Genesis and Property - an update

You may remember from an earlier post that I resolved to build a budget on www.stewardship.org.uk as a way of being more accountable to God about my own personal finances. I have now done this and shared the results with a couple of people with whom I have an accountable relationship.

I have found the process very useful and it led me to reconsider my current giving patterns. I am happy to share further details with anyone who is interested, so please let me know.

Postmodernism is... continued

Thanks Stephen. I think your examples really help get a handle on those aspects of Postmodernism. (See Stephen's comment on my previous post).

The demystifying attribute is a bit trickier. The enlightenment project is one of modernity's key characteristics - shining the light of rational deduction from observation on those parts of life previously shrouded in mystery and 'explained' by non-scientific means. To this extent it is modernity that is demystifying.

Claiming that postmodernism is demystifying involves turning the enlightenment spotlight on the very tools and institutions of modernity - for instance the scientific community, the academy, anyone or thing who claims to be the primary school teacher in Stephen's example. These institutions are deconstructed, revealing a more complicated (contradictory?) set of aims/values/assumptions than simply the neutral application of the pure light of reason.

This process raises questions about the limits of modernity's ability to explain/enlighten. But it also raises important questions about how we interact with explanation and the institutions from which explanation emanates. That links to the fourth attribute, that PM helps us to consciously (re)consider the sources we use, and the assumptions we make, without discarding the obvious benefits of the enlightenment project.

Postmodernism is...

Picking up my thread on postmodern culture and Christianity, here are some brief thoughts to stretch the grey matter. In an effort to keep my posts manageably short (for reader and writer) I'm offering a very short summary of the key attributes of a postmodern stance in order to then consider what the implications of these may be for the Bible, our ideas, our world etc...

1. PM is antifoundational - it denies any privileged unassailable starting point for the establishment of truth.

2. PM is antitotalising - it is critical of theories that seek to explain the totality of reality.

3. PM is demystifying - it strives to show that ideals are characteristically grounded in ideology, economics, or political self-interest.

4. PM does not attempt to overcome modernity (which would be a distinctly modern aim - linear progress). Rather, PM offers the opportunity to live and think in non-modern ways within the continuing cultural dominion of modernity.

As someone who self-consciously advocates a postmodern posture, I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts and discussing how such attributes might transform us.

Job and Economic Justice

Although the book of Job is found just before Psalms in the Bible (as it is essentially a poem and is therefore grouped with other poetic works), chronologically it should appear much earlier. Job was probably born about the same time as Abraham, and therefore knew God outside of the context of the Abrahamic covenant.