It has often been said that where Moderns “believed” then “belonged” when it came to church and faith in Jesus, Postmoderns “belong” then “believe.” That is, Moderns first had to work through their intellectual issues about Jesus (“believe”), then they were willing to join the faith/church (“belong.”) Postmoderns, however, often “try out” the life of faith in the Christian community first (“belong”) before they come to full acceptance of the teaching/doctrine of Jesus/the church (“believe”). The Postmodern path toward faith is more experiential than intellectual.
In a recent post, Richard Beck provides a fascinating exploration of this theme:
Jesus said he was “the way, the truth and the life.”
For many Christians, where faith has been reduced to propositional assent (“I believe x to be true”), Jesus’ claim moves through the following sequence:
That is, we have the following order:
- Truth: I believe in Jesus
- Life: Because of this belief I get to go to heaven
- Way: And maybe, but this doesn’t always happen, I’ll begin to live more like Jesus
What I was arguing for in the last post was this kind of sequence. A reversal of the traditional order:
Things go in this order:
- Way: I begin to follow the path of Jesus
- Life: I discover that in losing my life I find it
- Truth: And maybe, but this doesn’t always happen, I’ll begin to believe the claims about Jesus to be true
