postmodernism

I've not blogged much recently and there's a very good reason for that, blogging is a great distraction from doing real work. I always seem to think that I'll just put something down quickly and an hour later I'm still composing (what I think is) the most exquisite post ever. Unfortunately I've got lots of work to do and deadlines looming large over me so I've been trying to avoid actually writing anything that might take up too much time.

I think I might have time for a little thinking about postmodernism though, and it'll help me with my work cause I've got to include my thoughts on it in my thesis (because a lot of people who write about emerging church mention it as a contributing factor).

I'd rather not mention it at all but I feel I should because too much talk of postmodernism is misleading. In fact, I think a lot of the talk about postmodernism by christian leaders and authors is wasted and they'd be better off talking about culture in other terms.

I don't think I understand what postmodernism is, that's not because I've not understood the 'what is postmdernism' chapters in all those christian books that promise to have the answer to what the church of the future will look like, but because I've not read or engaged with Lyotard, Foucalt or Derrida. I have no idea what they actually said, only the popular interpretation that is doing the rounds in christian circles - use pictures cause postmodern generations are media-saturated, short attention span, samplers of culture; don't say you have the truth, they/we think there is no truth; no to authority; no to science; no to religion, (but yes to spirituality); lets deconstruct everything and revel in the inconsistencies and fragments. So please excuse me if I've mis-represented postmodernism at all, I think that probably is the case, but that's the understanding of postmodernism as presented to many christians.

I'm not going to say those things are wrong, but they don't give a full picture of society as I see it. For example, take that short attention span and love of pictures and images that postmoderns are supposed to have, if that was true then we'd all be watching 10 minute silent films and nothing more! Nobody would be reading all those harry potter books that are so popular, nobody would be writing or reading blogs. And what about that rejection of modern enlightenment thought - universities are still churning out scientists and doctors, people still choose to study and practice engineering and computing. The science machine is still rumbling on, pushing development in all areas - can we really afford to ignore that?

I recently took part in a seminar where we were discussing different personality types. I looked at different figures in church history and saw how people had met God in different ways. My co-host did something about personality typing based on the myers briggs indicators and that really made me think about who we are as a people. We are diverse, we think differently.

Myers briggs just gives categories of personality that people can identify with, but people in different categories will react differently to things - some like to see the big picture (relate well to metanarratives? not very postmodern!) and others like to get lost in the details (I can see that in postmodernism as I understand it). Some think in logical structured ways, others like to explore a problem from many different angles. Some people need structure, others like imagery. Some need facts, others need experience.

My own wee theory about postmodernism is not that it doesn't exist, but that what we see as a postmodern change in society is actually all those people who repond to imagery, story and experience standing up and saying - actually, my needs are important too. To understand and connect with people, we need both sides of the story, we need emotion as well as knowledge, we need to understand that other people know different, contradictory 'truths' to us and be gentle in our assertions of truth.

The Church can't continue to blame postmodernism for all its problems. Even people who need facts and knowledge need to have them presented in an engaging way. Even people who like listening to sermons need to have good sermons to listen to - don't blame people's short attention span if they can't listen to you ramble on, if they're not listening it's probably more likely that you're being boring!

Having said that, I realise that I'm being really boring so I'll sign off now and do something more important, I've got a thesis to finish for tomorrow!