Today Dr. Bolger wasn’t there, and so we had a short class, but a good discussion nonetheless. The t.a.’s did an excellent job facilitating the discussion on Fitch. The class helped me have a more critical eye with which to view Fitch’s method. I was surprised by some of the polarized reactions in my small group over the book. But it’s almost as if Fitch wants to create that kind of polarization…his critique of modernism is so sweeping and his embrace of postmodernism so total. And for what he was trying to do–to incite change within the church, perhaps his oversimplified approach to these philosophical systems, used to sum up centuries (for modernism, at least), was the best way to go about it. I suppose that’s what the terms modernism/postmodernism are good for…they can help us sum up an incredibly complex set of events and ideas into a single word. And then we can use this word as a tool (or a weapon, perhaps) to fight our different battles. Perhaps that was what certain people in the class were objecting to. That Fitch’s “postmodern” approach had a kind of modernist/positivist feel to it…by using the word as a tool or a weapon. But I don’t think it’s modernist to use language as a tool…that’s just what it means to use language. But, there are ways to use language with integrity…and perhaps Fitch was substituting postmodern language for Kingdom language too much. All this is to say, that the relationship between postmodernism, modernism, and Kingdom is increadibly complex. For one, does any of us really know what these words mean or signify? Although we may agree on a common definition for each, the terms signify so much that it seems hard to control their usage.
