What is distinct about postmodernity in relation to modernity? What features of modernity have survived into the postmodern era? What is the significance of your conclusions for the mission of the Church?

Introduction

The ancient world, including Greece and Rome, was accustomed to plurality of belief. There were innumerable pagan cults with differing, and sometimes conflicting views of right and wrong, each with its own perspective on life. One culture might accommodate several rival cults serving rival deities which were usually harmonized into a semi-hierarchical pantheon. But with the birth of Christianity all of that changed, relativism and plurality was progressively exchanged for faith in the one true God. Throughout the Middle Ages European public life was dominated by the certainties of the Christian Faith, but as Europe moved out of the Middle Ages various influences began to encroach upon its thinking. From the fourteenth century onwards we see the influence of the Renaissance; from the sixteenth century we see the power of the Reformation and the new scientific discoveries regarding the nature of the world and the universe. These influences would gradually lead to what is generally termed the Enlightenment, and the birth of modernity, with its new certainties and metanarratives. However, curiously, the certainties of modernity have led us, inescapably to the uncertainties of postmodernism. In this assignment I hope to make some observations regarding modernity and postmodernity, and from some conclusions that are relevant to the Church.

Modernity

Modernity is the intellectual and cultural heritage of the Enlightenment project, namely the rejection of traditional and religious sources of authority in favour of reason and knowledge as the road to human emancipation. It has produced a variety of social, political, and economic developments, including democratization and consumerization. Despite its oft flaunted antipathy to Christianity, it inherited one of its most cherished dogma, the concept of progress. The Judeo-Christian tradition gives to us a linear perception of history, a sense of progress from promise to fulfillment, whereas for so many other religions history is cyclical. Modernity unconsciously emulated the Christian sense of hope, but was not prepared to wait for God to act. It seems likely to me that Descartes insistence upon absolute philosophical certainty was made against the backdrop of the Christian Faith.

The debate suggests that science paradoxically contributes to the very problems that it sets out to solve. When reason is sovereign and human beings make their own rules, creation itself suffers. Modernity sought to relegate religion to the private sphere, denying it the authority of reason and knowledge which were reserved for the public sphere. The theologian, and former supporter of modernity, Karl Barth (1886-1968) challenged the anthropocentric world view of modernity, reminding the Church and Western Society that God is the centre of the world, and that we do not find God, but He finds us. He attacked the work of Nietzsche on the grounds that he saw it as an attempt to deify man.

Finger highlights the fact that modernity is fraught with paradox. The promise of rational certainty and self-awareness has often led to skepticism, and personal fragmentation. The search for freedom has often led to determinism, the search for liberation has often led to domination, the search for historical progress has often led to relativism, and the search for universal harmony has often led to conflict. The dream has become a nightmare. It seems that almost everything which modernity sought to accomplish by abandoning God has backfired.

Postmodernity

Postmodernity refers to the progressive loss of confidence in the enlightenment project since 1945, which accelerated in the seventies and eighties as the consequences of modernization became more apparent.

Postmodernity has given birth to Green politics, eco-warriors, and anti-consumerism. The realization that modernity has possibly altered our climate, and overused the worlds resources to such an extent that fear of the exhaustion of oil and coal reserves are constant, desperate steps are being taken to preserve ecosystems such as rainforests and coral reefs, a wide variety of formerly self renewing bio-resources are now under protection, and agencies such as the WWF are taking action to prevent mass extinctions. A greater awareness of the Two-Thirds World has produced an outcry for social and economic justice from the leading nations.

The features of postmodernity

Relativism – We can only be really sure of what is true for us, and what is true for us may not be true for others.

Pluralism – The wide variety of religious opinions are all equally valid. It is regarded as arrogant to make exclusive truth claims.

Subjectivism – Truth alters depending upon the perspective of its barer. Who is in a position to say which perspective is best or right?

Fragmentation – Into minority lobby groups such as ‘green’, ‘gay’, ‘feminist’, or ‘fundamentalist’.

