For most of my life I've thought of myself as a radical. With my discovery that postmodernity and premodernity fit my perspective more than modernity, and judging by the reaction of some local friends to this part of my journey, I still fit the category.

Then again.. I am hopeful that more will join me. The root of radical is radix, meaning root.. and getting to the root of meaning, the root of culture and the basic realities of the inbreaking reign of God is where I want to be.

But is being radical really so.. well, radical?

And is even deconstruction really all that new? At least in some aspects, I don't think so.

It seems to me that the gospel must always be recontextualized for each generation, and that each generation has to reach back to the roots. Otherwise, the cultural accommodatoins and accretions of centuries eventually bury the message under human detritus.

Way back in the 11th century, after years of walking in the way of Jesus, and deconstructing the lost jewels of the kingdom all around him, Francis of Assisi was on his deathbed. To his brothers he said,

"Let us begin again. For as yet we have done nothing."

Postmodernism is dead?
Really?
I know that in the aesthetics world, postmodern art belongs in the 1980's. Fair enough. We moved from shading and darkness and smudgies (postmodern) to continuity, crisp distinctions and compositions. Very well.
But what about church? I am guessing that most of the people writing these blogs attend or lead churches that are structured with a high modern style, manage them with a top down, hierachical, leadership model, and try to communicate knowledge with a strong enlightenment bias.
At least in the world of ecclesiology, we have a long way to go.
Is it possible that the Americans are coming to the table LATE . . . and then leaving before dessert?
Just thinking out loud.

Reading deepdirt, when I came to the comment about being perceived as the ghost-in-the-machine. I stopped, something about that catalyzed with the emotions/thoughts which resulted in the rant I posted here.

I've been bugged about how hard it can be, to be "emergent" and in relationship with those who don't care at all what Bruggerman or Caputo think.

Something about the language of the postmodern dialog drives a wedge between people who are exploring postmodernity and those who dont' care about it. I'm guessing that the divisive underrcurrent in the terminology of the dialog was probably purposeful and useful on the epistemological battelfields.

In the church, where winning arguments is less important than loving Christ by loving each other, maybe there is another language we could use to talk about these things, a set of nouns and verbs which are less judgemental of what has come before.

Maybe the first thing we need to re-imagine is postmodernity.

-Michael