The Postmodern Challenge

Michael GoheenTrinity Western University

Langley, B.C.

Ephesians 4:14-15

Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead speaking the truth in love, we will in all tings grow up into him who is the Head, that is Christ.

New Winds of Change

A massive intellectual [worldview, cultural] revolution is taking place that is perhaps as great as that which marked off the modern world from the Middle Ages (Diogenes Allen).

If the world has not approached its end, it has reached a major watershed in history, equal in importance to the turn from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance (Alexander Solzhenitsyn).

What is postmodernity?

“This word [postmodernism] has no meaning. Use it as often as possible.”New cultural periodFailure of modernity?New worldview?

How are Christians to respond?

We are not intended to be conformed to the world but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. God uses changes and chances in history to shake His people from time to time out of their conformity with the world; but when that happens our job surely is not just to push over the tiller and sail before the winds of change, but to look afresh to our chart and compass and to ask how we now use the new winds and the new tides to carry out our sailing orders. Every new situation is a summons to bring all our traditions afresh “under the word of God.” - Lesslie Newbigin

No longer tossed back and forth

Present: New postmodern winds blowingPast: Sailing peacefully before modern windsOur task: Not simply push over tiller and sail before PM winds of changeOur task: Look afresh at our chart, compass, sailing ordersOur task: Understand changing winds

How are Christians to respond? The real question is: What is God doing in

these tremendous events of our time? How are we to understand them and interpret them to others, so that we and they may play our part in them as co-workers with God? Nostaligia for the past and fear for the future are equally out of place for the Christian. He is required, in the situation in which God places him, to understand the signs of the times in the light of the reality of God’s present and coming kingdom, and to give witness faithfully about the purpose of God for all men.

- Lesslie Newbigin

Response to Changing Times

Enable us to see our conformity with culture Not simply conform to postmodern winds Nostalgia for past, conservatism wrong Require fresh analysis of cultural situation Analysis done in the light of God’s word “What is God doing in these events?” Understand for the purpose of witness

Postmodern Challenge

Postmodernity is skepticism toward big cultural stories of progress.

“Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives” (J-F. Lyotard).

Big Stories of Progress

Humanistic visionBuild better world through science and technology20th century forms:

Liberalism Communism

Failure!

Why don’t we believe these big stories anymore?

Growing poverty Declining economy Depletion of resources Destruction of the environment Escalating militarization (nuclear weapons) Social and psychological problems

Idols have not delivered on promises

Material prosperity? Poverty is growing!Freedom? Controlled by media, education, big business, government!Truth? Bewildering pluralism!Justice and peace? Oppression, war, violence, crime abound!

Impotence of Idols

Of what value is an idol, since a man has carved it? Or an image that teaches lies? For he who makes it trusts in his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak (Habakkuk 2:18).

Their idols are silver and gold, made by the hands of men. They have mouths but cannot speak, eyes, but they cannot see; they have ears, but they cannot hear, noses, but they cannot smell; they have hands but they cannot feel, feet but they cannot walk; nor can they utter a sound with their throats. Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them (Ps.115:4-7).

What is God doing in our time?

Judgement! “...you shall suffer the penalty…

and bear the consquences of your sinful idolatry…” (Ezekiel 23:49).

O Lord, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in time of distress, to you the nations will come from the ends of the earth and say, “Our fathers possessed nothing but false gods, worthless idols that did them no good. Do men make their own gods? Yes but they are not gods! Therefore, I will teach them--this time I will teach them my power and might. Then they will know that my name is the Lord (Jeremiah 16:19-21).

Postmodern Challenge

Postmodernity is skepticism toward big stories of progressPostmodernity is a challenge toward a rationalistic view of humankind

Christian view of humanity

Religious centre/directionServe God or idolsMany aspects: body, emotional, rational, imagination, historical, communal, aesthetic, judicial, ethical, etc.Creational harmonyModernity: reason exalted

Idolatry and Depreciation

Idolatry of some part of creation Depreciation of other aspects God’s faithfulness to harmonious interrelation of diverse creation Suppressed aspects forces its way back

Understanding Postmodern Times

God made human beings with numerous functions and abilities God made human beings to be unified in service and knowledge of God When that religious dimension is denied, one of the functions is absolutized Other aspects diminished Rise of suppressed aspects to new idolatry

Non-rationalist dimensions of humanity suppressed by rationalism

Body Emotions Senses Subconscious Desire, passion Religious Imagination Instinct, intuition

What is God doing in our time?

Human rationality cannot bring redemption Invitation to find true unity Human beings are made to live in communion with God Faith, obedience, and love define humanity not rational activity

Postmodern Challenge

Postmodernity is skepticism toward big stories of progressPostmodernity is a challenge toward a rationalistic view of humankindPostmodernity is a protest against an objectivist view of knowledge

Modern worldview . . .

Stories of progress Rooted in confident rationalistic humanism Science tool to enable man to achieve goal

Objective knowledge of science

Science gives us objective knowledge Our minds can mirror world Scientific method gives us a neutral standpoint outside relativities of culture and history Objective and neutral knowledge enables modern man to shape the world with technology and social planning

Subjective factors shaping knowledge

SOCIAL

TraditionCommunityLanguageCultureHistoryFaith

PERSONAL

FeelingsImaginationSubconsciousGenderClassRace

Change in knowledge

Certainty to uncertaintyOne truth to pluralismObjectivity to relativism

Need for new epistemology

Incomparably the most urgent missionary task for the next few decades is the mission to ‘modernity’ . . . It calls for the use of sharp intellectual tools, to probe behind the unquestioned assumptions of modernity and uncover the hidden credo which supports them. . . .At the most basic level there is need for critical examination from a Christian standpoint of the reigning assumptions in epistemology . . . (Newbigin)

Postmodern Challenge

Postmodernity is skepticism toward big stories of progressPostmodernity is a challenge toward a rationalistic view of humankindPostmodernity is a protest against an objectivist view of knowledgePostmodernity is the triumph of economism and consumerism

Late modernity (Walsh/Middleton)

HEAD of GOLD: ECONOMISM (Idolatrous faith in economic growth as goal

of human life) TORSO of SILVER: TECHNICISM (Idolatrous faith in technology) LEGS of BRONZE: SCIENTISM (Idolatrous faith in science)

Growth of Consumer Culture

Industrial RevolutionTechnology, rationalization of workFree market comes to centreLiberalism and capitalism

20th century: Economism, consumerismGlobal dimensions

Consumerism and postmodernity

“The postmodern is rightly associated with a society where consumer lifestyles and mass consumption dominate the waking lives of its members.”

-David Lyon

Creeping consumerism

“Once established, such a culture of consumption is quite undiscriminating and everything becomes a consumer item, including meaning, truth, and knowledge.”

-Philip Sampson

Consumption of experiences

“From rock music to tourism to television and even education, advertising imperatives and consumer demand are no longer for goods, but for experiences.”

-Stephen Connor

Christian response: 1-5

As a believing community we are entering into a new missionary situation We need to understand the postmodern shift not simply react We must be committed understanding and living within the story of the BibleWe must engage in dialogue from within the story of the Bible This dialogue with postmodernity will give us a deepening insight into modernity that has been shaping our culture for centuries

Christian response: 6-9

In postmodernity we will find dangerous idols that bring death In postmodernity we will find new insights that bring lifeWe need to struggle with new ways to understand our relation to postmodern culture so we can be both faithful and relevantThis dialogue with postmodernity must not lead only to understanding but must take on forms of communal life that embody life and reject death