Postmodernity has given rise to a ‘pick’n mix’ mentality. Take a little bit from here, tweak a little bit from there, chip off all the bad bits, then squeeze it till it fits, and you will have your own personal belief system. Robert Bellah in Habits of the Heart tells of a woman named Sheila who had constructed her own private religion out of bits and pieces from here and there and had named her new religion “Sheila-ism.” This seems to capture the spirit of the age. Consumerism is just one more expression of the priority of freedom of choice. Opinions are to a large extent molded by the media; infotainment and superficial sound bites flood the airwaves with disparate images and incongruous opinions to shock and amuse. Western culture diligently seeks the ultimate experience as its gateway to reality, and usually prefers to do so from the comfort of home. Like the Epicureans of pagan times we are invited to ‘eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!’. Where modernism was a manifesto of human self-confidence and self-congratulation, postmodernism is a confession of modesty, if not despair. Now, not only is time relative, but so is everything else; whether it is truth, reason, civilization, or justice.

Postmodernity has come to the realization that knowledge is inherently contextual in its scope and interpretation; that contexts are local, dependent upon time, place, and culture; and that it also follows that knowledge is pluralistic. Claims of objectivity are seen as a means of presenting ones own ideology in covert form as an established fact. The advance of pluralism has been aided by the decline of Western colonial influence upon the world at large. We are no longer able to silence the voices of descent of other cultures, the march of history, the advance of technology, and the prevalence of the media means that they will be heard with ever greater clarity.

Modernity is a mixed blessing. It offers culture without moral content. It convinced us that technology the friend who could make us masters of our environment, and we bought into the illusion. But now with the progressive onset of postmodernity we can see that technology is both friend and foe; the friend who has given to us the capacity to defend the free world and destroy the entire world; the friend who has given to us the power to bend our environment to our wills or remove it entirely; the friend which has made us dependent upon apparently inexhaustible energy sources that will shortly be exhausted; the friend which has given us the power to biologically re-engineer life and to indiscriminately destroy biodiversity, constantly causing mass extinctions. This realization and much more besides has brought about a sense of skepticism, despair, and often apathy. Is this really what it means to be postmodern?

What is distinct about postmodernity in relation to modernity

Modernity was touted as a way of making sense of the world, but postmodernity realizes that this is not possible for mere mortals, instead it seek to discover a way of coping with life. Newbigin reminds us that it is no longer tenable to claim that science gives us access to the pure facts, and that the past insistence on the distinction between facts and values is, at best, flawed. Modernity confidently asserted that science was based entirely upon unalloyed facts, and that the value systems imposed by religion were outmoded, an anachronism in the modern age. It was optimistic that science ultimately lead mankind to utopia, endowing those religious figures who played such a vital role in giving birth to the various branches of science with the status of honorary atheists. Postmodernity has a more mature approach in that it recognizes the limitations of the human condition, and the hazards of a value free existence. Postmodernity realizes that science has bought to the brink of our own destruction, and still threatens us with nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. It is waking up to the fact that we need values, and a reason to live.

Like the premodern Christian society, modernity had its own gospel, the gospel according to science. Postmodernity does not have a single gospel, but it draws its multifaceted truth from a variety of sources. For the modern faithful, truth was an objective thing based upon facts, but the postmodern faithful see truth as a purely subjective thing, a matter of perspective. The truth is out there, but what is true for you may not be true for another, and visa versa ad infinitum. The epistemology and hermeneutics of modernity was clear and plain, science was both the means of obtaining truth, and of interpreting its significance. But the epistemology and hermeneutics of postmodernity is another thing altogether. Western society has once more become conscious of the limitations of the human condition. Nietzsche captured the spirit of this age when he outlined his perception that truth claims are covert assertions of power, and when said power he meant oppressive power. One of the ironies of postmodernism is that by insisting that upon its absolute conviction that all truth claims are relative and that no single truth system is in the position to stand in judgment upon another, it has created yet another truth system based upon pluralism and tolerance, and it has created its own value system, with its own absolute judgment that all truths are equally valid. Or to put it in the terms of Stephen Best and Douglas Kelner, ‘does not the very concept of postmodernity presuppose a master narrative, a totalizing perspective.

