--------Prayer Before Meals-------

During the past year or two many of my friends and I have decided to disgard a common chrisitan pratice which is praying before our meals. Basically we are reacting to the abuse or misuse of this christian spiritual discipline. And maybe in our abandoning of the practice we are making a statement or maybe just tring to distance ourselves from what we percieve to be corruption or we are just in pursuit of what is good and true. I guess we have lots of reasons, and I would say that for the most part they are good reasons.

However;
During this entire time there was a part of me that was screaming "foolishness" (now ususally I worry when part of myself is screaming at another part of myself lol). I guess that even though I could see the abuse and that something needed to be done, I couldnt and still can't get away from the fact that this practice was started for a reason. And I somehow feel foolish for leaving this practice because I feel that I am neglecting the wisdom from those who have gone before me.

Recently Dr. Mathews (MVNU prof of Theology) introduced me to proper thinking in this area, more specifically he reaffirmed my inhibition in regards to the flippant abandonment of historical practices. "Functional dynamic equivilant" is the fun new term that he gave to me. Basically it means the when one thing that had an original purpose is left something new must be pick up to fullfill the same role, or purpose.

From my understanding praying before our meals is a practice that is used to remind us of God's provision and instill a sense a contentment and gratitude as a part of our character. Obviously this has long been forgotten by Christianity as a whole and the practice has become a religious ritual that you just do if your a Christian. So I believe that the practice needs to be abandoned by our generation and picked back up again once several generations have died out, and with them the perversion of this beautiful practice.

So my question is: What is the functional dynamic equivilant of praying before meals???

///////////Caught in the Middle////////////

So I was listening to some podcasts from Emergent Podcast the other day. These particular episodes were from a conference where two of the worlds top philosophers, Jack Caputo and Richard Kearney, were discussing some of the history of philosophy and more particularly the progression and the characteristics of modernism, and post-modernism. Both Jack and Richard should be thought of as "post-modern" philosophers.

There was about 5 hours of material, and on the whole I greatly benifited from their discussion. However at the end they talked about something that to be honest made me shiver for a moment, because I was so surprised by it. One of the most notebale qualities of post-modern thinking is a deep rooted suspicion and often abandonment of metanarratives of any kind, and I can understand why. Now these two men are deeply Christian, and are trying to find Christian truth mind you. But at the end they made this comment,

"I want to be absolutely clear, we are saying the Christianity is unique and there is nothing else like it, but it is not the only way to God, there are many other ways. .... If Jesus and Buddah met, Jesus wouldnt have told him to follow, but instead would have asked to follow Buddah to learn from him. It is arrogance to think that the Christian Faith is the only way!"

Wow....what do you do with that? I think that this illustrates something that I have noticed recently amoung those who have reacted to Modernism, and are pursueing something different.
It seem to be that many of us have idealized post-modernism, and have made it into a God-send. Now I'm all for reactions, and the emotions that go along with it. But It seems to me that many of the reactions that I have seen are simply swirving to the other side of the road. It seems that we define ourselves as anything that modernism is not, as long as we arent like that then we are good. As opposed to defineing ourselves by Christ and his teachings.

I dont know I guesss that Im just scared when I see my fellow followers reacting so strongly that they throw out everything modern with anything and any one that might have something to do with it.

Have we been controlled by reactionism? Do we really Think this new culture is a God-send? Have we jumped into bed with Post-modernism??

Am I the only one that sees the great danger that is coming with this new culture shift??????

Does anyone else feel caught in the middle, fighting a two-front war???? (its a lonely place to be)

Our Greatest Leaders???

What have we as the church done with our greatest leaders?

Think about it, those within the church who are what we would describe as the "most spiritual", or the most highly trained theologically, spiritually, ministry ect, (if we can really say this lol, but you know what I am saying) are the very ones that we completely pull out of everyday life, and isolate them in a church building. On the whole the only contact that a "Pastor", or "professional minister" has with others is in this artificial environment. They have no major contact with the outside world or with the real every day lives of other Followers. Their life is this "ministry" that exists outside of normal life.

What happens when we take our greatest leaders and lock them up in a building?????

Post-modern Gospel???

So I've been thinking a lot about the gospel, and more recently I have been thinking about how this relates to culture, more specifically modern and post-modern culture.

I was taught recently, and I believe it to be true, that every culture has 3 parts. 1.) that which Christianity affirms, 2.) that which only Christianity can truly fulfill, 3.) that which Christianity much reject or deny.

The second, and third part is what interests me. What is it in culture that the Gospel fulfills? -or- What in the culture is the Gospel??? Then what in the culture must we oppose???

As I think (with my limited understanding of) about the difference between modernism and post-modernism I see a dividing issue, or a balance between two ideas. Truth, and Relationship.

Modernism : places "truth", head knowledge, absolutes, science as the highest value and minimizes relationship and community.
3.) we obviously reject the minimalization of relationship
2.) Modernism pursues truth as its highest goal, but in reality it can never attain it because truth separated from relationship and community is not truth at all. Therefore only Christianity can fulfill this part of modernism.

**So how do you reach this culture. Like any other culture you learn to speak their language, which is "truth", head knowledge, academics, logic, absolutes. And through this medium you expose the fallacy of the culture and introduce relationship based truth. We never separate the two, but present it as one whole.

Post-Modernism : places relationship, community, friendship,experience, emotions, feelings, personalization as the highest value and minimizes and even rejects "truth", absolutes, science logic.
3.) We obviously reject the minimalization of "truth, absolutes, science and logic
2.) Post-Modernism pursues relationship and emotions as its highest goal, but in reality it to can never attain it because relationship/community separated from truth is not relationship/community at all. Again only Christianity can fulfill this part of post-modernism.

**So how do you reach this culture. Again you learn to speak its language, which is experience, relationship, emotions. Then through this medium you expose the fallacy of the culture and introduce truth based relationship. Again we never separate the two we live and present them as one whole.

The reality is that the two cannot not be separated from each other, they are two sides of the same coin. One defines the other, and both are only true when they exist together. My point is that when it comes to culture we must understand which door to enter, or which side of the coin to expose. Because when we hand them the coin the may see the side they recognize but in reality they are getting the whole coin, The GOSPEL...........