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Stuart Murray is Oasis Director of Church Planting and Evangelism and Lecturer, Spurgeon's College, London, England. He quotes Lesslie Newbigin who in his book 'The Gospel in a Pluralist Society,' insisted that contemporary society is a pagan society, and its paganism, having been born out of the rejection of Christianity, is far more resistant to the gospel than the pre-Christian paganism with which cross-cultural missions have been familiar. "We are in a radically new situation and cannot dream either of a Constantinian authority or of a pre-Constantinian innocence." 

For Murray: " . . . The fundamental issue is the recalling of the church to its primary task. This may have been obscured under Christendom, but it is inescapable in a post-Christian society that the primary task of the church is mission. And if mission is our priority, our churches will need to change. Renewed commitment to the missionary task of the church will require, through both church renewal and church planting, creativity in developing new forms and shapes through which the gospel can be expressed in contemporary society."  Confidence that science and technology will solve all problems has given way to fear and disillusionment. Secular philosophy and reliance on reason alone does not satisfy the deepest longings of human beings.

Among the main features of what is being called 'postmodernity' are: a commitment to relativism in relation to questions of truth; understanding meaning as subjective rather than objective; the significance of spiritual values without allowing claims to exclusivity; the importance of imagination as well as rationality; interpreting the world through a biological rather than a mechanistic model; concern for the environment and an understanding of humanity as part of this environment, rather than separate from it; a distrust of institutions, hierarchies, and structures, and a preference for networks and grassroots activities; a rejection of male domination; an iconoclastic refusal to respect established traditions, or to take anything, including itself, too seriously; an emphasis on the chaotic and fragmentary rather than order and harmony; a readiness to hold together contradictory beliefs; a commitment to choice at every level; and deep scepticism.

In a post-Christian society, the churches seem to be part of a fading culture. In a postmodern culture, all institutions (not just the church) are suspect.

Advises Murray: The challenge facing us, as we consider mission in a postmodern environment, is to remain flexible and alert, neither buying uncritically into an apparently emerging culture that may be short-lived, thereby leaving the church stranded in a cultural dead-end; nor remaining trapped in a modernist mode, ignoring or resisting cultural changes that require clear and creative thinking about the shape and role of the church in society.