What is a Postmodern Faith?

In my last post I documented my uncomfortable relationship with modernity's interpretation of Christianity. This discomfort started a number of years ago (7?), but it was not until a year ago that I was able to find words for my feelings and a potential solution to my frustration.

It was largely through my time attending Biblical Theological Seminary that I became aware of a Christianity not tied to foundational thinking. I discovered that I was not alone in my desire for a faith that was post-modernity, there were many people just like me struggling with the same issues. These people, generally identify themselves as "emerging", Christians looking to "emerge" from the constrains of modern ways of thinking into something else.

What is special about these emerging and missional people is that they are united, not around an answer, but around a question. They realize the culture we are in has changed, yet the church has not. Their question then is: "What should we as the church do, how should we react?" Many of the answers the emerging movement has to this question are very different for one other. These people do not have a united response to modernism (only that it is bad), nor do they have a unified response to the postmodern culture we are in.

Through thinkers like John Franke, Jamie Smith, Brian McLaren, and Scot McKnight, and organizations such as Emergent Village I found myself supported and encouraged in my quest for a postmodern faith. It was their collective support that led me to Peter Rollins' How (Not) to Speak of God (NOTE: I am not in love with Rollins, nor do I consider him the be-all-end-all of postmodern Christianity. It is only that through his book all of the stuff I was wrestling with came into focus and made sense.)

In Rollins' book, I did not find concrete answers to the questions I had. I did not find a community into which I could join and identify myself with. What I found was a philosophy, a general outlook on life and faith I could affirm. This philosophy is general, not specific, but what it proposes made great sense to me. Rollins advocates for a faith that understands:

1) concealment as an aspect of revelation
2) God as hyper-present
3) the affirmation of doubt
4) the place of silence
5) religious desire as part of faith
6) Christian discourse as a/theological
7) God-talk as iconic
8) a recognition of journey and becoming
9) truth as a soteriological event
10) orthodoxy as a way of believing in the right way rather than simply right or correct belief.
(for more details, see my first post)

In an attempt to better summarize these ideas, I create three categories into which they fall, and then three general implications these ideas have on a postmodern faith.

1. God's relation to man: ideas 1 and 2
-God is not the object of our thoughts, but rather, he is the “absolute subject before whom we are the object.”

2. Man's relation to God: ideas 3-7
-We must value the known and unknown elements of God, recognizing the need for humility, communicating a humble faith comfortable with uncertainty and subjectivity.

3. Man's response as a result of these relationships: ideas 8-10
-What is truly important is that the Church is the incarnation, not that it has an objectively true understanding of the incarnation.

These three ideas are not gospel to me, but they have become the general structure through which I understand my faith. It was about six months ago these ideas became solidified in my mind, and since then I have been trying to find a community into which these ideals might find a home.

I think I have found that dwelling place, but in the least likely of places...