We live life by organizing things into neat little packages. Doing so undoubtedly makes life simpler and easier to navigate. To categorize is to be human (and vice versa)- it's in our very nature. And neither is this all bad. In fact, this mental skill is a God-given gift that allows us to move through the world without being absolutely swamped by the vast array of stimuli we encounter on a daily basis.

However, the categorization game is not all good. In fact it can be down-right destructive. Sometimes we categorize to oppress rather than to understand. And sometimes we categorize merely because we don't understand. In instances such as these we would do far better to leave things as they are- even if that appears to us to be- messier.

It will come as no shock to anyone when I suggest that categorization connected to religion has caused more heartache and more bloodshed than any other human endeavor in history. Categorization in religion so often comes down to "us" and "them", and this is so often unhelpful. In fact, as long as we think there is a "them" we often defend our own ignorance of others. We think, because of the very fact that they are part of the "them" group, we are not obliged to attempt understanding. I think this is a grave error.

We are living in and beginning to move beyond what has been deemed the "modern era" of history. This is an era where categorization has reigned supreme. In the West we became so fascinated with "objective truth" (which arose out of the scientific method and the period known as the Enlightenment) that we perhaps forgot to ask what the cost of such a blind pursuit was. In the early part of the 20th century many people stopped believing in God, or at least they lost interest for a time, because the nature of God's existence was beyond the kind of "proof" that everyone was so intoxicated with.

However, years and decades came and went and our human experience began to tell us that the modern era and its demand for scientific verification left much to be desired. And at the onset of the postmodern era, people began to talk about more than just the kind of truth that can only be verified by scientific observation and replication. Matters of the spirit came into vogue again- to the shock perhaps of those who thought modernism was here to stay.

We as Christians have spent a lot of time discussing how new doors might be opening with the advent of "the postmodern season" and its embrace of matters of the spirit. This is a good thing. We should be both ready and eager to run through these doors of new opportunity. However, I think there's more than an opportunity for evangelism at play here.

Just as "the World" is beginning to rethink some of its assumptions regarding "the nature of things", we too should do the same. Some may scream for horror at such a suggestion. Am I saying that we should re-mold the nature of the Faith so that it goes down more smoothly for a new generation? No, what I'm saying (and I'm certainly not the only one saying it) is that we too have undoubtedly been "colored" by modern thinking. And therefore we need to reexamine ourselves, our attitudes, our methods, etc, to make sure that we can shake off the shackles of anything that is not true to the Gospel.

Am I saying that modernism is more anti-gospel than is postmodernism? No- I'm not saying that either. What I'm saying is that in this dawning of a new season in Western culture, we have the unique opportunity to see, perhaps for the first time, just how biased we were by modernist assumptions. These new horizons don't come along very often. Now is the time to embrace the opportunity.

In reexamining ourselves it is both my hope and my expectation that we can find ourselves reinvigorated in our own understanding of the glorious realities and enduring mysteries of the Gospel. From this new understanding comes passion- and from passion comes a new commitment to mission. In other words, by taking some time to look inward, we may find ourselves ironically propelled outward (irony is very postmodern!) to reach the World with the love of Christ.