Post Modernity 1

Text: Romans 1:16

Focus: -Post Modernity

Function: To prepare people for diversity.

Form: Lecture

Intro: Welcome to the New Year. 21^st Century Church.

Modernity in theological terms is best defined in the idea of propositions.

The faith was both attacked and defended by propositions.

Propositions are statements of faith, values, doctrine, scriptures etc that are designed to prove a thesis statement.

And they were and are important.

Paul tells Timothy, “Pay attention to a yourself and your doctrine for in so doing you will save yourself and those hearing you. I Timothy 4:16

Doctrine is Orthodoxy. It literally means “correct doctrine.”

And here was the problem with the Church's emphasis on Orthodoxy, there was not a corresponding emphasis on correct practice.

Christians had all kinds of knowledge about the Bible, doctrine, theology and etc, but it wasn't really changing behavior into the kind of loving, accepting and peaceful person that Jesus Christ demonstrated.

And the reason was because we emphasized doctrine so much that we forgot to love one another.

I have had people leave because I used the King James, because I didn't. Because I speak in tongues, because I don't enough. Because I don't believe in a pre-tribulation rapture. Because I told them that using derogatory terms for gay people was sinful. Because I am not enough of a Calvinist, because I am to much of a Calvinist and so forth.

Listen, doctrine is important, very important, but it isn't worth sinning over.

And what I mean is this, Jesus said, One command: “Love One Another.”

This is primary and anything less is sinful. Sin, in this context can be best described as broken relationship. Broken with God and with others.

We are called to reconstruct this relationship between God and others.

But it is important to understand the reason for all the propositions.

In the age of Modernity, you have heard me say this several times already, but it is important to remember. In the age of Modernity, mankind placed its hope in Science and Reason alone.

Spock, from Star Trek was the epitome of human potential. He was purely rational without the ambiguity of emotions clouding judgment.

It implied that emotions, the things that make us human, the parts that connect with spirituality, were vestigial parts of our evolutionary development.

Now, I got to be clear here. I believe in science and reason. I trust God, but I also trust my logical/rational mind.

I believe in science. I find no conflict between my faith and science. The Bible itself says that God gave us science to ferret out mysteries.

But, the argument against faith, during the time of modernity, was that God was dead, or more specifically, according to Nietzsche, the Idea of God, was dead.

Nietzsche believed and taught that science and reason alone would solve people's problems, and along with Karl Marx, taught that humanity needed to abandon is relationship with the superstitions of religion in order to evolve to the next step.

The “survival of the fittest” gave us WWII and incredible devastation.

But humanity didn't realize the potential for it until around 9/11.

There was a subtle shift in culture being explored by the arts.

For years, we did not have a TV.

When we did, we were hooked on Hill Street Blues. A story of New York City police.

Whenever there was a funeral, there was no chaplain. The star characters were living in sin together and the idea of that was emphasized as part of the sexual revolution.

In every way, the show blasted Christianity with propositions about why we didn't need God, or faith in God.

Religious people were often portrayed as unstable emotionally and hypocritical.

And so we argued back and forth with propositions, with our own brand of “truths” with secularists whether or not God existed and whether or not humanity answered to said God.

Now, at this point, I am going to introduce two terms for the sake of convenience. We are all familiar.

The two terms are Liberal and Conservative.

I am talking theological.

In the age of modernity, Christian liberal theology almost often denied the reality of the supernatural, miracles, healing and etc.

Harold Martin, of the Brethren Revival Fellowship, a conservative group within our denomination said this: “The heart of Liberal theology is the denial of the supernatural.”

And about 15 years ago, me, a conservative theologian was talking with a liberal theologian and I mentioned Harold's proposition and she corrected me. She is a new kind of liberal, she is a post-modern liberal and she told me she believed very much in the supernatural and the mystical.

You see, if there was no God, then there were no miracles.

But things changed.

One of the big questions that got to me was this one asked of me in Baltimore when I was attending a Critical Incident Stress Management training event. A woman who became my friend asked me a question, she said” “the Church admits it was wrong on racism, how do we know it can be trusted with homosexuality?”

The Change was happening.

Propositions did not work anymore.

We were Orthodox, but our practice did not reflect Christlike attitudes.

And it got worse.

The Church, while arguing doctrine got so involved in the argument of doctrine that it left the command to share good news with an hurting world.

While we are arguing what is and is not sin, while we are arguing whether or not God created the Homosexual or whether or not they choose to rebel against God and enter into what some have called sinful behavior, the world wonders why we stopped loving a certain group of people.

Some in the Church has countered with, “concern for their eternal state is love.”

But the problem is this: the Church created a sub-culture that believes it is being persecuted and has lost touch with reality.

And here is the way that God, the Holy Spirit, is still causing growth in the Church, Look at this verse with me: ⁵But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

There are people who say that we have lost something because God is changing the way we love one another and God is widening the circle of who is loved and who isn't.

But that argument is based on fear.

If we take seriously the Scripture and understand what God is doing, then we know that the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith.

There isn't anything wrong with something that draws us closer.

So, the big shift in Post-Modernity is that evangelism is not done by whoever has the most convincing argument, but by relationship.

Around Homosexuality, in Modernity, the question was this: “is Homosexuality Sin?”

In Post-modernity, even the question has changed. The question is not “is Homosexuality Sin?” But the questions are these: “Does God love the Homosexual?” How does God want us to love the Homosexual?” And, “How is our witness to Christ Jesus' love expressed in our language about same-sex attractions?”

You see, the question is not the propositions of sin since the fact of sin tied into the existence of God and the whole argument we defended in modernity.

No. Today, the witness, the discussion, the good news is not expressed in the statements of faith, but in relationship.

In Modernity, the gospel is expressed in propositions. And it appears that God was behind it. Look at Billy Graham revivals. There was a Spirit there that brought Christians from all different brands together and many were saved, by the preaching of propositions.

But it doesn't seem to be the way the Holy Spirit is working today. Now, the minute I put the Holy Spirit in a box, she climbs right out because she refuses to be defined by a man preaching propositions.

But in general, salvation is happening by relationship.

Today, we celebrate the relationship with Jesus Christ expressed in both the right and the left of the Church of the Brethren, embraced as one because of Jesus Christ, the Lord and Savior of both.

Now, without trying to offend, this next statement might be hard for the those still working with the mindset of modernity.

In the Homosexual debate in the Church of the Brethren, we have had a propositional argument so far and it almost feels like neither side is willing to move on.

Remember, while the Church is arguing the propositions, the world we are called to serve and witness good news to has moved on to embrace as all important the question of relationship. Repeat: “all important the question of relationship.”

Both sides have great propositions. Side A says Romans 1 speaks clearly, along with Church tradition, that Homosexual behavior is sin.

Side B says, “but Jesus command to love one another, to love God by loving one another, trumps Romans 1. Remember, the law was for unbelievers, not believers. 1 Timothy 1:9

Both sides are equally passionate about which scripture is more important. Which doctrine is more important. And clearly we read that loving one another is the most important.

See? God is moving the church toward the next step. This is God's work and is nothing for us to be afraid of.

It is time for those still stuck in modernity to give up the fight of making the other side admit that they are right, and it is time for both sides to admit the validity of the other side.

It is time for relationship to cover the gap.

It is time for love to cover a multitude of sins.

Romans 1^:16am proud of the good news! It is God’s powerful way of saving all people who have faith, whether they are Jews or Gentiles.