EVANGELIZING POSTMODERNS
Equality in responsiveness is the goal of much that revolves around dialogue concerning postmodern considerations. Achieving justice and impartiality, satiating grievances for past inequities, placating voices that insist that their causes are unnoticed by the general social structure: all are fields of determinative action in philosophical treatise today. Racism and educational opportunities, as well as cultural relevance, are topics that stir emotional responses between those who have been cast in the traditional role of domination, and minority or disadvantaged people groups. Guilting the empowered into a reasoned discussion that cedes rights and propitious antecedents, at times, is the focal point of linguistic disputations.
Postmodernisms stated value of social responsibility coincides with a need to enact restorative conditions emotionally, and at times, in physiological engagements through the voluntary discharging of power and possession. The troubling factor in this equation is the stark reality of historical illustrations. The postmodern reticence in acknowledging past value is germane to this issue. Ceded power, voluntary or involuntarily given up, does not work communally. Postmodern assumptions of equal opportunity build on the past’s disallusional components of socialism ala modernistic governmental expressions are problematic in its very notions. Educational institutions ease with socialistic values appears to have resurfaced in the community rhetoric of responsibility among many postmodern proponents.
The denial of this connection through the negation of historical veracity is a troubling element of postmodernism. This factor may prove to be a highly effective bridge into the rational epistemological functions of those who seek understanding and the consequential posits of truth that necessarily surface in responsive communication.
The effects of postmodern dialogue of communal responsibility and shared empowerment can equally be seen in the forceful eloquence of those who defend the value of parachurch organizations (Telling the Truth, pp 195-213). Postulations of re-evaluating the function and form of Christianity in community are scrutinized. The argument advanced is one that seeks to represent ministries aimed at institutions of higher education to qualify as churches. The denial of this reality has created moments of tension between those who have been reached through this format, as they would transition from campus life into the more traditional church expressions and denominational affiliations that are available. These advocates for campus ministries purpose seek to advance an idea that states the church of tradition, although archaic and outmoded in ineffectiveness, from their vantage point, needs to accept a model of partnership with these more effective methodologies that have recently emerged. Responsibility here includes sharing power, and more specifically, finances by the dominant model.
It’s an interesting paradox that is presented in this dialogue. There is an eerie echo of postmodern and socialistic cries for shared empowerment between bourgeoisie and proletariat. The difficulties of this conversation are found in the campus advocates and those who espouse racial inequities within church life. Disparaging the institution that supports them and seeking validation from them by those who in turn criticize the church is problematic at best. This conflicting presentation that is sought after creates an imbalance of arrangement, particularly when the weaker seeks to subordinate the power base of the stronger. Unfortunately, history has demonstrated the lack of coherence that exists in this typology of governance. Communistic Eastern Europe and the Soviet Empire validate by tacit witness that those who become empowered can exert that power indiscriminately to the detriment of the communal structure. Absurdity is the net result.
