Volu m e II - Purdue University Calumet

The first thing to understand is that postmodernism is not a universal trait of human society. When
one speaks of postmodernism, it is generally understood that one is mainly talking about Western culture.
In his book “The Emerging Church,” Dan Kimball points out that many cultures that would be considered
“primitive” (such as those of rural Africa or other third world societies) are still living in a “premodern”
context (Kimball 43). So when I write about “postmodern” or Emerging Churches, I am generally speaking
of Churches located in the United States and Europe (most prominently in England, where some of the
scholarship lending itself to the Emergent dialogue is coming from Anglican clergy and laity.)
It is hard to place a definitive date upon postmodernism. For example, “literary postmodernism”
can be dated back to the early 20 th century, while “philosophical postmodernism” can be dated much earlier
than that. When it comes to the Christian discussion of postmodernism, the authors I read did not pose a
distinction between the two types of postmodernism. It is also hard to date postmodernism because unlike
a “time period,” which is marked by concrete events like the rise and fall of kingdoms, to try to pinpoint
postmodernism on a calendar is to try to pinpoint a way of thinking. Because of this, scholars do not always
agree as to when postmodernism got its start. For example, Dan Kimball argues that the start of
postmodernism was around 1969, the summer of Woodstock and the touchstone year for the hippie
generation (Kimball 43). Biblical scholar Marcus Borg, in his book, Jesus, posits that the “emerging”
paradigm in Christianity, though not apparent until now, has been around since the 1600s and has been
growing up alongside modernism, but became more prominent in the 19 th century because of new ideas
being discussed in seminaries and divinity schools (Borg 23). No matter how far back scholars want to date
postmodernism, according to Kimball the modern/postmodern dialogue didn’t “take off” in the context of
Christianity until around the year 2000 with the influx of technology which increased ease of sharing
postmodern ideas. Finding a date for postmodernism aside, for the sake of this paper, I will agree with
Kimball’s identification of the year 2000 as a pivotal point for the modern/postmodern dialogue in
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