The word postmodern doesn’t mean anything—yet. It’s a battlefield word, a word that many people with many different viewpoints and agendas are trying to claim as their own. So far, no single meaning has won out. In the meantime, confusion and misunderstanding reigns. I’ve decided not to use the word myself, at least until the smoke clears.

The form of the word invites this treatment. Whatever you think postmodernism means, by default you must agree it suggests simply “what comes after modernism.” Anyone with an interest in seeing the future improve upon the past tends to throw their hopes and fears upon this word. All the discussion about postmodernism is really a discussion about what was wrong with modernism and how to improve upon it.

In recent years there has been an explosion of backlash against modernism. The newer generations are looking at the worldview of their fathers and seeing plenty to improve upon. There is a great deal of talk about how modernism was inadequate and what parts of it should be left behind. But there are as many opinions about what was wrong with modernism as there are people stating opinions. Postmodernism means different things depending on who you talk to and what they believe about the failings of the past and the hopes of the future.

In the church there are those who speak of postmodernism with anticipation and those who speak of it with dread. Postmodernism is often associated with relativism—the idea that each person’s beliefs are “true for them” and no greater truth can or should be imposed. Christians who view postmodernism as a form of relativism quite rightly react against it. On the other hand, postmodernism isn’t necessarily associated with relativism per se. Many Christians use the term postmodernism to celebrate the value of story in communicating truth—a principle embodied in the Bible itself as well as in most peoples’ experiences.

Modernity was weak in this area. Science and intellectual rationalism tended to value abstraction and reductionism, distilling complex experiences into simple descriptions and rules that sometimes lost the essence of the thing being distilled. In light of this, Christians sometimes use the term postmodern to describe a form of community and worship that returns to a more Biblical and Bible-like appreciation for story, profundity, and complexity—for things too deep to be fully understood at first glance or too subtle to be expressed in abbreviated form. These Christians see postmodernism as something refreshing and exciting, not threatening or destructive.

The problem, of course, is that it is seldom clear what meaning of postmodern a writer or speaker has in mind. A speaker intending to excite his audience about new forms of postmodern worship may instead terrify or offend them because they imagine he’s talking about relativistic truth. A speaker advocating the validity of all religions may be accepted by conservatives who imagine he’s talking about new modes of worship. Unfortunately, postmodern is a word that looks like it should be exciting and useful, but it isn’t. Too much resentment about the past and too many hopes for the future have been invested in it without any real consensus on what it should actually mean. It is a word overloaded with both too much emotion and semantics. My suspicion is that it will eventually fall by the wayside, and more useful and specialized terms will take its place.

I take caution when reading about or discussing postmodernism and related ideas such as “emerging church,” “New Reformation,” etc. This is a time when many wolves are in sheep’s clothing and many sheep are in wolves’ clothing. The cross-dressing is usually unintentional, I think. We’re simply living in a time when new species are being bred, and whether an animal is sheep or wolf is not as obvious—to itself or others—as it once was.

Book Reviews: My Faith So Far by Patton Dodd and Under the Overpass by Mike Yankowski

Both of these books are intriguing and well-written. Both are thought provoking. Both were written by young Christian men. Both are personal memoirs. Both struggle with the question of how to be not only a cultural Christian—one living mindlessly by the obligation of social custom within the Christian community—but a true one, and what exactly that means. Despite these similarities, the two books head along different trajectories and end up in very different places.

My Faith So Far recounts the author’s conversion to Christianity and the semi-deterioration of that conversion during his first two years of college. Dodd’s work is enjoyable but excruciatingly awkward. It’s chief virtue is the frankness with which Dodd exposes the skeletons in his spiritual closet. But it is haunted by a spirit of cynicism and doubt that is fully revealed by the book’s end.

