The religious and cultural landscape of America is changing rapidly. Standard approaches to evangelism, apologetics, and church growth have lost much of their luster. One can trace a great deal of this to “postmodernism,” a movement that impacts your life and those around you, even if you are not familiar with the term.
Dr. Daniel Lockwood, Multnomah’s President, has recently written an article in the Christian News Northwest (page 12 of the April issue) where he speaks of the challenges facing the Evangelical Church in the new millennium, including that of postmodernism. While addressing some key items of concern related to postmodernity, Dr. Lockwood also points out some merits of the movement, even suggesting that the cultural shift to postmodernity “may be as significant as the shift from the Middle Ages to modernity.” He goes on to claim that if such is the case we “must ask ourselves how to communicate the gospel, disciple believers, and train Christian leaders in our colleges and seminaries for a postmodern world.” This event was an attempt to help prepare the Evangelical Church for such a task.
There were four sessions, involving three presentations and one panel discussion with questions and answers, attempting to define postmodernism and delineate a way of thinking and life, which honors Christ and reaches people for Christ in this cultural context.