This from the start of the conversation over at The Church and Postmodern Culture

We are using the postmodern authors to unveil the huge shortcomings of current church practices all because of our indebtedness to modernism and all its manifestations. The response we both offer, however, is not to contextualize a church to postmodernity, but rather to reinvigorate an ecclesiology for our times.
–from the church and postmodern culture: conversation: Postmodernity vs. the Gospel?

Hits the nail right on the head. The “shortcomings of current church practices” seem to be getting more and more like a “cultural experience”, now with the intensified “us vs them” gap that contrasts us in our language and politics, but keeps churches on all sides of the divides similar and in unison with their tacit acceptance of the “flow” of culture and anonymity and individualism and “church as program” rather than relationship. There seems to be nothing offered in the way of an ongoing , serious, deeply formative journey. We are left to ourselves to reach out where we can, derive some sort of therapy from sermons and programs, and never be expected to have our multi-faceted journey and story integrated in any ongoing way into the life of the church community. This is unacceptable. This is a betrayal of the call to be a people of God.

I’m hoping to find some additional insight and articulation of this painful gap between where we find ourselves in relation to the culture :of it rather than working with one another to overcome the addictions it instigates and perpetuates.