Not a fan..

A few years ago in my Rhetorical Theories class the professor talked about modern and post-modern thought. My ears perked up because the only concepts of modern and post-modern thought that I had were blurry portrayals developed by merely overhearing conversations. I wanted clarity.

While listening in class, there were many large criteria for post-modern thought, most of which I thought were silly, but one of the main criteria was that post-modern thought is anti-rational, not meaning irrational, but that there are other legitimate ways to know and understand things i.e. feelings, hunches, intuition, art, music, poems, etc.

In general this is a concept that I agree with but only to a point. For example, I believe God made us emotional beings and those feelings in correlation with thinking moves us, as humans, in this sort of dynamic dance with God and His will, our heart, our mind and so many other factors. This dance shapes us to be who we are, where we are, what we know and what we're doing in this exact instance all with and for a purpose. Simply put, God gave us the ability to think and feel and both have legitimacy in our lives. It really irks me when people try to take away the gray area and make it all about one.

I'm not a fan. I'm from Ames, home of the Cyclones, went to school in Cedar Falls, home of the panthers, and have friends and family in Iowa City, home of the Hawkeyes. I'm still not a fan. The reason? Because if I'm to say I am a fan of one it automatically implies that I'm not a fan of the others. Why make something mutually exclusive when it doesn't have to be?

I guess what I'm try to say is that I don't like it when we become so affiliative in our faith that we exclude other expressions of that same faith. Feelings are wonderful especially in a relationship with God, but if they cause you to exclude your thoughts they aren't offering a more full experience of God but rather a more constricted one.