessimism of our generation, how our Hermeneutic of Suspicion has so permeated every part of our lives that we are (at least I am) too skeptical even for the Holy Spirit. In an age when politicians have bombarded us with promises un-kept, when our preachers of holiness have had extra-marital lovers, and when our God seems increasingly distant, we do not feel we can trust anyone, especially the subjective “inner witness of the Spirit” which cannot be measured or counted by any kind of empirical method I know of.

Even we Postmodern’s who think truth transcends empirical verification struggle to discern the work of the Spirit precisely because we have no way of gauging it. We recognize, hopefully, that there are times when it seems the Spirit is leading us to do one thing, but then when all the chips fall we see that we regrettably misunderstood. Any college student who’s ever used the line “God is telling me to break-up with you” after previously saying “I think it is God’s will that we date” can testify to what this failure to discern looks like. But what are we supposed to do about this?

Paul tells us that if anyone has the Spirit of Christ then he belongs to Christ. But how do I know that I have the Spirit of Christ? He answers that we know this because the Spirit bears witness with our Spirit that we belong to God. But how is this witness sensed? Does this witness look the same for every person? What about when I don’t feel the witness of the Spirit or discern it in any way?

You see, I have trouble with this kind of reasoning – if feel that, in some way, Paul is leaving me to my subjective whims. One minute I may see the fingerprints of God on everything in my life, sensing the Holy Spirit in every footstep I take and every choice I make. The next minute (and this is far more prevalent), I feel abandoned, completely forsaken by any divine testimony, cold and wintry, alone. In fact, if I’m completely honest with you, often (especially recently) when I discern the work of the Spirit in my life, it seems like God is more of a Cosmic Sadist than a Lover wooing me to drink deeply of His Being.

In other words, there’s no consistency here. I have no objective means by which I can discern the witness of the Spirit from heart burn, upset stomach, indigestion, or….well, you get it. In the end, I lack the ability to empirically verify the work of the Spirit, and that’s the only way I know how to sense anything.

But even if I were able to discern the work of the Spirit through verifiable means – I surely couldn’t trust the statistics, could I? Often in our churches we have replaced genuine Holy Spirit movement with static’s about how many have attended or been baptized. Indeed, one clear sign that this isn’t a genuine witness of the Spirit’s presence is that, at least in my Southern Baptist circles, we have tended to lie about our numbers. So, empirical verification is out the window – too easily manipulated by our false-selves.

When we return to the subjective elements of this discussion, though, my skepticism goes deeper still. I wonder if maybe I don’t even want any kind of assurance or subjective witness of the Spirit. That is, when I look around at the comfortable Christianity lacing our pews, eating the greasy sermonic foods of pop-psychology and easy-believism I can’t help but wonder if inner witness and assurance make us fat. Maybe it is better that I never feel I am completely in the arms of God – for then, at least, I know I must continue to press toward the mark of attaining the resurrection of the dead. At least then I know I can’t sit comfortably in my pew assuming God is for me and not against me. Indeed, at least I cannot mistake false-assurance or false-witness for the real thing.

Interestingly, I hear people say things like, “God told me…” and I, sometimes, believe they are telling the truth. They are generally people I trust, who I know have a good relationship with God, so I have no reason to be critical of such a statement coming from them. But I wonder why there are so few times, if any at all, in my life when this has happened to me? Do I not read my Bible enough, fellowship enough, attend enough church activities, pray enough? Maybe I’m just not spiritual enough. Maybe I’m still fettered by Enlightenment rationalism and anti-experience. I just want God to tell me something – anything, that I can take and say, “Yeah, that was the witness of the Spirit, that was God telling me….” Unfortunately most of the time I feel He’s an Absentee Landlord.

I truly wish things weren’t this way. I wish I could write a much more positive and enlightening treatise on the Holy Spirit. Hopefully one day I will be able to. But for now – I can neither trust empirical evidence of the Holy Spirit’s work, nor my subjective whims which may be the by-product of having eaten at Taco Bell 2 hours ago. I think I’m just too skeptical for the Holy Spirit – and this scares me.

