C.Leonard.Allen.Postmodern

One should note a dearth of Scripture confessed by theologians who are confident enough in sowing discord by building upon the foundation of false historic truth.  The charge of being history LESS is based on the later day spawn of theologians whom he believes writes church history.

First, the new spiritual openness. This is one of the most visible and surprising features of the present time. Our culture is marked by a huge spiritual hunger. Not so much a "culture of disbelief' (as Stephen Carter's book title put it) as a culture of intense, eclectic, and confused spiritual seeking.

You cannot feed the lambs while you are entertaining the goats which the elders as wolves have allowed in the flock as sole pastor or feeder who has nothing of value to say

John 6:45 It is written in the prophets,
        And they shall be all taught of God.
        Every man therefore that hath heard,
        and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.

John 6:62 What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?
John 6:63 It is the SPIRIT that quickeneth;
        the flesh profiteth nothing:
        the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
John 6:65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you,
        that no man can come unto me,
        except it were given unto him of my Father.

Jesus does not pray for the WORLD or the ecumenical: He was sent to seek and save lost spirits who are not OF this world.  The message about baptism is the CODED WORD which alerts them to the fact that are stranded but will be picked up.

Acts 2:38 Then Peter said unto them,
        Repent, and be baptized every one of you
        in the name of Jesus Christ for [IN ORDER TO] the remission of sins,
        and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.  Campbell and Walter said that means OUR spirit made holy
Acts 2:41 Then they that gladly received his WORD were baptized:
        and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.

Col 1:12 Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us
        meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:
Col. 1:13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness,
        and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:
Col. 1:14 In whom we have redemption through his blood,
        even the forgiveness of sins:
Col. 1:15 Who is the image of the invisible God,
        the firstborn of every creature:

Obedience of the Spirit OF Christ in the Prophets and in the New Testament, they only way to RENEW or REGENERATE a human spirit is to be baptized FOR or in order to the remission of sins.

Eph. 4:20 But ye have not so learned Christ;
Eph. 4:21 If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is IN Jesus:
Eph. 4:22 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man,
        which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
Eph. 4:23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
Eph. 4:24 And that ye put on the new man,
        which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
Eph. 4:25 Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.
Eph. 4:26 Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:
Eph. 4:27 Neither give place to the devil.
Eph. 4:28 Let him that stole steal no more:
        but rather let him labour,
        working with his hands the thing which is good,
        that he may have to give to him that needeth.


Col. 3:8 But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy,
        filthy communication out of your mouth.
Col. 3:9 Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;
Col. 3:10 And have put on the new man,
        which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:
 
Titus 3:4 But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared,
Titus 3:5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done,
        but according to his mercy he saved us,
        by the washing of regeneration,
        and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
Titus 3:6 Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour;
Titus 3:7 That being justified by his grace,
        we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

 

Postmoderns are trying, in almost every conceivable way, to restore their shriveled souls.
At the same time this search for the soul is joined with a widespread disinterest in traditional, institutional Christianity.

That's the truth: Postmodernists want you to believe that THEY can read BLACK TEXT on BROWN paper but your ancestors COULD NOT. 

Postmoderns are TRYING, TRYING, TRYING which like rhetoric, singing and playing instruments defines LEGALISTS and PATTERN seekers having been delusioned for selling stuff with the LOGO of Christ LOGOS speaker on it.   Jesus came to give ME rest from the YOUS who want to SELL me the free water of the Word in violation of the direct commands of the Spirit OF Christ. OF by the way is a preposition and spirit is the mind or mental disposition of a PERSON and not a little people guiding postmodernists beyond the sacred pages to look like fools or the delusioned.

Jeep Mechanic to my wife: "Mam, I broke your heater but I can fix it for 600 dollars. That's theology speak.

The solution is to build a LARGER INSTITUTION with STAFF who in all religions were called PARASITES especially the musical craftsmen performing sorcery (Revelation 18)

"Because all of this information is contingent upon a specific ideology, the public receives a socially-constructed common sense or group mind.

"People might have a religious experience with such a higher power, but one thing is discounted: The importance of propositional truth. Or, to put it differently,

postmodern worshipers are like postmodern readers; they are the source of truth, not the discoverers of truth.

"Whether it's Joseph Campbell, John Bradshaw or Fredrick Turner, all agree that

we must first take leave of our senses
before trying to know spiritual things. How similar they are to some calls within the evangelical church!

