Modern and the Postmodern

Figure 1 Frank Gehry's Postmodern Architecture challenges traditional aesthetics and Modernist assumptions such as material use, construction technique, the truth of sense perception and the rationality of the Golden Mean and the straight line.

In a 2008 blog master rant, Eugene Reimer, the linguist sensei of Menno Plautdietsch, turned his attention to the (mis)use of the terms Modern and Postmodern.

    Reimer’s rant is entirely correct, and entirely wrong.  Indeed, Modernity is an adjective meaning “relating to the present-day or the most recently developed [artifact, fashion, trend or idea]” (Reimer).  I know that Reimer very much understands the terms and principles of Postmodernism, so I am not trying to engage his comments per se, so much as to engage those who are similarly uncomfortable with the concept of PoMo.  I myself have often stated similar nostalgic longing for the time when definitions were fixed and one could depend on them to hold their meaning and the world made perfect sense and … 

More Work on Definitions

Defining Oneself

    This past weekend, I have spent considerable time attempting to develop stronger, more universal definitions for many of the terms that I use in my essays and which I tend to encounter in my reading.  I also spent a fair amount of time writing an essaic criticism of the rhetorical argumentation in a recent series published in Fellowship Focus on the emergent churches.  The emergent church movement is a new concept to me, so I was able to approach the articles with an open mind.  However, the quality or organization of their particular line of argument was often inconsistent, non-linear, even self-contradictory, leaving me, the reader, confused and uncertain.  Note that one finds it much easier to criticize the work of another than to recognize the same deficiencies within oneself, which is why there is a certain intellectual strength to be found in the Scholastic or even consensus-building process -- and why most books and literary efforts shower such profuse praise on those who assisted in the editorial process.

Fundamental Definitions of Evangelical

[Note that this essay neither utilizes nor refers to the work of Mr. Calvin Wall Redekop or Mr. Kenneth Rempel-Enns, but rather relies on personal experiences within the Brüderthaler Mennonites and documents produced and released by their primary church organization.]

    Post-Modern religious writer, Kathleen Norris writes of the term Evangelism, “’Evangelism’ is a scary word even to many Christians.  I have often heard people who are dedicated members of a church say “I hate evangelism” or “I don’t believe in it,” or, usually from the shy, more introverted members of a congregation, ‘I’ll do anything else for this church, but don’t ask me to serve on the evangelism committee.’ … The word comes from the Greek ‘euangelos,’ meaning a messenger (or angel) bringing good news.  The authors of the four Christian gospels -- Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John -- are referred to as evangelists, as are those who preach the gospel.  The bad news about evangelistic might be personified as the stereotypical glad-handing Christian proselytizer,” (Norris, Kathleen, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith (1998), Riverhead Books, New York, NY, p. 300).

    Part of the problem that the Brüderthaler - EMB communities have always had is the definition of Evangelical -- a word as prevalent and eventually longer lasting than either the words Defenseless or Mennonite in their tradition.  In a sense, this is not their fault -- Mr. Martin Fast, of Montana’s Grand Prairie community, once defined Evangelical, quite correctly in my understanding, as the mission that Christ’s church inherited from the angels who gave to the shepherds that first Evangel or message -- Evangelical means to spread the message or evangel of Christ, more or less in response to the Great Commission.