God. Real. Right.

Post-moderns attempt to escape the narrow confines of a culture defined by the Enlightenment. That attempt includes moving from pure individualism to community, from propositional claims to narrative, from strict rationalism to contentment with inconsistency, from truth to authenticity, and from integrity to transparency. Every one of those moves is surrounded by dangerous cliffs overlooking jagged valley floors. But that discussion is for another day.

The point here is that by making those moves, post-moderns also end up embracing a type of community which is organic and emergent rather then artificially planned, engineered, and executed. There is something about post-modernity which expects the unexpected, and does not believe that air-tight solutions really have all the holes sealed up. So natural pressures and and the choices of individuals acting as part of a community within those pressures creatively emerge into solutions unforeseen by those living within strict rationalistic guidelines.

Interestingly, conservatives share exactly the (more…)

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Doug Padgitt is an emergent church and postmodern Christian leader. His congregation is Solomon’s Porch in Minnesota’s Twin Cities. Like most emergent leaders, he sees traditional Christianity as stuck and stifling. Like most emergent leaders, he values narrative over proposition and inclusion over division. He has recently published A Christianity Worth Believing.
There are some good things that come from leaders like Padgitt. For instance, when we see their success connecting to their surrounding communities, we have to re-examine (more…)

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