Rubel Shelly and John York in The Jesus Proposal demand that no individual has the right to read, interpret or speak the word outside of the community which means commune. They teach that all truth has been sifted from the olden Bible but they are partnering with God to get a new GROUP MENTALITY set of scriptures. Why? Why, because OUR culture has changed.

Rubel Shelly and John York:

Rubel Shelly and John York in The Jesus Proposal demand that no individual has the right to read, interpret or speak the word outside of the community which means commune. They teach that all truth has been sifted from the olden Bible but they are partnering with God to get a new GROUP MENTALITY set of scriptures. Why? Why, because OUR culture has changed.

Rubel Shelly and John York: Just as identity in Christ is always COMMUNITY identity,

our reading of Scripture becomes a COMMUNITY READING as well.

While we still have access to reading as individuals,

we stop asking, "What does this mean to me?"--as though there is such an isolated meaning. Instead we have a GROUP MENTALITY that asks, "What does this mean to US?"

Just as identity in Christ is always COMMUNITY identity,

our reading of Scripture becomes a COMMUNITY READING as well.

While we still have access to reading as individuals,

we stop asking, "What does this mean to me?"--as though there is such an isolated meaning. Instead we have a GROUP MENTALITY that asks, "What does this mean to US?"

Adolph Hitler wrote: Mein Kampf:

as a seeker, (Als Suchender.' A Wagnerian phrase, which Hitler was apparently determined to use at all costs) he is swept away by three or four thousand others into the mighty effect of suggestive intoxication and enthusiasm, when the visible success and agreement of thousands confirm to him the rightness of the new doctrine and for the first time arouse doubt in the truth of his previous conviction - then he himself has succumbed to the magic influence of what we designate as 'mass suggestion.' The will, the longing, and also the power of thousands are accumulated in every individual. The man who enters such a meeting doubting and wavering leaves it inwardly reinforced: he has become a link in the community.

The National Socialist movement must never forget this and in particular

it must never let itself be influenced by those bourgeois simpletons who know everything better,
but who nevertheless have gambled away a great state including their own existence and the rule of their class.

POSTMOLDERN  Carrol D. Osburn ACU: Note how Bro. O. views Scripture:"The Bible is not so much a 'heaven-sent answer book' as a historical book produced within and for a historical community--
        yet it serves as Scripture today because people find themselves accountable to it.
        That is what make its Scripture" (p. 46).

Those who mock the RATIONAL: the Logos or Regulative principle which outlaws rhetoricians, singers or instrument players confess to living in an IRRATIONAL world.   Jesus defined the differences:

Those OF TRUTH or OF FAITH are the SECT that is called the WAY: the WAY is the road or pattern and is narrow and those of the WORLD (kosmos or ecumenical) cannot even stumble into it.

Those OF THE WORLD: Jesus spoke to them in parables so that they COULD not seen the light blinding them. Jesus does not even pray for them.

The WISE or SOPHISTS: Jesus said that God HIDES from the sophists who are rhetoricians, singers, instrument players or actors.

Jesus called the Scribes and Pharisees (book and prayer sellers) hypocrites. Christ in Isaiah 55 cracked the knee caps of the merchants: Paul called them "corrupters of the Word" or selling learning at retail. That word and the Greek world identified that as prostitution: it doesn't matter which body part you peddle for fame andfortune.

The woman at the well seems to be one of the extremely rare people who understood why Jesus came to remove the laded burden and burden laders.  Jesus called the Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.  In Isaiah 29 and Ezekiel 33 (off limits) God's as Holy or Wholly Spirit named "performance preachers for hire, singers and instrument players.

He suggests that your parents, grandparents and true scholars has SHRIVELED the souls of people.  It has been stated and always implied that "you cannot understand TRUE truth by reading the words of the Spirit OF Christ. However, if you pay ME then I can be mediator and find out what God WOULD have said if He had lived in the Post ApostasyLic era.

Amos 8:2 And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. [Catamites]
        Then said the LORD unto me, The end is come upon my people of Israel;
        I will not again pass by them any more.
Amos 8:3 And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day,
         saith the Lord GOD: there shall be many dead bodies in every place;
         they shall cast them forth with silence.

BECAUSE OF THE CLERGY STILL WORSHIPING THE GOLDEN CALF AND BURNING INFANTS

Matt. 5:6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Matt. 5:9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

John 6:35 And Jesus said unto them,
        I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger;
        and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.
1Cor. 4:11 Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked,
        and are buffeted, and have no certain dwellingplace;
2Cor. 11:27 In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often,
         in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.

