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Four Signs
of the Time in Our Western
Story
What is postmodernity?
Loss of confidence in
modern stories of progress
Simplifying to the extreme,
I define
postmodern as incredulity
toward metanarratives. (JeanFranois Lyotard, 19201998)
What is postmodernity?
Loss of confidence in
modern stories of progress
Challenge to ability to
know truth
Reassessment of confidence in
reason
Loss of certainty in knowledge
Rejection of neutral, universal,
objective truth
Suspicion of hidden agendas in
knowledge claims
Pluralism in knowledge
Threat of historicism and
relativism
Knowledge as construction by
communities
What is postmodernity?
Loss of confidence in
modern stories of progress
Challenge to ability to
know truth
Challenge to what it
means to be human
Core humanity?
Human person is a
network of beliefs, desires,
and emotions with nothing
behind itno substrate
behind the attributes. For
purposes of moral and
political deliberation and
conversation, a person just
is that network. (Richard
Rorty)
A Christian response?
New positive insights
Dangerous new idols
Postmodernity and
worldviews
Rejects all totalizing
worldviews
Yet it is itself a
worldview
Postmodernity calls us to
reappraise modernity
Postmodernity offers an
opportunity to reappraise
modernity, to read the signs
of the times as indicators
that modernity itself is
unstable, unpredictable, and
to forsake the foreclosed
future that it once seemed to
promise (David Lyon).
Consumerism: Central to
Western Life
The postmodern is rightly
associated with a society where
consumer lifestyles and mass
consumption dominate the waking
lives of its members. (David Lyon)
Consumerism and
Globalization
Related to globalization:
Western side of economic
globalization
Economic structures have
enriched West at expense
of non-West.
Consumerism and
Postmodernity
Related to globalization:
Western side of economic
globalization
Related to postmodernity
Consumption fills void
created by loss of story
Modernity, postmodernity,
globalization, and consumerism
The alleged incredulity towards
metanarratives has a certain
plausibility in contemporary Western
society, but it can distract from the
very powerful, late-modern grand
narrative of consumerist individualism
and free-market globalization,
which . . . Enriched the rich while
leaving the poor poor, and it destroys
the environment. In this way it
continues the kind of oppression that
the modern metanarratives of
progress have always legitimated
(Richard Bauckham).
Consumerism provides
sacred order
We cannot fully appreciate
the depths of materialism
unless we understand how
economic behavior
supplies us with meaning,
purpose, and a sense of
the sacred order (Roberth
Wuthnow).
Consumerism engulfs
everything
If there is no principle restricting
who can consume what, there is
also no principled constraint on
what can be consumed: all social
relations, activities and objects
can in principle be exchanged as
commodities. This is one of the
most profound secularizations
enacted by the modern world
(Don Slater).
What is freedom?
Freedom in modernity:
Liberty from tradition and
religion
Freedom today: Freedom
to choose whatever
product or experience you
want
Consumerism depends . . .
. . . on our needs never being
met!
Market society is therefore
perpetually haunted by the
possibility that needs might
be either satisfied or
underfinanced (Don Slater).
Why is it important to
understand globalization?
The reality of our world is not the
end of grand narratives, but the
increasing dominance of the
narrative of economic
globalization. . . . This is the new
imperialism . . . (Richard Bauckham)
Progress
Paradise images
Material prosperity
Reached by reason
Discerning natural laws
Translated into technology
Society reorganized according to reason
Exaggerated place of economics
Free market as mechanism to reach
paradise
Globalization
Late modern story
Economics occupies central
role
Free market mechanism to
get us to materially
prosperous utopia
Classical economic theory
undergirds practice
Neo-classical economics
Reduces economic law to
cause and effect
fashioned after natural
sciences
Economist reduced to
analyzing mechanism of
market
Human need left out!
Distortion:
Merely accepts all needs as
given
Believes all needs are
unlimited
Sees non-human creation as
data for economic
calculation
Reduces human labor to one
more production factor
Critique (continued)
Our present economy is a postcare economy; in it we engage in
the highest possible consumption
and production and only afterwards
attempt to mitigate the mounting
care needs with often extremely
expensive forms of compensation
(Goudzwaard and deLange).
Economic globalization,
postmodernity, and consumerism . .
. again
Economic globalization
privileges human rationality,
individualism, and autonomy
Postmodernity has challenged
these beliefs yet provided no
genuine alternative
Postmodernitys pragmatism
has created space for
consumer worldview
Renascence of Southern
Hemisphere Christianity
Religion caged and
domesticated by the humanist
faith
Southern Christianity as
increasing global cultural force
Growth of third world church
Growth of Southern
Christianity
We are currently living through one of the
transforming moments in the history of religion
worldwide. Over the past five centuries or so,
the story of Christianity has been inextricably
bound up with that of Europe and Europeandriven civilizations overseas, above all in North
America.
