Okay, I admit I am not the brightest bulb in the lamp.
On Wednesday, my tape order from the recent Tulsa Workshop arrived. Since Wednesday, I have spent a lot of down time listening to presentations from the Workshop, many of which have centered on an increased understanding of Postmodernism. On this afternoon's drive to the Palace in Dallas, I hope to get more knocked out.
It finally hit me (here is where my lack of smarts comes in) that the whole Postmodernism wave is basically a study in Missionary Anthropology 101.
In my undergrad studies, I got a minor in missions. One of the courses required for my minor was a course in Missionary Anthropology. The purpose of the course was to provide basic insight on how to study cultures. American churches have been notorious for sending missionaries to foreign soil to plant American churches in other cultures. For example, when I was in Guyana, the churches where I preached sang out of the old "Sacred Selections" hymnal. There weren't any songs sung unique to that culture or written by the Guyanese. That is a major faux pas according to missionary anthropology.
Missionary Anthropology was designed to give would-be missionaries insight on how to get a grasp of culture in order to plant churches that would matter in a particular cultural setting. A great deal was made of the churches in the first century, how the church in Antioch differed from the church in Jerusalem. How the qualities of a godly elder in Crete differed from the qualities of a godly elder in Ephesus.
The postmodern movement is basically missionary anthropology at home. Rather than studying and researching a foreign culture, it is an understanding into culture at home -- A cultural wave that may be foreign to many of us born and raised in the church.
