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Once again here is another great article from Pastor Mark Driscoll out of Mars Hill Fellowship in Seattle (www.marshillchurch.org). The following is a portion of an email conversation I had in March of 2003 with a young Christian woman who is a doctor. She loves God and was perplexed by some of the people who were Postmodern Christians that came into her clinic for medical and spiritual help. She has kindly permitted me to share portions of this conversation with you because such questions are tremendously common for pastors working in the emerging church with people from the emerging culture and we both hoped it may be of help to you. Questions from the Female Doctor: These are real questions that I seek answers for because of my interactions with postmoderns every day. (The first part to it is whether you�ve seen any marriages between a Christian post-modern and a theist be happy/successful and God-centered?�So my 2nd question is how a believer should handle a relationship of any type with a believer who doesn�t feel being involved in a church or small group is important or a relationship with a believer who is strongly post-modern in order to influence them to see that God�s word is more important than their experience?) I understand that it may take too much paper or typing to be able to answer these well. In my perspective, postmodern thinking has to be dramatically transformed to be Christian thinking. To get to the point: I have not seen the question of Christian couples with different worldviews addressed in any book, seminar, or Christian resource, but I have started to see couples with differing worldviews in the clinic, and it seems that it is very difficult for a person�s basic worldview to be changed. In the clinic, I am often in the position of offering counsel and guidance to couples when one or more has a postmodern viewpoint. I also have not seen comprehensive answers to the question of Christians who consider themselves gay or lesbian, but have held in the past to the perspective you offered. As a follow-up question, have you also broken fellowship with a believer living with their boyfriend or girlfriend (another common scenario unfortunately)? My Answers: When we started MH I got thrown onto the main stage at a pastors conference and my talk on postmodernism went nuts thrusting me into a national platform. As I started to speak and travel I realized that my view of postmodernism was very different than most people. Many Christians simply thought that postmoderns were a new kind of Christian. But, I believe postmoderns are simply not Christians. Anytime you have a hyphenated Christianity (i.e. New Age Christian, liberal Christian, etc.) then you have negated the Christianity. For postmoderns the issue is one of authority/power as they see all leaders and all texts as means by which someone exercises authority/power over another. They see all authority and power as inherently bad and prefer experience over truth, relativism over absolutes, and tolerance over judgment to varying extremes. The result is that they will reject any singular interpretation of Scripture arguing that it is your perspective and that there are other perspectives and none are true so we should be tolerant of all. They will reject any leadership and shun away from what they call �organized religion� and prefer to have their �personal relationship and experiences with God�. They will also shun being in any form of officially responsible leadership which makes them bad parents and spouses and church members. This is because we are dealing with common sins that have simply now been given a philosophical name: 1. Like Adam and Eve in the garden we want to be God and decide right and wrong and play with what God says rather than obey it. 2. Like Romans 1:18 they suppress the truth they don�t like because they want to sin and live their life as they please so it is never a philosophical hang up but a hard heart that is truly the issue. 3. They think being spiritual is good enough, but James says even demons believe in God so being spiritual is never enough . 4. They will use the name Jesus, like cults do, which is confusing, but it�s a different gospel and different Jesus ala 2 Corinthians 11:4. The bottom line is that such people are idolaters worshipping their experience who are very selfish and don�t care about building up the body of Christ, or living to glorify God and obey the Scriptures. Instead, they use God and His people to play with the truth and live as they please. I, like you in your clinic, see it thousands of times a year. And, such people are truly blind to their condition and I believe their Enemy is often involved in perpetuating their blindness. It�s sad and very very frustrating. I have had many people leave the church because they simply say that they see what the Bible says and don�t like it and feel that if they love �Jesus� that�s enough and I have no right to tell them what to do � and this includes such obvious things as committing adultery that a true Christian would see as obviously biblical. How we define a Christian is very important in this discussion. I John 5:13 tells us that little book was written to help us know if we are a Christian and the book lays out three categories of change that happen if you are a Christian: 1. You see Jesus as God in authority over you and you love and obey Him with your whole heart. 2. You see Christians as your brothers and sisters and love to be in community as the church with them and pursue this vigorously. 3. You see sin as your enemy and hate your pride, folly, apathy and rebellion like you never have and deeply want to change by grace. I�m assuming you have seen these three changes in your life as you were saved, as I have, as have all of God�s people. If someone does not have these three categories then I doubt their salvation. As Jesus said, many will call Him Lord who truly never knew Him. As John says many who don�t possess salvation run from the light of Scripture, accountability, and repentance because they have evil deeds. I promise you, people who do such things aren�t just postmoderns, they are sinners running from God and postmodernity is what they call their excuses, blaming, and justifications. So, can this sort of postmodern Christian be happily married to a biblical Christian? No way. I have done premarital counseling for over 100 couples and unless the postmodern becomes a biblical Christian they do not have the same assumptions about Scripture, Jesus, life, church, sin, or much of anything else even though they may agree on a few things or use some of the same theological words. In I Corinthians 1:18-2:5 Paul mocks the �wise� philosophers of his day and postmodernity is just another philosophy on the heap of history that does not glorify God but is filled with pretension. Postmodernity is tough to comprehend, though, because it changes hermeneutics/interpretation but keeps the Bible. This is much like the cults, or how Satan used God�s Word to tempt Eve and Jesus. The only hope is that God opens a person�s eyes because they are spiritually blind and gives them a new heart because the old one is like bullets off a rock when it comes to the truth. You know this is happening when you see profound repentance and subsequent life change. Until then, it�s all playing with God. I have argued with thousands of these people and pastors to get nowhere. Eventually, they end up being basically New Age spiritists with some limp wrested Sky Fairy for a god/goddess, or committing some terrible sin that shows they have no fear of God. The only hope is that they are truly saved. On your other question, there is a movement of quasi-evangelical homosexuals lead by a guy who claims to hold to the authority of Scripture and all sound Christian doctrines. Again, the issue here is never academic but the heart. People have a moral problem FIRST and then they have subsequent theological problems. Simply, if you want to sin you will come up with any decent sounding philosophical argument to back you up. Basically, right thinking is thinking God�s thoughts after him. And, if we do that we stick close to Scripture and repent when our thinking strays. Others who want to be their own god (whether or not they admit it) begin thinking their own thoughts which is rebellion. As Christians, we don�t want to be innovative, just faithful. And, we don�t want a new idea, just to follow God�s wisdom. This requires repentance and not genius, and that requires humility and not pride. And there is the issue � it�s always pride from a hard heart. On your last question, if someone claims faith in Jesus and persists in any kind of habitual unrepentant sin that they don't want to fight or end then I do eventually break fellowship with them (this includes being gay, fornication, etc.) because I don't like wasting my time, and I don't think it is right that they enjoy Christian fellowship while sinning and ignoring my God they claim to worship but do not. If it's a non-Christian I expect no obedience to God and can hang with them no matter what they do providing I don't get sucked into their sin.