DM109 Shifting the church into the future tense June-July 99

Lecture notes

1 INTRODUCTION

“The gospel must be constantly forwarded to a new address, because the recipients are repeatedly changing their place of residence.” (Thielicke)

2 THE PRE-MODERN WORLD VIEW

a God the ultimate reality and source of all of knowledge.

b A vertical dualism between heaven and earth.

c Dominated by a language of purpose (teleological).

d Tradition the source of authority, e.g. bible and church.

e After God, humanity the centre of the universe (Miller 2).

f Supernatural events common.

3 THE MODERN WORLD VIEW

a Began with Graeco-Roman era. From the Greeks: reason, humanism and democracy. From the Romans: law, technology and imperialism (Finger 20).

b Flowered with the rise of science and then the Enlightenment (18thC).

c Scientific method central. Empiricism reduces the world to that which can be accessed through the five senses.

d A mind-matter dualism reigns, with facts firm and values a matter of private choice.

e Reason reigns supreme. Paradox, mystery, feelings, intuition, art, imagination, relationship, miracle all devalued. What is logical, or reasonable (as defined), or can be shown, or makes sense to me, is acceptable.

f In epistemology (the study of what we can know and how we know it) the focus turned to the knowing subject rather than the known object. According to Kant we can only know the phenomenal world and can only speculate about the ‘noumenal’ world, the mind imposing its categories on it, such as causation, time, purpose and so on. Human consciousness is the key to knowledge.

g Humanism. The human is the centre and deserving of rights and freedoms.

h Individualism. The analytical method understands by dividing into small units. The autonomous self is the Enlightenment ideal.

i Inevitable progress. Evolutionary ideas (Darwin, Hegel, Marx)

combined with rapid industrial and colonial growth, the spread of education, modern technological inventions and the improvement of living standards for many. Enormous confidence.

j Technology reigns. ‘How to’ eclipses ‘why’ and ‘who’. Means dominate ends. Amazing achievements such as sending people to the moon and communicating globally. Conquering nature, overcoming problems, being ‘Mr Fixit’.

k Universalising tendency. What works here should work anywhere. Universal truth. The global community. The mature person (anywhere).

l A search for the foundations of knowledge, either through reason, or sense experience, or even scepticism that a foundation can be found.

m Language either refers to objects and events (descriptive language), or it expresses emotions or attitudes (moral, aesthetic, religious and metaphysical discourses). A long search for ways to tighten up a universal logical language that represented reality (e.g. Russell, early Wittgenstein).

4 PRELIMINARY COMMENTS ON POSTMODERNITY

a We will use ‘postmodernism’ to refer to cultural and intellectual phenomena, and ‘postmodernity’ to refer to the social, following Lyon (7). That is, postmodernism is largely about ideas, literature, art, music and architecture. Postmodernity is about the kind of society these produce, e.g. in the areas of information, communication, politics, economics, class, gender, production, leisure.

b Having said that, it is very difficult to keep them separate. Most ideas materialise in social characteristics. Most literature and art both influence and are influenced by society. Society is part of culture and vice versa.

c Postmodernism also by definition is ‘post’ and yet partly ‘modern’, both different from and yet dependent on modernism. Some internal contradictions can be expected.

d Postmodernism is a contemporary phenomenon and therefore can’t be mapped precisely. Hindsight is needed for that.

5 POSTMODERNISM IN PHILOSOPHY, LITERATURE AND ART

a Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was the father of postmodernism, saying that truth is just the solidification of old metaphors. Systems of reason are actually systems of persuasion, attempting to dominate others by sounding universally true while really masking assumptions made by the dominant culture. In announcing that God had been killed (‘God is dead’), Nietzsche was saying that we can’t be sure of anything any more. Morality is a lie; truth is a fiction. Nihilism is all that remains (Lyon 7-8).

b The term has been used widely since Jean-Francois Lyotard wrote The postmodern condition in 1979 (1984 in English).

c Rejection of grand stories: Lyotard argues that powerful institutions support their claims by metanarratives – stories showing that they are working to better humanity, e.g. science, Marxism, capitalism. He says that we need to reject and question these systems, producing new paradigms and enriching understanding with multiple perspectives (Finger 24).

