REPLY TO; UNDERSTANDING THE TIMES: A STRANGE POSTMODERN WORLD

“Every theology has to enter into the changing conditions of the culture in which it is pursued, perceiving and developing its own concern in those conditions.” - J Moltmann[1]

“Christianity got over the difficulty of combining furious opposites by keeping them both, and keeping them both furious.” - GK Chesterton[2]

Having examined many of the same commentators as Steven Cornell, and agreeing with much of his descriptive analyses of the associated phenomena, I have come to a radically different verdict on postmodernism, and its potential impact on the church and the kerygma. I believe postmodernism must be viewed in antithetical relation to the excesses of modernism and as a necessary – albeit deconstructive - step towards a synthesis which will ultimately provide a more valid platform and context for the gospel. While the immediate symptoms are presenting as alienation, hyper-relativity, unreal subjectivism and a plethora of ‘a la carte spiritualities’, some very significant problems are coming to light in the process. Foundationalism, whether fundamentalist or liberal, scientific or religious, has been shaken and found wanting; and while some rush in with nihilistic glee, others are critically reconstructing a “chastened rationality”[3] and a reformed epistemology.

In this process of deconstruction postmodernity may provide;

• a much needed – and overdue - external and systemic critique of the church’s historical engagement with western society

• a radical challenge to traditional epistemic/scientific truth claims

• a rehabilitation of the individual-in-community as the cardinal locus of choice, relationship and significance.

Postmodernity revisits one of the oldest dilemmas (or opposites) of church history; the fides qua/ fides quae dichotomy. While the faith which we believe is under fire the faith with which we believe is unassailable and maybe more pure in that it has cast off an untenable foundation. In postmodernity the church is facing yet another adaptation in a long line of socio-cultural adaptations: from the Hebraic to the Hellenistic worlds; from Greco-Roman philosophies to Franco-Germanic thought forms; from the medieval world to the Renaissance; from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment; and from developed to developing worlds. It could be said that from the patristic period onwards theology has been formed as a result of the church’s apologetic engagement with prevailing culture.  A proactive engagement with the rigours and concerns of postmodernity will afford the church the status of “critical dialogue partner”[4] with society. Indeed it could be said that in the case of postmodernity the context demands the engagement; both at macro- and micro-level. The locus of conversion has shifted firmly to the individual and away from the politico-communal nominalism of Christendom which is critiqued so severely – and justly – by postmoderns.

[1] Moltmann, Jurgen  The Way Of Jesus Christ  SCM Press 1990 p.64

[2] Quoted in Phillip Yancey  Living with Furious Opposites  Christianity Today 4.9.2000 p.74

[3] This phrase is from Franke, John R in Chung (2003) p.288, footnote 7

[4] The term is borrowed from Alan G Padgett Christianity and Postmodernism  Christian Scholars Review http://www.hope.edu/resources/csr/