. . . Over the past century, however, the center
of gravity in the Christian world has shifted
inexorably southward, to Africa, Asia, and Latin
America.
. . . The era of Western Christianity has passed
within our lifetimes, and the day of Southern
Christianity is dawning (Philip Jenkins).
Characteristics of Southern
Church
Theologically conservative
Whatever their differences over
particular issues, the newer
churches see the Bible as a
dependable and comprehensive
source of authority; and this
respect extends to the whole
biblical text, to both Testaments
(Jenkins)
Characteristics of Southern
Church
Theologically conservative
Ethically conservative
Religion is not privatized and
interiorized
Critique of privatization of
gospel in Western church
For many Christians outside the
West, it is not obvious that
religion should be an individual
or privatized matter; that
church and state be separate;
that secular values predominate
in some spheres of life; or that
scriptures be evaluated
according to the canons of
historical scholarship (Jenkins).
Resurgence of Islam
12.4 % of population in 1900
19.6 % of population 1993
By 2050 of 25 largest nations
20 will be either Muslim or
Christian (Jenkins)
Potential for conflict between
Christianity and Islam
Islam . . .
Critical of law based on
Western liberalism
Offering shariah law as
alternative
Sharia law covers all of life
No public-private
dichotomy
No public-private split in
Islam
Islam is not a religion in the
common, distorted meaning of the
word, confining its scope to the
private life of man. . . . Islam
provides guidance for all walks of
lifeindividual and social, material
and moral, economic and political,
legal and cultural, national and
international. The Quran enjoins
man to enter the fold of Islam
without any reservation and to
follow Gods guidance in all fields
of life. (Khurshid Ahmad)
Islam at crossroads
The test for Muslims is how to
preserve the essence of the
Quranic message . . . without it
being reduced to an ancient and
empty chant in our times; how to
participate in the global
civilization without their identity
being obliterated. It is an
apocalyptic test; the most severe
examination. Muslims stand at
the crossroads. (Akbar Ahmed)
Critique of Islam
Christianity has become a
handmaiden to
secularism. . . . Christianity,
it appears, always chooses
as secularism wills.
However biblical Christianity
is an antithesis to
secularism. (Ziauddin
Sardar, Muslim journalist)
Accommodation of Christianity
to Western culture
The spread of Christianity in the
Third world goes hand in hand with
the introduction of liberal
secularism and Western capitalism
into developing societies. . . .
Christianity thus serves the
interest of secularism in the Third
world, despite loud declarations of
love and an appearance of
authenticity, missionary activity
often spreads a dehumanizing
form of Western culture and
capitalism. (Sardar)
Living at peace?
Challenge to Christianity to
live up to its essential nature
Center of gospel is cross
Therefore, in spite of
comprehensive truth claims:
Christians must be tolerant of
denial
Christians may not use coercion
to compel belief
TolerationDifferent from
Islam?
What is unique about the Christian gospel is that
those who are called to be its witnesses are
committed to the public affirmation that it is true
true for all peoples at all timesand are at the
same time forbidden to use coercion to enforce
it. They are therefore required to be tolerant of
denial . . . not in the sense that we must tolerate
all beliefs because truth is unknowable and all
have equal rights. The toleration which a
Christian is required to exercise is not something
which he must exercise in spite of his or her
belief that the gospel is true, but precisely
because of this belief. This marks one of the very
important points of difference between Islam and
Christianity (Lesslie Newbigin).
Islams Record
Violence
Suppress rights of women
Do not allow conversion
War is a duty for all
Muslims. . . . War is inherent in
Islam. It is inscribed in its
teaching. (Jacques Ellul)
Is violence essential to
Islam?
Is Islam a religion of peace, as
Muslim moderates . . . say, or is it a
religion prone to violence and holy
war, as statements by radical
groups suggest? . . . The answer lies
not in an either/or response, but
rather in a both . . . and response.
The Islamic texts offer the potential
for being interpreted in both ways.
It depends on how individual
Muslims wish to read them. (Peter
Cotterell and Peter Riddell).
Two responsibilities
Muslims do need to face
Qranic legitimation of
violence
West needs to understand
the issues feeding
terrorism or roots of
Muslim rage
Understanding roots of
terror
The cancer of global terrorism
will continue to afflict the
international body until we
address its political and
economic causes, causes that
will otherwise continue to
provide a breeding ground for
hatred and radicalism, the rise
of extremist movements, and
recruits for the bin Ladens of
this world. (Esposito)
Christian Response
Improvement of ChristianMuslim relations
Distinguish between Christianity
and Western culture
Understand roots of Muslim
rage
Understand Islam: Sensitivity to
diversity
Bold and humble witness to
Christ
Complex Times
Postmodernity challenging
modernity
Modernity spreading around the
world in globalization
Globalization and postmodernity
feeding consumerism
No place for public truth of gospel
Yet Christianity (in South) and
Islam make public claims of truth
How should the Western church
live?