by Zach Dietrich (really he wrote it, but I had to move it because it was already on the bottom)
A special thanks to Matt and Brian for allowing me the opportunity to muse outloud. I appreciate your insights into contemporay and historic Christianity. Convicting and refreshing. As I read through your past posts I had three thoughts:
1) It is refreshing to find people who, rather than decrying the modern church for its failures, are actively engaging in a "conversation" to better the church they love. To put it another way, my former pastor wrote a paper called Conservative, But Current. I am whole-heartedly conservative, but I'm not sure what that looks like in 2006. I personally don't think that a few traditional institutions in the Southeast have a monoply on conservative Christianity. There's a growing number of people willing to speak up. Let's plow the way for the future.
2) The coming of postmodernism has revealed how deeply Christianity has bitten into the apple of Modernism. We see its effects in nearly every area of the church. However, we have not yet explored how much we are driven by contemporary thought and culture. In other words, even though I believe in absolute truth, etc. postmodernism is alive and well in me. How does it manifest itself in my thinking (Leeriness of labels, love the word "paradigm", addicted to media)? I'll explore this later.
3) As an outflow of 1 and 2, what does this practically look like in the church? Nearly everyone agrees that the modern, "cookie cutter" church is a far cry from the early church, but suggest something different and you'll be lynched. Even so, I think that preaching, biblical authority, conversion/salvation, church government, environmentalism, the government, etc. will be relevant in our circles in the near future. We ought to be prepared.
A year ago I met a Dr. Jack Willsey at NBS. He wrote a paper entitled What's Good about Postmodernism? that has some excellent insights. Your previous posts reminded me of it.
So there's my first post. I'm currently working some practical thoughts from 1 Tim. 4:13.
-ZD
5 comments:
Zach,
Thanks, we look forward to reading your thoughts.
Straight ahead,
Matt
"More and more, theology is properly being recognized as a conversation which is
constantly engaged both with the past and with believers of all cultures."
Jack K. Willsey
Zach & Matt,
Is this a tag-team blog? I'll be stopping by when I can. It seems Faithians are a little slow on the blogfront compared to other schools! My guess is that they're more thoughtful and less trigger-happy. At least the graduates are!
How's it goin', Zach? Did you know willie and lisa just had their second child?
Pardon my density. After further review, I've concluded that this is indeed a group blog! Carry on...
Jesse,
Great to hear from you. No I hadn't heard about about Willie and Lisa. Send me their info some time. zldietrich@gmail.com
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