dissertation

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The central problem of this chapter concerns an assessment of the use of the terms
‘postmodern’ and ‘post-Christendom’ within the EMC. The main question is: What is
meant within the EMC by the terms ‘postmodern’ and ‘post-Christendom’ and (how) are these
terms appropriate to describe developments in Western countries in general, and in the Netherlands
in particular?
The chapter is organized as follows. In the first part, we describe and evaluate the concept
‘postmodern’ as it functions within the EMC (4.2-4.3). It will become clear that
two lines of thinking can be detected in the writings of the EMC: one emphasizing
postmodernism, the other postmodernity.
The first line of thought calls for attention to academic claims and discussions, such as
the historical claim that the Enlightenment glorified instrumental reason. 5 It is especially
within writings of revisionists – those who minister as postmoderns – that this first
line comes to the fore.
The second line of thought deals with socio-cultural shifts within modern societies
that cumulatively inaugurate a condition of what may be called postmodernity. The
term refers not primarily to academe but to the ‘street’ or popular level: pop music, shopping
malls, television, the workplace, a consumerist mentality, 6 and so on. This emphasis
is found especially in publications of reconstructionist authors – those who minister
with postmoderns.
The second part of this chapter highlights the concept of post-Christendom (4.4-4.5).
An important source for these sections is the book The Shaping of Things to Come, written
by Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost. Their publication contains elements that can be
found in both emerging and missional circles. Relatively speaking, within the Emerging
Church Movement, more attention is given to the term ‘postmodern’ than to ‘post-
Christendom’, while the opposite can be said of the Missional Church Movement.
Hirsch and Frost, however, discuss both terms: ‘postmodern’ and ‘post-Christendom’. 7
The chapter ends with a summary and concluding reflections (4.6).
4.2 Postmodernism and Postmodernity in the EMC
Below, we describe how the influential revisionist authors Stanley Grenz and John Franke
write about postmodernism and postmodernity – what we will call the ‘postmodern
turn’ (4.2.1). 8 After that, we outline Brian McLaren’s criticisms of modernity (4.2.2). As
5
Daniel Gordon, introduction to Postmodernism and the Enlightenment: New Perspectives in Eighteenth-Century
French Intellectual History, by Daniel Gordon, ed. (Routledge: New York, 2001), 1.
6
Cf. the sociologist David Lyon, “If postmodernity means anything, it means the consumer society.” David
Lyon, Postmodernity, second ed. (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 88.
7
Publications written by relevants – those who minister to postmoderns – and insights from the Missional
Church Movement are referred to when this adds something substantial to the description or contributes to
our understanding.
8
There is not one generally accepted definition of this term. Brian McLaren, for one, interprets the expression
‘postmodern turn’ as the perceived shift, or transition, from “the modern paradigm with its absolute