Walter Brueggemann observes that when Western Society moved from the premodernity to modernity it moved from oral to written, so that only the written word was regarded as reliable; it moved from particular to universal, so that only that which was thought to be true everywhere was regarded as true; it moved from local to general, so that real truth had to be the same in every locality; and a move from timely to timeless, so that what was real was unchanging. He goes on to acknowledge Toulmin’s observation that as we move from modernity to postmodernity the above process has been reversed, with the move from written to oral, from universal to particular, from general to local, and from timeless to timely. He continues by relating Toulmin’s conclusion that the reversal is due to modernity’s failure to deliver what it had promised. A better world.

What features of modernity have survived into the postmodern era?

There are no definitive explanations for the meaning of ‘modernity’ or of ‘postmodernity’, different writers have different ideas about what they mean and whether it is possible to distinguish between the two, consequently some authors prefer the term ‘late modernity’ to ‘postmodernity’. However, the term ‘postmodern’ is so widely used that avoiding it seems impractical, and there do seem to be broadly accepted guidelines when talking about modernity and postmodernity.

Western Society can still be described as an ‘information society’, and a ‘consumer society’, but its confidence level is not what it once was. The paternalism which was once part and parcel of western Christian mission, and political and military action, has to a certain extent given away to a partnership mentality, and the realization that the Two-Thirds World is not as easily impressed as it once was. The Enlightenment love affair with science which was so constant in the era of modernity still lingers in the so called era of postmodernity, consequently many regard postmodernity as an extension of modernity. The Great War and the following events have exposed the shortcomings of the view point which assumed that knowledge and science would solve all problems. As Enlightenment reason became prevalent and people became absorbed in the means and the process of existence, instead of spreading hope and confidence it became the primary cause of despair and apathy, since, by slight of hand, science had mad it appear that life had no meaning, and existence was without purpose. The Darwinian idea of ‘the survival of the fittest’ has been used to support the most horrific atrocities of both left and right wing totalitarian regimes. In the last century we have seen science make men into animals.

What is the significance of your conclusions for the mission of the Church?

Some Churches have got caught up in the demand for popular religion, what I call ‘Instant Christianity’, and Seel terms McDonaldization and others have christened ‘Pediatric Christianity’, seeking to produce all the benefits of Christianity for the minimum of effort and to entertain those who have a short attention span.

The Church often appears to want to cater to the whim of modern consumerism. Everything is packaged, presented and surgically cleaned in order to prevent a negative image, or any adverse reaction.

One approach might be to seek out the aspects of modernity and postmodernity which correspond most closely to the teachings and traditions of Christianity and utilize them as bridges of common understanding.

One American Anabaptist suggests that we should approach modern/postmodern society as outsiders, challenging it with an alternative extramodern world view, unimpeded by the intellectual baggage of modernity or of its rejection (postmodernity).

We certainly should not allow postmodernity to deconstruct the message of the Gospel down the drain, extracting all possible meaning from the text. Christians need to seek out the mind of the God who inspired the Scriptures, and attempt to acquire a deeper knowledge of the Scriptures and the context in which they were written. Otherwise we may be condemned to wonder around the weird and wonderful interpretations that the world chooses to superimpose upon the text, without ever actually coming into contact with the message that we were originally supposed to understand and share with others.

Another approach might be address the concerns and interact with the trends embodied in modernity and postmodernity.

It is quite common for Christian preachers to focus upon the benefits of Christian experience for individuals. As long as their message does is not encompassed by experience I do not see any great harm in this. Many of the great hymns of the Church relate the joys of Christian experience.