In high school Dodd had been non-religious and wayward. He smoked pot, got drunk, made out with girl after girl, and generally got up to no good though never getting into any real trouble. Then a series of events leads him to commit himself to Christ and he enters college full of hunger for prayer, the Bible, Christian music, and church. I found myself envying the account of his early days as a Christian when he is full of enthusiasm, eager to study the Bible, constantly making exciting new discoveries, fully in love with God, and surrounded by like-minded friends. His dedication eventually motivates him to matriculate to Oral Roberts University where he expects to grow by leaps and bounds. But soon he begins to notice cracks in the face he thought was Christianity: difficult Bible passages, oddball Christians, and a supposedly miracle-wielding university president who has all the appearances of being a huckster. Soon, his enthusiasm and faith plummet as the edifice of cultural mores and theological assumptions it is built upon starts to crumble. The books ends there, with his faith still alive but gravely wounded.

It is an interesting read, but the question I am left with is, why did he write it? What did Dodd hope to offer the world in describing his experiment with faith? In some ways it was a dangerous book to write. It is more likely to promote doubt than faith. Those fringe Christians who find it sympathetic and comforting will probably not really be moved forward by it, either toward firm atheism or faith. It is highly critical of Oral Roberts University and says little that is complimentary of Christianity in general. Was he writing it by way of personal therapy, oblivious to its likely effect on others? Or did he think it would somehow aid others in their own quests of faith? Whatever his intent, Dodd has served mainly to muddy the waters and expose Christianity to further poorly-considered skepticism and faith-bashing.

It’s not that I think no one should question Christianity or dare to air out its dirty laundry. You only need read this blog to see that I’m not above either of those activities. The real problem is that Dodd attempts to attach cosmic significance to what is fundamentally a commonplace experience. Dodd’s wild love affair with Christianity is hardly unique in his or any prior generation. Young men having been falling madly in love with Christianity, along with many other things, and later having their dreams and assumptions crushed since time immemorial. That he believes his own experience of obsession and disillusionment worth telling is a mark of his postmodern culture, which holds every story as unique and valuable, celebrates plurality, and embraces confusion. Although there is a great deal of overtone in the book that hints at how the reader should interpret events, there is almost no abstract commentary. This too marks the book as postmodern, where stories are valuable but interpretations elusive and personal. I am sympathetic to many of the impulses of postmodernism, but here I think it has failed us. Dodd’s story is nothing more or less than the story of a young man’s mistake, a mistake that many young men (including me) have made and gotten over. Dodd seems not to have gotten over his mistake, which is a further mistake, and yet he ennobles his folly in a book.

Christian faith, properly considered and carefully founded on experience, reason, history, and Scripture, is nothing like fragile. It is steel-clad and potent, truly mountain-moving. Great men have done great things with that sort of faith for millennia; the world we now inhabit, particularly in the west, is substantially their creation. Faith is not so fickle a thing as young Christians--or older folks who have lost their faith--imagine. The trouble is that people call all sorts of things “faith,” and many of them are other by another name “arrogance.” The true faith that the Bible praises comes only through humility and patience: mainly humility, where it can be shaped by God rather than by the dreams and fears of the recipient.

What Dodd experienced was simply quick, young, fragile faith. He got thoroughly invested before he knew what he was investing in. His faith was formed rapidly, violently, with a great deal of heat and light but without real challenge or exposure to the realities of life. When it was exposed to reality it was shown to be brittle, and so crumbled. In a sense, Dodd in his two years of intense Christianity had not truly discovered faith in God. What he had discovered was faith in faith, and it was his faith in faith that failed him and shattered. Because he thinks he had true faith and it betrayed him, he thinks his story may be useful and important. In reality, he has—or had, as of the time of the events told in the book—never tried real faith, and he has little to contribute on this subject.

Older Christians and Christian leaders would benefit from reading My Faith So Far, not least because it is an enjoyable story, but also because it exposes one of the darker facets of postmodern Christian thinking—one that leads toward crippling skepticism and pluralism. New Christians and those of college age and younger would probably do better to avoid it. Everything the book has to offer you can be summed up here: Don’t mistake Christian emotion, enthusiasm, or friendship for truly knowing and loving God. Allow God to build up your faith at his own pace and in his own way. Let it be his project and he will not let it fail.

