These changes are significant for believers and whether you identify yourself as a postmodern thinker or not, the postmodern world affects all of us. The contemporary believer is in a shift from a faith which had become too influenced by modern thinking, namely productivity, to faith that is influenced by postmodern thinking. One is not better than the other by itself, but an understanding of both philosophically and personally is required if you desire to mature in your faith. When discussing Sin Management, Dallas Willard writes, “What right and left have in common is that neither group lays down a coherent framework of knowledge and practical direction adequate to personal transformation towards the abundance and obedience emphasized in the New Testament, with a corresponding redemption of ordinary life.” Regardless of how postmodern a church thinks it is, the modern trapping of productivity defines how contemporary Christians pursue discipleship. The approach is simple: if you do your part, then God will do His. However, the gospel of Christ is about freedom. We experience Christ and are faithful to Him simply for the sake of being intimate with our Heavenly Father.
Being Near To God
I make this so clear because as I struggled with the faith issues I have struggled with for the past ten years, I found myself doing everything but strive to be nearer to God. I searched in philosophy and theology for the answers to my questions. I sought out answers in church and in anti-church environments. I evaluated everything about Christianity I could. But the one thing I didn’t do was seek to be nearer to God. Perhaps that is because I was relying too much on my own efforts or because I feared such intimacy. There are many factors which played into why I avoided the one thing I needed to do, but ultimately I discovered if you want to know truth mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, you have to sacrifice your own fears and agendas and allow God to come near to you. The philosophy of meta-physics teaches us that there are far too many causes on any one effect. Meta-physically, I, like the church, were unable to explore the various causes of a healthy relationship with Christ.
Being religious can be very productive spiritually. There are hundreds of religions out there. Each of them has followers who not only think they are meeting a spiritual need, but actually are meeting a spiritual need. Religion offers answers to difficult life questions. It promotes stability and greater purpose. It provides a community which is supportive and encouraging, and religion makes one think they are truly connecting to something bigger than themselves. These are good things. In fact, a relationship with Christ that is mature should do the same things. It is easy to think if you are practicing religion you are growing in your faith, and in a sense you are. But if your relationship with Christ only produces these things, regardless of how much your belief system believes it isn’t about religion, all you have accomplished is the same thing you would were you serious about any other religious belief system. This is not to say God can’t transcend our religious efforts. I believe God often, if not always, compensates for our religious efforts and offers genuine ministry. I believe He does this for Christians, Jews, and Muslims, however, just because God’s grace is so profound He makes up for our incompetence, it doesn’t mean we are doing what we are called to do in our relationship with Him. Committing to religious dogma isn’t the same thing as sacrificing our flesh, and being passionate about our religious system doesn’t mean we are actively partnering with God in our maturation.
Hopefully this gives you some insight into the cultural influences which have shaped the church over the past few hundred years. Church history, social anthropology, human development models, and more have written volumes of literature about any one of these topics, but I hope that this brief overview helps paint a picture. More specifically, this overview should give you the context needed to understand my journey.
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