Another approach might be to bring the authority of the Church’s prophetic voice to the problems arising as a consequence of modernity and postmodernity.

All this talk of modernity and postmodernity is very heady stuff. If I started to talk about modernity and postmodernity, most of the people that I know would not have a clue what I was talking about. Intellectual stimulation of this nature can contribute to dialogue at an intellectual level. But most of the people who become Christians do so because of the influence of people that they know and love, or perhaps because of an act of kindness, or an invitation from a friend.

The impact modernity and postmodernity is more apparent for those who will study in theological departments and Bible Colleges. Personally, I have noticed the shift in philosophical fashion and world view over the last few decades, from the absolute certainty of doubt towards an almost excessive toleration and relativism. But it does seem to be easier to believe and teach from a conservative theological outlook.

The postmodern world harbours the expectation that Christians should set aside all exclusive truth claims, and see Christianity as just one of many paths to God. Tolerance is seen as the supreme virtue, and exclusive claims are often portrayed as a sign of ignorance or arrogance, or possibly both.

Walter Brueggemann outlines three consequences of postmodernity which have implications for the mission of the Church: the pastoral crisis of social displacement, the theological crisis of respeaking God, and the methodological crisis of how to read. He conveys to me the message that we should take advantage of the opportunity provided by the new openness of Western Society to convey the Gospel message unalloyed by the presuppositions of Western culture.

By way of personal observation, I have noticed the following. It is in the culturally diverse era of postmodernity that Jews and Christians in the Holy Land have began to work together to understand Jesus within His original cultural and religious setting. The work of the Jerusalem school of synoptic studies has produced some remarkable insights regarding the Gospels. I have noticed that congregations and study groups have become more receptive to the Jewish Jesus of Israel. His status as honorary European Gentile now seems anomalous. This popular cultural humility was more problematic in the colonial past, but now it seems relatively widespread.

In some ways the Western world view seems to have come full circle. From pagan pick’n mix where a family or community might simultaneously serve several gods, to the certainty of the Christian premodern outlook, to the bold self confidence of modernity, then to the pick’n mix of postmodernity, where an individuals belief system might be moulded entirely by personal experience. Christianity first burst forth out of the Jewish world into a Roman world with an outlook which possessed some striking similarities to our own, for not only did Israel contain the Temple of the One True God, but it also contained grand pagan temples, and to my knowledge boasted at least two temples for the purpose of emperor worship. As I wrote this assignment I asked myself the question what does the Church need to do to make a similar difference in the world to that of our ancient Christian forbears. In the 1980s Newbigin wrote of a society that was resistant to the Gospel, but as we move into the 21st century there appears to be a decline in resistance, and a genuine desire to for understanding. Lets hope that God may be able to work through His people in our time to meet the growing needs of our society as He did in ancient times. There is real concern in the wider Christian community to enter into meaningful dialogue with modern/postmodern Western Societies, and a real desire to bring them into contact with the Risen Lord.

Andrew Daw Plymouth UK Bibliography

Units 1-8 Dr K J Hacking Mission Theology in Context Cheltenham OTC 1998

Dr K J Hacking Mission Theology in Context Reader 1 Cheltenham OTC 1998

Philip Sampson, Vinay Samuel, & Chris Sugden Faith and Modernity Oxford Regnum 1994

Lesslie Newbigin The Gospel in a Pluralist Society London SPCK 1989

The following Web Sites were also consulted:

Michael Horton The Tower of Babel: Modernity built the tower – now postmodernity must face the challenge of condemning the “unsafe structure.” An excerpt from September/October 1995 issue of Modern Reformation published by CURE, 2221 East Winston Road Suite K, Anaheim, CA 92806

http://www.capo.org/premise/95/sep/p950806.html

Lois Barrett Anabaptist Evangelism in the Context of Modernity and Postmodernity

http://www.newlifeministries-nlm.org/online/aec98_barrett.htm