shake the foundation

Foundationalism is a philosophy of the modern era that is intoxicatingly simple and yet tremendously divisive.
The concept is this, build a foundation of undeniable facts upon which you can build your life, education, and relationships.because the facts are undeniable once you explain them everyone who is intelligent enough to understand you will have to agree with you.those who do not agree with you either did not understand you, can not understand you (because of lack of intelligence), or refuse to understand you With proper education all of these misunderstandings can be corrected, and when they are they will agree with you.

This philosophy was adopted in general by the corporate church. Most believed that given the opportunity to explain the undeniable facts of Christianity to the unbelieving world the world would have to agree with these undeniable facts and thereby become a Christian world.
Using the modern scientific approach to truth the church set out to determine all of the undeniable facts as set by God in His word. As they broke down each word in the Bible to its original form, and then defined that word in today's language they believed all Christians would then agree on everything building their foundation of truth and an arm of belivers to teach the world. The concept was simple and the victory would be worldwide and God's kingdom would come to earth.
This of course did not happen.The church corporately divided in two factions . One was referred to as mainline or "liberal" churches. Their foundation was based on emotions, history, and Academics (worldly wisdom). This allowed their foundation to not only be hard to deny but also very hard to prove. And allowed for great individualism to be expressed in what the Bible meant to you and how you were going to express that meaning either academically or practically in the world. The second was the fundamentalist camp of churches. Their foundation was based on the facts of God's Word through academic research, the search for the least complicated expression of what God's Word said, and the exaltation of individuals who "knew"God's word. their foundation was also very hard to deny or to prove.Neither of the two factions could dialogue with the other because to do so might mean that their foundation was wrong, and therefore not undeniable.
The foundational approach as we can see in history served to divide the Christian community into smaller and smaller factions. As each one divided they retained the foundational mindset and believed their interpretation of the facts was the only undeniable foundation upon which to build the church.
in order to get the "proper" facts out the churches divided into denominations, denominations put up schools, congregations were taught to be loyal, and those who disagreed were told to get better educated, or get out and never come back.

I do understand I am condensing a very large and complicated concept. So let me get to a very small and general point.

I believe one of the reasons why dialogue within the modern Christian community is so threatening both the Liberals and the Fundamentalists is because of the philosophy of foundationalism. The concept brings great fear to any discussion that may change what they would consider a block in their foundation.
Both sides are more than willing to discuss their belief system and the facts that lead them to that system. The concept behind this discussion is to allow you to hear their undeniable facts so that you will agree with them at the end of the discussion. With an undeniable foundation of facts supported by God and God's Word they fear that a dialogue that changes their foundation would mean that they are denying God.Foundationalism demands that you take a side. If you do not agree with the facts liberal or fundamentalist then you are on the other side and can be easily categorized as a "fearmonger" or "tree hugger" and thereby dismissed as ignorant and unable to understand what is clearly obvious to everyone else.

I write this in hopes to bring some understanding to those of us within the postmodern culture, as we tried to engage Christians from the modern era in dialogue.We within the postmodern church need to understand what we are asking a modern brother or sister to do when we want to dialogue over a particular concept or interpretation found in the Bible, or historical Church.(what the postmodern world calls deconstruction)
We are literally asking them to be willing to shake their foundations in order to consider the concept that someone, or something else might be worth considering.
Foundationalism is also the concept that fuels the idea that the postmodern world has no Truth. In the modern era when a foundation of truth was determined there was no more debate, discussion, or need to ever revisit those foundational blocks. In the postmodern world we are willing to revisit those blocks and are willing to say that all of them may need to be thrown out, so we can start over again.
A postmodern world is willing to be wrong, and still be passionately committed to what they believe is true. A foundationalist has no category in their philosophy to be passionate about truth and also be willing to be wrong.
(this is why I believe" faith" is more integrated in the postmodern world. The modern world put their"faith" more in the facts)

I believe the postmodern world is a wonderful world to be in. I believe it is cleansing the church of many traditions that were presented as God's truth. I believe it is breaking down division, and academic arrogance that the modern era polluted the church with, but let us remember to speak the truth in love.The modern era is not evil and the time and effort that was spent scientifically breaking down the Word of God is not to be discarded.
I hope this helps you understand your modern brother and sister a little better.