Postmodernism

Last Wed(8th Oct 08’) in CF meeting, we have invited Sis. Swee Kit from FES to talk on the topic “Hidden Crisis and Influence of Postmodernism in Our Churches Nowadays”.

The whole idea was centred on the word “Postmodernism” or in layman’s term “world view” which is some thing that we all who lived on earth can’t escape. To understand what is this all about, we first must know the history of how human view on earth have change and from it, to know how we come to be at this stage that we call “Post-modern period”

In human history, human has gone through 3 major world view shift (changers) that is, Pre- modern, modern, and post modern. As show below’s illustration (taken from the book "The Emerging Church" by Dan Kimball):

As a reaction to modern view point where God has been marginalise and we celebrate self centeredness. Thus through this human’s will power many scientific discovery were made and the human race progressed. But from this Nazism, communism and other such grew and cause wars due to the different political view point and social style. It is a reaction to human misery that we face.

Also note that we are now in the beginning of a new era where Postmodernism is starting to grow. As surely we can’t escape it, it brings opportunities and fear at the same time. Fear as we no one know where this might lead us to. Will we able to work together to be like those people in Star Trek to reach the starts (where money is no value and community live together) or are we to burn ourselves down and wage war like Star Wars? No one knows.

But there are great opportunities for us all as we are able to shape and to determine what Postmodernism is as we are at the beginning where it is still forming. It’s an exciting time when we view it as such. This is because there is a great openness as we are all living in an EPIC culture.

EPIC stands for

• Experiential ~ immersion living (not to just see, hear, touch but to “feel”)
  
• Participatory ~ content providers (look at the emerging TV show such as Malaysia Idol which wants you to vote your winner and this kind of show are a hit!)
  
• Image-driven ~ story and metaphor (people are reading less)
  
• Connected ~ individuals in community (staying and longing to be connected as such on the internet)

How do we apply this on our CF and our church?

Let’s welcome it and let’s go back to the past where prayers and symbols may help to bring more people to the church. Such as when the churches were formed, where people live as one and people are willing to sell their properties to help others.

Hope you will find more as you google "Postmodernism".