As a
pastor, I often think about how the community of faith (Church) should react to
the culture. When it comes to North American culture, in the famous words of
Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, “We’re
not in Kansas anymore.”(We haven’t been for years). If the emphasis of the
modern worldview was a confidence in the ability of human reason to overcome
every obstacle, then postmodernism is the antithesis. Author Heath White
writes, “Premoderns placed their trust in authority. Moderns lost their
confidence in authority and placed it in human reason instead. Postmoderns kept
the modern distrust of authority but lost their trust in reason and have found
nothing to replace it. This is the crux of all postmodern thought.”[1]
A few “ism’s” that inform and flow out of postmodernism are nihilism,
relativism, constructivism, and pragmatism. In most of these views the
postmodern doesn’t reject truth holistically but the idea that there is a
universal truth for all people and all time is deeply suspect. And even if
there was a truth that did hold true in all cultures it could not necessarily
be known in postmodern thinking.
A
postmodern view of history is an important characteristic that connects to the
concept of what was or is true. The perspective of the person experiencing
history or writing about history informs what historical story is told. Any
given historical event can have nearly limitless perspectives to discover. The
birth of North America is a very different historical story taken from a Native
American, Western European or African perspective. A true historical account is
difficult, if not impossible to reach from a postmodern perspective.
The
postmodern mind sees truth statements from a power-over stance. White writes,
“From a postmodern perspective, those who try to tell us about our human nature
are pushing one more power agenda.”[2]
Moral absolutes are uncertain, as they are perceived to have a dominant and controlling
agenda.
Another
author, Fredrick Schweitzer looks at
postmodern culture through the lens of life cycles, heavily informed by the
work of Erickson. He breaks down several core cycles (childhood, youth,
post-adolescence, adulthood and old age) in a person’s life looking at how
postmodern culture has influenced development and specifically the role of the
church/religious training. The challenge to the church in regards to the
postmodern life cycle is paramount. Schweitzer writes, “The traditional
churches especially seem to be faced with enormous difficulties of staying in
touch with the lives of those living in postmodernity…the real difficulty lies
in how postmodern individuals may become convinced that staying affiliated with
a religious institution is still worthwhile.”[3]
Postmodern
life cycles have a tremendous impact on how spiritual formation is engaged and
what spiritual formation is. The instability of childhood, plurality of adolescence,
disaffiliation of postadolescence, ambiguity of what adulthood is, and the
realization of old age, are important considerations in the formation process.
A one-size fits all approach to spiritual formation simply won’t work and will
exacerbate the already disenfranchised (in their perception) postmodern hoards.
Core
Christian themes relating to authority, language, truth (both particular and
universal) are all under scrutiny in a postmodern culture. The Bible as the
source of revelation informing human history, present reality and
eschatological hopes needs to be re-engaged for the postmodern mind. It is not
just the process of spiritual formation, but also the very content of the
process and the goals that need to be evaluated in our western postmodern age.
From a traditional catechism model to modern scope and sequence, children’s
ministries, and the girth of small group models, the church needs to radically adapt
for impactful spiritual formation to occur.
The
spiritual formation practices of the past 50 years in both protestant and
catholic context are not sufficient to engage the postmodern. When Jesus Christ
entered human history in flesh he did so in a particular culture. He spoke the
language of that culture, was schooled in the thinking of that day, dressed in
the garb of the day and understood the cultural values. Jesus was a Jewish
rabbi who called disciples to follow him in a culturally familiar (though profound
and outside-the -box) manner. The stories that Jesus told, called parables,
built upon a tradition of parables from other Rabbis. The questions lobbed at
Jesus were not just to trap Jesus, but also common debates in Jewish culture.
Jesus operated in a Jewish context but also in recognition of the broader
Hellenistic culture that ruled over Israel. He understood the broader context
and story that was unfolding in the variant Jewish sects and the ideas about
what the Messiah would do.
Postmodern
culture is the culture that we reside in, much like Jesus residing in ancient
Jewish culture. An understanding of the culture is not an add-on to the
spiritual formation process and being church; it is the very heart of it. If we
don’t understand the cultural philosophical context we are in, the efforts to
engage formation will become destructive to the church body. As the church
moves into the next century and postmodernism fades into a new cultural context,
the church will need to adapt. It did this when the church was persecuted, it
did it when Rome became “Christian”, when it fell, when Aristotelian thinking
took hold, and in every subsequent cultural shift. That is the beauty and power
of the Christian story: to adapt in every context and yet maintain The Story.
Jason
Esposito
Lead
Pastor
CrossWay Church
www.crosswaygt.org
No comments:
Post a Comment