Southeast goes post-modern (for a Sunday)

Dave Stone's sermon on Sunday was built around "your story"...

As such, it fit into a "post-modern" emphasis on "story". Not that this is a problem. While an emphasis on story can be taken too far, Christianity is a religion of story. It is, first, the story of God and Christ-- in Creation, which despite the Fall of Man, hopefully ends in Redemption. It is, subjectively, the story of the individual believer-- living within a communal story. The Bible is the story of (some/selected) history from a Christ-centered perspective. And although the Scriptures are most famous for their laws and commands (at least to non-believers), the bulk of Scripture is expressed as narrative. Moreover, Christ often spoke in parables.

Post-modernism also values questions-- in a sense, saying that the questions (and the process of answering them) is more important than the answers themselves. Again, this can be taken too far. But there is much truth to this as well-- especially when trying to explain and understand complexity. Again, Christ modeled this by asking hundreds of questions within his ministry.

Post-modernism within Christianity certainly has its excesses. But it has much to offer as well-- and allergically avoiding it is akin to throwing the proverbial baby out with the bath water.