Under the Overpass is one of the most riveting books I have ever read. Not since Harry Potter have I found a book so difficult to put down: indeed, I read it in two long sittings. It is the true account of how the author and a friend undertook the project of becoming homeless and living among the down-and-out for almost half a year. They spent this time in five cities, spending about a month in each location before moving on. This progression provides the underlying structure for the book. The story is told in a series of vignettes, each centering on a particular person or event. Virtually all of the vignettes are concluded with a commentary, insight, or homily by the author. These commentaries are clearly designed to make the lessons and message of the book unmistakable. Most of them are wise and moving but some of them feel obligatory: the story would have been stronger without the moral having been made explicit. This, however, is the one fault I found with an otherwise outstanding book.

Yankoski brings you up close to the grime, stench, and suffering of the homeless. It’s a place I knew I needed to go even when I didn’t want to. I have always had an awkward mix of pity, repulsion, and curiosity about the homeless. How many of them are strung out on drugs? How many are insane? How many are dangerous? Should I give money to beggars? How can I effectively help the homeless? Yankoski’s book shines a lot of light on these questions both through his direct experience and personal reflection. Yankoski’s experience of God through those difficult days is also intriguing as he learns to lean on God to meet his needs and struggles to extend grace to the truly depraved.

The message I found most compelling was Yankoski’s warning to the church. He and his friend did encounter a few generous Christians during their time as homeless men, but many of the Christians they met were unhelpful or even hostile. Yankoski and his friend kept the habit of attending church each Sunday. After one service, a few men come over to them to talk and make sure everything is “OK.” Yankoski’s shoes are worn through; he has hurt his foot earlier that morning and a gash on his toe is still seeping blood. Without directly asking for help he makes his plight obvious to the churchmen, binding up his shoe with duct tape while they watch. Do they offer to help him get first aid for his foot or replace his worn shoes? They do not. They wish him well and send him on his way. This is typical of several experiences that Yankoski recalls with sadness and I read with shame.

If you’ve ever felt a hint of compassion for the homeless or wondered how you should help them, you can do no better than to read this book. Christians of any stripe, young and old, will both enjoy it and be challenged by its message.

It is interesting that Under the Overpass, while dealing primarily with action and service—Christianity lived outwards—ends up being far more profound and inwardly transforming than the navel-gazing, inwardly-oriented My Faith So Far. Under the Overpass is driven fundamentally by compassion. My Faith So Far is driven fundamentally by a kind of egotism. My Faith So Far burns out on its own self-obsession, while Under the Overpass soars to great heights of insight and encouragement even while groveling among the filth and despair of homeless America.

If God is forgiving (Neh 9:17), why doesn't he just forgive everyone? Why did he need a sacrifice to compensate for our sins? Aren't atonement and forgiveness in some way opposed?

When the Bible says God is forgiving, does it mean that he is forgiving via the atoning sacrifice of Jesus? Or does it mean that he forgives some sins, but others need atonement? Or does it mean that he forgives any number of individual sins, but generally sinfulness needs atonement to be nullified?

I snapped this picture around Christmas Day in the town where I live. I thought it was pretty funny, in a sad way.

What follows is a personal list of theological questions I feel responsible to pursue answers for through my studies at seminary. Seminary provides a unique opportunity and precious resources to pursue these questions which I should not waste. I started the list toward the end of last semester and plan to continue to maintain it until all the questions have been laid to rest.

I make this list public with some trepidation. In my earlier life, difficult questions such as these haunted my thoughts and dragged me into doubt and depression, but in recent years I've learned to approach even "scary" theological questions with optimism and joy. Others may find these questions distressing; I do not want to lead anyone to despair through them, so please, enter into the discourse rather than bottling up fear and doubt. Some may say that no true Christian could ask these kinds of questions. To that I can only say: Hogwash.

