Identifying Postmodernism, Reflections on Steve Taylor’s approach.

Reading "Seeking definition: postmodern" in the first chapter of Steve's thesis "A New Way of Being Church" is both a bit like seeing a maze from a helicopter andstanding in the centre of the maze wondering how you got there and which route will get you out again! It is the most postmodern way of defining postmodern that you can possibly get. Steve suggests that the word used to describe the postmodern reflects the stance or approach that the author takes. He offers four categories. 1. The labelling critique Uses: Hyper-modern; ultra modern; liquid modernity; post-modern; post modern; Post Modern.

All of this reflects critical questions about the relationship between modern and the postmodern and whether one emphasises continuity or discontinuity. Page 15

Reading: Oden, The Death of Modernity in The Challenge of Bauman, Liquid Modernity, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000 2. The lens critique Uses: postmodernity, Postmodernism. This describes the sociological or philosophical lens that peopleview the cultural shift through. One who sees sociological change (technological,global, capital) will refer to it as postmodernism. Those who see the change through the philosophical lens (deconstructionism) will refer to it as postmodernity. 3. Paradigm Critique Uses: Post-Modern

At it's most simplistic, 2000 years of history are divided into threeparadigms: pre-modern, modern and postmodern. Page 15

Steve acknowledges the over simplicity but uses it to show how the term is usedto describe a shift in cultural awareness. Reading: Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: UCP. 1962 Pillay, Text Paradigms in context. Missionalia 18, 1, 1990, 109-123 4. The Colonising Critique Postmodernism is simply another way for the west to impose an "oppressive meta narrative that homogenises cultural diversity through a western way ofviewing the world" (Page 15). Reading: Sardar, Postmodernism and the other, London: Pluto Press. 1998 He concludes his definition with simplicity its self:

In essence, this debate is about how to accurately name cultural change. It isabout ones angle of looking, whether sociological, philosophical or historical. Yet despite this debate, I have not read any author who thinks culture is the same now as it was fifty years ago. Thus when I use the term, I will, like all the authors above, be referencing a cultural shift, the fact that our world today is very different from a world fifty years ago. Page 15-16