Currently, I am reading more of Alvin Plantinga’s Warranted Christian Belief. In part 4 of his book, Plantinga considers possible defeaters to basic Christian beliefs, including historical criticism, postmodernism, pluarism, and atheological arguments concerning suffering and evil. (The formal definition of a defeater is rather abstruse, but a rough-and-ready definition for a defeater could be: D is a defeater for S’ belief that P just in case S is warranted in believing D and S’ belief in D forces S to give up believing P). Plantinga first he gives to be, what I think, a very good and cogent definition of postmodernism. Of course, this definition of postmodernism is not to be taken exhaustively, nor should the conjuction of each of these veiws provide a necessary condition for being a postmodern, although many of these views taken singularly could be called “dogma” in the postmodern community. On pages 422-423, Plantinga states that postmodernism propones:

1. A rejection of classical foundationalism.
2. The declaration that there are no foundations of any sort (classical or otherwise).
3. The claim that there is no such thing as objectivity (and its a good thing too).
4. Deconstruction.
5. The claim tat there is no such thing as truth (or that if there is, it is something totally different from what we thought).
6. The claim that truths are made, not discovered.
7. The claim there are not any objective normative standards and that we somewhoe make whatever standards there are.
8. The claim that all that really matters is power.
9. An opposition to metanarratives.
10. Insistence that God is dead.
11. A sort of exultation or apotheosis of autonomy, so that one feels guilty for not having created the world (cf. Heidegger).
12. A general self-deification and the rejection of all things bourgeois.
13. An idea of historcism, the idea that our historical and cultural setting determines what we think, so that we cannot but think what we do think.

What do you guys think? Is this a fair assessment of postmodernism? If not, why? If so, can we as Christians truly hold to each of these while retaining our core Christian beliefs? If we are warranted in believing these views (i.e. if it is rational for us to believe these views), does that serve as a defeater for Christianity?

Something I typed up a few months ago and forgot to post. Enjoy:

While perusing a Southern Baptist weekly  newspaper, I noticed an article praising a pack of SBCers in South Dakota for their gospel witness to the motorcyclists attending the annual Sturgis bike rally.

The article applauded the group, not for its strong testimony accomplished through service and Christ-likeness, but for establishing their witness by dangling a free Harley Davidson before the bikers.

The group spent the entire year accruing enough funds to procure a brand new Harley to give away at the rally. Their deal: if you listen to our 3 minute gospel presentation, we will permit you to place your name in this drawing for the free motorbike.

Apparently, over 2,000 bikers heard their propaganda, and supposedly some 700 of them “professed faith” (who knows how many of these professions were made by sober people).
Is this what our gospel has been reduced to? A 3 minute presentation propped up by a symbol of American materialism? Have we really cheapened our gospel that much?

No longer is Jesus attractive by merit of His cross and resurrection, we must now try to sell him to unbelievers. No longer does the grace of God stand on its own, it must now be buttressed by Harley Davidson. No longer does Christianity speak against the trends of this world, but now we join in on the trends for our gospel to have relevance. No longer must one understand the narrative of salvation history in order to comprehend the cross, she merely needs to accept a gospel which can be proclaimed in the time it takes to pop popcorn in a microwave.

It took God a few thousand pages to proclaim his great message of salvation and we think we can reduce it to 3 minutes! Our cheap grace, shallow, manipulative gospel has produced generations of cheap grace, shallow, manipulative Christians. A cheap grace gospel is no gospel at all, and it is certainly not a gospel that should praised in a Christian newspaper. The goodness of God, not Harley Davidson, leads people to repentance.

**I think I’m particularly frustrated by this stupidity this week because the sermon I heard on Sunday was a ‘Salvation’ message with no cross, no resurrection, and no involvment of the intellect.

Discuss. What are you impressions about this patient and the chaplain sent to console him in his dying hour? I can’t help but think that there is something to what this patient was getting at. Postmodern “spirituality” and the weak Christianity we see (I am thinking of the Unitarian Universalist I saw with Honzo JR) doesn’t help when it comes down to it and a person needs to know that there is something on the other side and how to deal with their guilt that they have. I think this man points out that our souls cry out to know a transcendent God who is just and righteous as well as loving and forgiving. What do you guys think about this clip? I leave this open to where ever it takes us. It should be fun.

(H/T: Contemporary Calvinist)

Sorry Cheepham, I forgot that you can’t watch videos on youtube. Is there another site you can watch this clip that I can find for you?

What is one “truth” that is not a) contextual, or b) discovered/conditioned through experience inside a particular culture?

