Books, Books, Books

You know…I had a really long post written out about the relationship of emergent and postmodernism and after I went back and scanned it I realized that even I didn’t want to read all of that. I don’t figure you would either. So here’s one that’s shorter and hopefully sweeter.

If you have any interests in what postmodernism is saying and if it has anything of value for the contemporary church (and I would resoundingly say that it does), then go read James K A Smith’s book Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism. It’s 160 short pages. He attempts to write in a way that is understandable to the average person. At times he succeeds fantastically. I enjoy how he introduces each chapter with a contemporary movie theme to illustrate what he’s going to say. There are several spots where I was left thinking that the “average person” I know would probably find some of the content difficult. I’m pretty average and I found it difficult. Nevertheless, it is more than worth the effort especially if you are engaged in ministry or for that matter if you are a follower of Jesus who is interested in engaging the broader culture around you.

There you have it. I guess that was just one book, wasn’t it?