For many of these questions, I already "know" the answer or part of it. That is, I either have an intuition as to what the answer may be, or I know the official "party line" answer. In these cases, the point in asking the question is to develop a solid, complete, reasoned response rather than a flimsy or rote one. The abundance and severity of these questions should not be taken as a measure of faithlessness on my part. I have no doubt in the goodness, love, holiness, and power of God. I ask these questions in a spirit of humility and submission, recognizing that some or all of them may not be answerable by human investigation and that God may not be willing to reveal an answer. When I discover in the course of pursuing a question that no answer can be found, I accept that result with sincere happiness. I've found in the past that even when you discover a question is unanswerable, the "non-answer" itself is usually illuminating and satisfying—as we can observe in the case of Job.

Here is the current list of questions which I feel responsible to seek good answers for as part of my seminary education. I'll continue to update it as answers are found and new questions arise.

• Has the law been abolished or fulfilled (see Matt 5:17, Eph 2:15)? In either case, why should we feel free to eat pork, for instance, and yet still be bound not to drink blood (Acts 15:20)? Isn't there still a kind of "law" or code of conduct in force even for those under Christ? And if not, how should we view Christian morality?

Notes: Paul discusses these issues thoroughly in Romans, Galatians, and elsewhere. Hebrews also deals with them extensively. I've read these books more than once but still don't have a true understanding of the answers.

• What in the world was the point of all that Mosaic Law stuff anyway? The OT goes to great lengths to spell out and celebratethe law, including animal sacrifices and so forth, only to say it's all worthless in the end (Ps 40:6, Hos 6:6, Heb 10). Why go to such lengths over rules that were ultimately abolished? How were the Israelites supposed to understand that the law was really just a "shadow" and that faith was the true way to salvation?

Notes: I understand the dispensational response to this question, that God's institution of the law was a temporary arrangement designed to demonstrate to all mankind that we can never obey God by our own power, even with clear instructions. Paul also says that part of the purpose of the law was to make sure people knew what sin is and experienced the fact that law gives power to sin rather than making it more avoidable, though I don't fully understand his thinking. Also, the sacrifices were symbolic of Christ's ultimate sacrifice, and prepared people to understand what he was going to do—though I can't say I really understand why sacrifice atones for sin, only that it does. Despite these answers, I imagine if I told an Israelite of Joshua's time (for instance) that the Mosaic law would be done away with eventually and would no longer be considered authoritative, he would laugh at me, then stone me. I'd like to have an answer that would make him think twice about doing that, if possible.

• Why do the NT Authors make crazy with OT quotations, modifying them, taking them out of context, stretching their apparent original meaning, etc.? For example, Jesus quotes Isa 6:9-10 in Matt 13:13-15. In the Isaiah passage (NIV), the (spiritual) deafness and blindness of the people is in the imperative (though the NIV text note points out that in the LXX the quote is as Jesus has it). In Jesus' quote the people's situation is described rather than ordained. Has Jesus modified the text, or used an alternative translation as if it were Scriptural? Is it OK for us to do the same?

Notes: Here's a good resource toward this problem: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Pines/7224/Rick/Septuagint/spindex.htm. Offhand, it looks like most of the "making crazy" is actually very subtle, not changing the meaning at all. In many cases, (as in the Matt 13:13-15 case) the difference arises based on whether the NT author used the Masoretic text or the LXX. In some cases, though, the NT authors did paraphrase and mix together their OT quotes to a degree that we would no longer accept. Perhaps we should? Do we learn from their usage that the force of the message is more important than perfect recollection of the text?

• How is it just to torture people in hell for eternity? I can perhaps imagine someone who is really nasty deserving eternal torture—although the older I get, the harder it is for me to feel it—but what about all the "normal" people out there? I know everybody sins, but eternal torture? I don't "feel" the justice of this. It feels unjust to me.