For those of you that give an unconditioned, unexperienced, and uncontextual truth, how did you come to know/realize/prove the truth outside of your cultural understanding?

Conversely, does the mere fact of a truth being conditioned, contextual, or experienced negate the truth; if so, how?

In order to continue this post series, I find that it is necessary to stop for a moment to talk about what I mean by Postmodernity. It is a slippery concept, one that is often misunderstood and vilified to the point that most people do not know what in the world it really is. [1] I can say this for certain, because I have and do both. After years of trying to first vilify and then trying to understand what exactly this postmodernity stuff is all about, this is what I have come to and how I have come to use the term in my writing.

In the most basic sense of the term, postmodernity is the system of thought, the way of constructing the world, that succeeds modernism. Remember, modernism demanded from its adherents that there be one final and comprehensive way of viewing and constructing the world to which everyone must adhere. When this cracks, multiple ways of viewing and constructing the world emerge from its ashes, thus Postmodernism is the sum of the systems of viewing the world that emerge after the cracking of modernisms hegemony. Not only is postmodernism the sum of the systems, it is also the collection of the ways in which people deal with the emergence of a plethora of acknowledged (after all, there have been these competing systems forever, postmodernism merely gives them a voice, rather than dismissing them after the first discrepancy) of systems as they interact with one another.

A Series of Cities, each with a Hill to Shine From

Think about a set of cities that all are controlled by a central capital. The central city administers and controls all functions of daily life not only for the cities, but for the people within the cities. This is modernism. Now imagine that all of the cities throw off the rule of the central city and rule themselves. This is postmodernism.

No longer does one ask what the central authority says must be done, must be followed, must be thought and impose it on the lives of Others. Instead there is an acknowledgment of a basic fact of existence – that each city sees the world in a different way. To force [2] [3] them to be like Us is an act of tyranny of the central authority on the lives of Others. Remember, there are some things in this world that are not verifiable. I know math, I know how many apples are in my fridge. However, I can’t show that God exists objectively, I can’t demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that my version of Jesus existed in history without making leaps of faith.

Replacing the above are questions about competing narratives. [4] You are now free to choose the city you live in. Will I move to the Mormon city or the Baptist city? I dunno, what is their narrative like? Does it make sense? These are the sorts of questions that are asked. The cities’ narratives compete with one another for the membership of the citizens of the state.

The Denial of Truth?

Is there a denial of truth here? Not at all! That is the central conservative critique of postmodernism, is it not? Isn’t there one way that things actually are? Is there not one and only one reality? I think that there is. I don’t think that there is a necessary denial of truth in postmodernism, at least the way I use the term. [5] Instead, there is a shifting of the questions that are being asked.

This is where the idea that all postmoderns deny truth comes from. When you are talking about the collection of cities and are wanting to talk about their truth claims, you can only talk semi-objectively about what each city thinks the truth is, not about if each city actually has the truth. Once you start doing that, then you are really speaking about the set of truth claims that the city that you are in proposes. Note that all of this is independent of the actual “truth” that is out there. [6] Any time that someone says anything, they are saying it from their position in time, space, culture, and community. Objectivity, as a concept, is dead.

The Payoff

I see postmodernity, not as a vile beast that threatens the Kingdom of God (or the Realm of the Child of True Humanity lol), but as a better way of viewing the world and its communities, [7] something that allows me to disagree with these other communities without writing them off as useless. Postmodernity allows me to love them as fellow images of God, the whole while without abandoning the tenets of my religion as it has been revealed to me by God.

Now, a great many people have defined and used postmodernism in a great many ways. It is a malleable concept, one constructed by people for their uses. I am sure some of you consider yourself postmodernist and would describe it in different terms; others might point to other postmoderns and their absolute denial of truth to refute the above – just remember that not all elements of this set are the same.

Finally, the way I am using this term, there is no “Philosophy of Despair,” as Travis so polemically put it, to call it such is to demonstrate one’s misunderstanding of it.

I’ll try to address the what narratives are and why they are so important in my next post.

