jones, bell & mclaren

I was reading the most recent post on Tony Jones website just the other day. Tony Jones is the author of a book called "Postmodern Youth Ministry" (as well as other books I'm sure) and has an involvement with the Emergent church group. In his most recent post, he was talking about an article written by a guy named Andy Crouch that was recently in Christianity Today about Mars Hill, Rob Bell, & Brian McLaren. I was reading all the responses and thoughts on the Crouch article, and found the overwhelming amount of frustration and quick defenses unreal! So, I decided to read the article. It was kind of interesting. If you'd like to read the article, you can click on the title of this post, and it'll take you to it. You can then read all the responses on Tony's blog if you so choose...It's kind of interesting, and I wished I had gotten in on the action earlier.

I had a conversation with a friend of mine a couple days ago about my frustration with the whole "modern" vs "postmodern". Why do there have to be titles? Can't we just say, "We're connecting with God in a new way." and leave it at that? I don't know. I think that there are definitely some different ways that this upcoming generation seems to want to worship and connect with God. I think some of those ways may go against what we would consider to be fundamental or modern. However, to give it a new category, a new title, and create a new form of division is unneccesssary. I'd like to believe that a so-called modern and so-called postmodern could co-exist in the same place. It looks to me that creating these new lines, new categories of postmodern vs. modern is only creating division, instead of inviting one another to learn and journey together. I struggle with creating this new denomination (isn't that, in essence, what we're doing) and I hope that it doesn't cause a division like the charasmatics from the conservatives, the armenians from the calvanists, the whatevers from the whatevers...I feel like it's a slippery slope, and sometimes I wonder if I'm the only one that feels that way. I definitely identify with a lot of the "postmodern ways", but that doesn't mean I consider myself postmodern. I don't think I'll ever be fully postmodern, having grown up in a modern society. So why can I not embrace new ways as an old way person, and not be crucified or recategorized for it?

Just some light thoughts for a Saturday afternoon...hehehe...

If you want to check out Tony Jone's website, you can check it out here:
http://theoblogy.blogspot.com