Notes: I recognize, prayerfully, that the real issue here and in the following question is with my own awareness of God's holiness. I know intellectually that God is totally holy and that my own sense of goodness and justice is compromised and degraded. Therefore I ask God to answer this question suspecting that the answer will come in a greater inner awareness of his holiness.

• Related to the question on hell: How is it just for God to have ordered the genocide of the Canaanite nations, including men, women, the aged, and children—"anything that has breath"?
• Christians say that even a little sin means eternal separation from God; we say that every human is born into sin, stained with sin from birth; and yet many of us (Anabaptists, anyway) also believe that children up to some age, level of conscience, or severity of sin are allowed into heaven. How do we reconcile these beliefs? Incidentally, those who practice infant baptism can respond to this question with, "Ah-ha! This is why you need to baptize your babies to ensure they don't go to hell." But now you've got a belief system that says God sends unbaptized babies to hell! I can't imagine believing that.
• Did animals die before Adam sinned? Unless you believe in a literal 7-day creation, you'll have a hard time saying that animals lived forever prior to the Fall. Were there carnivorous animals before Adam sinned? If so, nature was "red in tooth and claw" when the world was still perfect—just as God had ordained it. Predation involves what certainly looks like horror and suffering on the part of prey. We certainly see pain here, and death. How can this be consistent with the idyllic pre-Fall creation we infer from Genesis, or with God's goodness as expressed through creation?

Notes: Interesting discussion on this question at http://www.christian-thinktank.com/predator.html.

• Would hurricanes, earthquakes, and other deadly natural disasters have occurred had the Fall not occurred? If so, can we imagine a "perfect," Garden of Eden-style creation coexisting with such calamities? If not, then how is it that man's sin caused the natural world to deteriorate in this way? We may ask the same question regarding nasty creatures like viruses and poisonous bugs. How did human sin—a relatively abstract thing—cause the world to become such a nasty place on such a grand scale?
• What is Dispensationalism, and why does DTS invest so much of its identity in it? Can a belief arising this late in church history, dealing with concepts so removed from daily Christian living, really be worth any amount of controversy? Why hang your hat on this peg rather than a more fundamental or useful one?

This I learned from watching Dr. Howard Hendricks' remarkable lectures this semester in BE101: Bible Study Methods. (Incidentally, anyone can experience this course by reading Dr. Hendricks' Living by the Book. It covers the course material almost verbatim, even down to the anecdotes and overhead diagrams. If you want a fun, approachable way of learning how to study the Bible with skill and insight, you can do no better than to read this book.)

In delivering a public lecture, sermon, or other speech, if you want to make a real impact on the minds and lives of your audience:

1. Make no more than one or two points.
2. State them as briefly and clearly as possible.
3. Repeat them again and again.
4. Amplify their importance to the absolute extreme. Use nothing but superlatives.
5. Clothe them in as many stories as you can muster.

Stories are the key. Your stories should be real, personal (they involve you, or people you or your audience know), honest, and intense. The audience should be able to identify with the characters in the stories. The stories should underscore the questions you want your audience asking and the answers your speech is designed to give them. The feelings, questions, and consequences your stories highlight should be intense and powerful to the audience you're speaking to. They should come from the heart, and go to the heart.

Spend 90% of your time telling stories, and 10% in abstract discourse to make the actual point. If your audience is enraptured by your stories you won't need to spend a lot of time making your point. People are smart: if you can get them paying attention, thinking, and caring about the issue at hand, they'll do a lot of the mental work of understanding your message themselves. Stories are the key.

This technique didn't originate with Dr. Hendricks: it's also Biblical. What, after all, is a parable? Just trying counting the number of statements Jesus made in the Gospels that are "abstract" and the number that are illustrative or "story." You'll find the proportion of stories-to-abstract-discource to be very high. Not to mention that virtually the entire Old Testament is an illustration and object lesson, very scant on abstract commentary, and later illuminated in abstract form in the New Testament.