d Reason is suspected as an instrument of domination. Michel Foucault analysed hospitals, prisons, asylums and sexuality, to show that what is insanity or deviance depends on where you stand, and that dominant culture had oppressed others in the name of reason. He calls for a recovery of the discourses of the marginalised. Postmodernism is seen as liberating by some writers in oppressed groups.

e Epistemologically, postmodernism rejects foundationalism for a holist model. ‘It is the whole fabric of what we know that faces the tribunal of existence’ (Quine, cited in Murphy & McClendon 200).

f On the philosophy of language: Language doesn’t refer to objects outside language, but creates our reality, making possible both ideas and experience. The meaning is determined by communities as we play language games.

g In ethics: Deciding what is good or not involves primarily the traditions of the community we are part of. The place we start from, in family, profession, tribe or nation, determines the sorts of virtues we will espouse. Individual good is unintelligible apart from communal practices (Murphy & McClendon 203).

h Interconnectedness, relationship and community are important. In reaction to atomism and individualism, an ecological sense is often important (this stands in tension with the fragmenting tendencies in postmodernism). We are organisms, in symbiosis with others. There is a new relationship with nature, and reliance on communal traditions (Bosch 362).

i The boundaries between things and meanings have blurred. Jean Baudrillard says symbols have taken on a life of their own. Simulation replaces production as an organising principle. Actors become more real than people. News becomes infotainment. Virtual reality merges into reality. All boundaries are blurred (Finger 24).

j Pluralism and relativism are implied. There is no outside universal truth, no metanarrative, only communally agreed perspectives. There are no universals outside the plural particularities of existence. So realism is rejected as well. There are multiple truths.

k In literary criticism, under the name of deconstruction (Derrida), postmodernism rejects the view that a text has a meaning, the author’s meaning. Due to the language, its framing, the unspoken presuppositions, the internal contradictions, the shape, the arrangement etc, we can see meanings unintended by the author. These meanings deconstruct the author’s intent, with continual revisions possible.

l There is a playful, erotic, self-consciously stylistic dimension to postmodernism. Rejecting serious, linear, logical, efficient approaches, in architecture there is often pastiche, parody, eclecticism, decorativeness, playful shapes and colours. In music there is the use of chance and computers and gimmickry (Bullock et al 671).

m Indeterminacy in language and thought means irreducible mystery. Art and imagination are much more important than the word and the linear argument. Multiple media are needed.

6 POSTMODERNITY IN POPULAR CULTURE AND IN SOCIETY

a Reality is under question. Does God make sense? Do we drop out (60s), reform society (70s) or look after number one (80s)? What is the theme of the 90s? Is there a grand design, or only competing forces at war in a darkening sky?

b Simulation is as good as the real thing. The media bombard us with virtual reality. ‘TV is reality.’ Style matters as much as substance. Melrose Place: stylish trash. Video games, artificial snow slopes, love affairs on the Internet. Hi-tech world. Preoccupation with the surface.

c Fragmentary images are the norm. The video clip or the U2 Zooropa tour is the symbol of the postmodern world view. Sensory overload, pastiche, montage, general image without verbal content.

d Fragmentation into sub-cultures. The vision of society has gone. We are tribes, determining meaning for ourselves. The public is gone; we are segmented markets.

e Economic rationalism treats us as economic units, acting in predictable ways as consumers. Not citizenship but consumership. Socially valued services and interactions are being commodified (turned into things to be bought and sold if you can afford them). We now have to buy water, public transport and freeway travel from private companies. The minding of society’s prisoners is done for profit now. The government sells TV rights to overseas companies. These are business deals, not seen as a social heritage to be guarded.

f Distinctions are blurred. Right and wrong, male and female, extreme violence and entertainment. Pulp Fiction, Crying Game.

g A turn inward, from social vision to questions of meaning, hope and future. Loss of hope for improvement. Sense of powerlessness to change things.

h A rejection of authority, because of relativism and suspicion of the use of authority in the past.