1. to think of something similar, consider the idea of America. Now think of the nastiest thing that America’s opponents say about it, that we are violent, that we only care about material possessions, etc. Now, these things are true of America and not true of America at the same time, that is, they are true for segments of the population and not true for other segments of the population. Thus, postmodernity, like America is an accurate, but imprecise term [↩]
2. i.e. write them off as useless, invaluable on the sole basis of their not sharing our worldview [↩]
3. through active or passive cohesion [↩]
4. By narrative, I mean their story of life – a collection of their worldview, their sacred texts, their stories that give their lives meaning, their practices and pastimes [↩]
5. which is not to say that other people configure postmodernism and construct a narrative that denies absolute truth I am saying that I can use the category of postmodernism in a way that is consistent with what is revealed to us in the Bible [↩]
6. By this, I mean how existence actually is [↩]
7. from a descriptive, not a prescriptive standpoint [↩]

A while ago, I was asked why exactly I believe. I have been pondering this the last few days and I think I can give a semi-intelligible answer. If you had asked me this a few years ago, I would have given my best modernist response. You all know how it goes, right? First, you begin with logical proofs of God’s existence. I would have gone all ontological, teleological, and even cosmological on them.

After establishing the claim that a God exists, I would have moved on to which God exists. I would have pulled out my McDowell’s. You, know, present all the evidence for biblical prophecies coming true, see the prophecy about the city of Tyre, prophecies about Jesus, historical/textual evidence for Jesus’ life, all the standard apologetic answers.

So, after establishing the existence of God and that her revelation to us is the Bible, I would then open the old girl up and start to point out what I believe. After this 30 minute process I would then gladly accept the person to whom I was speaking’s conversion and salvation. Another person checked off the rolls of hell.  Right?

No. The person would/should not have believed me. After all, for each claim that I made with evidence, they could/should have presented countering claims to the existence of God, to the authority of the Bible, and to the person/history/nature of Jesus. I could present my claims and they present theirs. Both of us would have left convinced the other was wrong. I can go into the specifics of the various arguments if needed, but my point stands without them.

In addition, if I would ever stop to listen to the other’s claims, I would more than likely leave the conversation with my faith shattered. Why? Because my faith (as was every idea) was predicated on modernist understandings of verifiable truth claims. That is, the only thing my modernist brain was wired to accept as fact was truth claims that could be scientifically verified. I naturally assumed, from a position of faith, that my claims were so. However, (switching to real life, instead of hypothetical’s) when I started to truly evaluate those claims, I found that they indeed were not as verifiable as I had thought them to be. Each of the logical proofs of God has their problems. The Gospels are not histories as we think of histories. The list goes on and on.

What then? My modernist categories through which I have been trained to view the world demand I abandon these unverifiable truth claims. However, if I were being honest with myself, I really could not bring myself to accept the opposite position either, because it too could not be scientifically verified. How do you test for God? What is your control? The essential questions of religion lay outside the realm of science, which can only access observable and testable data. The modernist categories are simply not adequate for evaluating the claims of religion.

For instance, while the Gospels cannot prove who Jesus was, there was also no way to disprove their claims as well. We simply do not have access to that type of information, given the sources available to us. I found that just about everywhere I looked into my religious beliefs, they were not able to be verified (or denied) through this modernist method of verification. I could speak in terms of probabilities, but never in certain terms. As an honest (as honest I could be) modernist, I found myself at an impasse. Given that the modernist categories are inadequate, one needs to find new categories, post-modern categories, through which one can evaluate the claims of Christianity. Doing so eliminates the need for badly researched pop-apologetics and theologies and opens the door for deeper inquiry.

So what then? Enter experience, community, and relationship, stage right. These will be the subjects of part 2.

Is there any reason to not watch this movie?

What should be our standard with movies (culture)?

One of my recent purchases from iTunes was How great is our God by Chris Tomlin. The song has a great little melody and simple lyrics but the end product is an addictive anthem.

The song is one of my favorites because it projects the truth of our days. People are confused. They are lonely. They are tired. They want meaning. They want better lives. They want happiness. They really want assurance of the things not seen. Yet, they reject the good news of Jesus. They mock him. They cheapen his gospel. They ridicule him in their arts, their comedies, and their books.

Yet – how great is our God that – in the midst of all this hatred – that he still abides by his promise – that no one should perish.

Consider this YouTube video in which a Jesus character is paraded on Hollywood Boulevard. Should we laugh along? Should we boycott? Or should we sing together: How Great is Our God?

[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=WLKk00OYKhU]

Some thinkers state that when we can classify and name it; that means we moved past it. So are we past Post-Modernism? If so, where are we and what do you call it?