What is the cost of progress?

Modern travel, modern educational systems, modern medicine, and modern food production are a few examples of the ways in which humanity’s lot has improved through the progress achieved during this era.

However as the twentieth century waned a collective questioning of the assumptions of modernity emerged in many quarters, not least in my quarter.

According to Tim Keel and N. T Wright two theologians I draw on in this article, The very notion of progress itself is questioned.

They and others ask; how is it defined and measured, and by whom?

What is the cost of progress?

In the modern story, reality is that which is observable, measurable and repeatable. Everything that is available, accessible and verifiable to the five senses.

No wonder that anything beyond the senses was ignored. Materialism was birthed and the matters of the soul were ignored or reinterpreted within this tightly controlled version of reality.

Spiritual life?

When the life of the spirit is ignored, people will seek to feed the hunger of a neglected soul with the only nourishment available. In my context: the consumptive acquisition of material goods. If spiritually engaged, it is often reduced and turned into on more commodity to be packaged, sold, and consumed like so many other aspects of modern life. In a incredibly individualistic way.

The western church

The western church has been existing within this framework of reality. Church shopping has become the defining metaphor for deciding which community of faith satisfies ones needs.

My needs.

Churches rarely possess a corporate understanding of themselves as a people but rather as one more collection of individuals choosing to be together based on similar preferences (music,preaching,programs etc.)

How does the postmodern world respond in the wake of modernity?

read part 3 here; Can postmodernity save us?

Read part 1 here; Postmodernity, should we be afraid?

This is taken from Jokim Schnoebbe’s blog, he is also known as the Author Jacob Schriftman. I first met Jokim a few years back in South Africa and we traveled together for a teaching tour in the far east. We also lived together here in Sweden for a few months where we both were involved in a course with YWAM. He is a talented speaker,artist,teacher,author,father,husband and fotball player (and a few other things). I warmly recommend his work.You can read more about him on his site schriftman.net and purchase his books on Amazon as Jacob Schriftman or as Jokim Schnoebbe. I will share a few of his blog entries here from time to time, Enjoy!

British writer and literary critic C.S. Lewis was a Christian who did not overly protect his faith. His reading habits especially exemplify this. Unlike some Christians, he did not only read Christian literature but almost anything. He especially liked imaginative literature and approached it unlike many other Christians.

The narrow-minded Christian, if he reads imaginative literature at all, values it only for telling him truths about life—not truths, however, which he does not yet know, but only confirmations of his preconceived ideas. Those are the only ideas his faith-based narrow-mindedness will permit.

This leads him, of course, to limit his appreciation of authors to those who confirm his own views.

I recently finished reading 3 books on biblical authority ( Bibelsyn och Bibelbruk by biskopsmötet 1964, Bibeltolkningens problematik by Sven Ingebrand and Texter och tolkningar by tryggve Kronholm, all in swedish).

I have since then been exploring the topic also in other spheres of our world like here on the web. I came over a fantastic article by N T Wright, called ; How Can the Bible be Authoritative? I found it through Rob Bells “Velvit Elvis” If you have 16 minutes today and you want to read a short and brilliant piece about the bible, about why and how it has Authority this is what you should read.

Rob Bell writes the following about it:

“The best thing I have ever read about the Bible is a transcript of a lecture given by the British Scholar N. T. Wright called….”( the above article)

Here is a sample;

You can now download below the paper I presented for my Bachelor of Divinity may 2008.

It is a paper on Emerging Church, Emergent Village and Justo Gonzalez, Type C theology. Read it to find out what it is all about.

It is in Norwegian, but parts will be published in English at a later date. You can for the time being, translate in, in Google translate, to whatever language you prefer.

Download from the link below:

The dream of a perfect church

A short presentation of various Emerging Church personalities.

Used together with the presentation of my paper: Drømmen om den perfekte kirke – Emerging Church (presented in Norwegian,English title:The dream of a perfect Church – Emerging Church)

The paper will soon be published here.