7 IMPLICATIONS FOR EVANGELISM

a Recognise that the world is changing rapidly and radically. Read the signs of the times. Follow some cultural indicators.

b Accept that we are in a missionary situation. No longer semi-Christendom. People aren’t sure there’s any overarching reality out there, let alone God.

c In apologetics: Finding common ground as a starting point is necessary.

d Communally based perspectives are newly respectable, and in a fragmented world community is profoundly attractive.

e Relationships are central in postmodernism, and Christian faith needs to recover the relational dimension to complement the doctrinal dimension.

f Telling of stories matters more than arguing propositions.

g Use of the arts in worship and communication. Postmodernism is right-brained.

h Developing a prophetic suspicion of authority, tradition and power.

i Recover the playful, erotic, ironic and self-critical dimensions of life.

j The acceptance of competing voices gives us a right to be heard in the marketplace again. Pluralism works both ways.

k Work through the extent to which we marry the spirit of our age. We must reinvent the church continually, changing style: ‘Few of us are contemporaries of our generation.’ But how far do we accept the fragmentation, the consumerism and the media-bombarded culture?

l We must resist complete relativism while acknowledging diversity, the dangers of universal reason and the potential arrogance of a metanarrative.

m We must resist a totally communally-defined ethics; there are universal ethical principles, and relativists can usually be shown to adhere to them anyway. At the same time, acknowledge the cultural blinkers we wear.

n We must resist the turn away from working at society’s problems, campaigning for justice and engaging in long-term projects.

o Bear witness to hope, love and justice, in a time of nihilism, narcissism and naked political conflict.

SOME USEFUL REFERENCES:

Allen, Diogenes. “Christian values in a post-Christian context.” In Postmodern theology: Christian faith in a pluralist world, ed. Frederic B Burnham. 20-36. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989.

Anderson, Jim. “Have you ever been X-perienced?” The Gospel and Our Culture 6.4 (Dec 1994): 7-8.

Apokis, Con. “Taking ministry to the X-treme.” On Being, Nov 1994, 24-28.

Bosch, David J. Transforming mission: Paradigm shifts in theology of mission. Maryknoll: Orbis, 1991. 349-362.

Bullock, Alan, Oliver Stallybrass, and Stephen Trombley, eds. The Fontana dictionary of modern thought. 2nd ed., London: Fontana, 1988.

Burnham, Frederic B, ed. Postmodern theology: Christian faith in a pluralist world. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989.

Carrell, Brian. Moving between times: Modernity and postmodernity: A Christian view. Auckland: The Deepsight Trust, 1998.

Deane, Joel. “The branding of a generation.” On Being, Oct 1994, 22-27.

Erickson, Millard J. The Word became flesh: A contemporary incarnational christology. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991.

Finger, Thomas. “Modernity, postmodernity – What in the world are they?” Transformation 10.4 (Oct-Dec 1993): 20-26.

Grenz, Stanley J. A primer on postmodernism. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996.

Guinness, Os. “Mission modernity: Seven checkpoints on mission in the modern world.” Transformation 10.4 (Oct-Dec 1993): 3-13.

Horseman, Colin. Good News for a postmodern world. Cambridge: Grove Books, 1996.

Hughes, Philip. A maze or a system? Changes in the worldview of Australian people. CRA Research paper No.2, Melbourne: Christian Research Association, 1994.

Kraus, C Norman. An intrusive gospel? Christian mission in the postmodern world. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998.

Long, Jimmy. “The gospel in postmodern times: A shift in perspective.” The gospel and our culture 6.4 (Dec 1994): 1-2, 4-5.

Lyon, David. Postmodernity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994.

Miller, James B. “The emerging postmodern world.” In Postmodern theology: Christian faith in a pluralist world, ed. Frederic B Burnham. 1-19. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989.

Murphy, Nancey and James Wm McClendon, Jr. “Distinguishing modern and postmodern theologies.” Modern theology 5 (1989): 191-214.

Placher, William. “Postmodern theology.” In A new handbook of Christian theology, eds. Donald W Musser and Joseph L Price. 372-375. Nashville: Abingdon, 1992.

Sugden, Christopher. “Modernity, Postmodernity and the gospel.” Transformation 10.4 (Oct-Dec 1993): 1-2.

Van Gelder, Craig. “A great new fact of our day: America as a mission field.” Missiology 19 (1991): 409-418.

Ross Langmead,6-7-99