Heb. 6:4 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened,
        and have tasted of the HEAVENLY GIFT
        and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,
Heb. 6:5 And have tasted the WORD OF God, and the powers of the world to come,
Heb. 6:6 If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.
Heb. 6:7 For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God:
Heb. 6:8 But that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned.

How effectively can the modernist heirs of Alexander Campbell respond to this spiritual hunger?
        With our Campbellite reflexes we will, no doubt,
        continue to react against the trendy, fashionable-and often heretical-spiritualities of the time,
        the running after spiritual experiences, the charismatic hype and excesses portrayed in the media.

 

And there will be considerable substance to the critique of these trends. Our heritage, after all, was deeply stamped by sharp reaction against the experiential free-for-all of the Second Great Awakening.

But our own theological traditions, which have tended to be reactionary rather than constructive, ill-equip us for the recovery of a robust and balanced spirituality. After all, it took many of us the better part of the twentieth century to get over Z. T. Sweeney's shocking declaration that "God does no unnecessary work, and the work of the Paraclete is not necessary now."4 I recognize that all three of our sub-traditions have strands of spiritual teaching that countered this heresy to varying degrees; but the shadow of rationalism has lingered long-and lingers still.

Second, the failure of the original unity vision challenges our future. Nicholas Wolterstorff, a noted philosopher and deeply committed Christian, recently observed:

"The thinkers of the Enlightenment hoped to bring about a rational consensus in place of fractured tradition. That hope has failed. In my judgment it was bound to fail. It could not succeed."?

logos, spiritual, word

This judgment about the Enlightenment as an intellectual movement can also be applied to Christian movements like Alexander Campbell's that partook of the same spirit and envisioned a similar goal.

Campbell and other early nineteenth-century restorationists hoped to bring about a rational consensus in place of a badly fractured Christian tradition. But that hope has failed. Indeed, its failure has been apparent for several generations. Campbell's Movement itself, after all, spawned several new traditions, themselves reflecting the steadily growing pluralism and fragmentation of democratized


The failure has long been apparent, but it was hard to acknowledge. For the theological tradition that shaped us required a rational consensus; and it carried the deep assumption that every honest, rational individual could-and would-read the Bible alike.

Alexander Campbell never proposed nor ever expected a Harrison institution to include all "Christendom." He did NOT promose the merger and rejected the grouping of everyone into a WORLD VIEW.

That after all was a basic assumption of Baconian science and theology as Campbell had articulated it; and that assumption quickly became a hidden, ideological fixture in the Movement. That assumption was questioned long ago by the Disciples of Christ, more recently by Christian Churches and Churches of Christ. For the most part Churches of Christ, and to some extent Christian Churches, have continued to expect (and demand) a rational doctrinal consensus-if not a consensus that triumphantly sweeps the Christian world in a dawning millennium as Campbell envisioned, at least one achieved in a small but faithful enclave of truth and rationality.

Campbell never expected the millennium nor any society to ENABLE Jesus to return:

Not only has the Enlightenment hope for rational doctrinal consensus failed, but as Wolterstorff noted,it was bound to fail. It could not succeed. For the Enlightenment epistemology was based on the erroneous assumptions that context and community do not matter, that one can stand free of tradition, and that the only path to truth is the unencumbered individual weighing the factual evidence and exercising his or her rational powers. These assumptions were enormously powerful and attractive-and remain so for many people in the Stone-Campbell Movement-but they no longer stand. If nothing else, the sheer force of pluralism and fragmentation has overturned them. We are being forced to recognize the boundedness and embeddedness that marks human life and human knowing. Such recognition tempers the presumption (and indeed the arrogance) that has marked the modem spirit, and allows us to face more fully the way we actually come to our deepest convictions.

The World, Kosmos, Ecumenical
Versus the Little Flock, the SECT that is called the WAY.

only one time and place

Facing up to the failure of the Baconian hope for Christian unity based on doctrinal consensus presents an enormous challenge for many in Churches of Christ and in Christian Churches. Put most simply, this failure strikes near the heart of their tradition; to face up to it will require a fundamental reorientation. There are resources for such reorientation within the tradition itself.6 The Disciples of Christ have tapped into some of those resources and used them on their fitful and ill-timed twentieth-century journey toward mainline Protestantism. But their own brand of formal ecumenism has fallen on hard times, and is surely pushing them, as well, into some unexpected reorientation of their unity vision.