Some thoughts from Graham Beattie, Mission Consultant with the Uniting Church in Australia

It’s hard to describe the kind of culture the western world has been moving into over the last 10-15 years. Many commentators have called this emerging culture ‘postmodernity’ – in other words, it’s been named over against what it’s not, viz not modernity. Just as when the motor car was invented, it was identified on the basis of what it wasn’t. It was first called a ‘horseless carriage’ – simply because it wasn’t a horse drawn carriage!

The last 500 years, from the Renaissance Movement of the late 15th century, till probably some time during the last couple of decades of the 20th century has been a period of major scientific and sociological change in western society. A time that enthroned reason as the way to discover truth, that exalted the rights of the individual and that believed that science would lead to a better world for all. Technically, the period known as Modernity covered approximately 200 years from the end of the 18th century till towards the end of the 20th century. Or, as one writer puts it, from the fall of the Bastille in 1789 till the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 (Oden: 32). However, the Renaissance was the grandparent of Modernity and the Enlightenment period – from about 1650-1800, also known as the Age of Reason – was the Parent of Modernity.

Simply speaking, this means all of us who are 40 years of age and older were raised in the culture of modernity. Those born between 1965 and 1984, sometimes known as Generation X, are the first truly postmodern generation. They belong to a different culture; they see the world though different eyes. How can the church of Jesus Christ communicate the Gospel to those current and future generations that are born into this emerging postmodern culture? Because for the overwhelming majority of those under 40, the traditional way of being church and of worshiping God will not connect for them.

Before we can answer that question, let’s consider some of the key characteristics of this shift from modernity to postmodernity in our wider society.

From Rational to Experiential

As already indicated, the period of Modernity was founded on an unswerving belief in the authority and power of reason as the main arbiter of truth. There is one truth, and this single truth is grasped, analysed and dissected through the power of the rational mind. Postmodernity on the other hand believes in multiple truths. Moreover, people discover their truth conviction not simply through reason but primarily through experience and participation. For example, postmodern people don’t just want to learn about Gallipoli, they want to visit Anzac Cove. Reason still matters, but for this generation reason needs to be clothed in an experience which they can engage. Leonard Sweet, professor of postmodern Christianity and dean of the Theological School at Drew University claims that postmoderns don’t want to just learn about God, they want to experience God. He says, “Postmoderns will do most anything not to lose connection with the experience of life (Sweet: 31).” The rise in recent years, especially among the 20s and 30s, of a renewed interest in spirituality, and that mainly outside of mainstream Christianity, is a powerful expression of this need for experiencing the spiritual realm.

From Individual to Community

Emerging out of the Enlightenment and Modernist periods came the strong ideal of the autonomous self; the self-determining individual who operates with a strong degree of independence from any tradition or community. It was the individual who mattered, who could do as they pleased, choose their career, live where they wanted, marry whomever they liked with the minimum of interference from their family or the culture of the wider society. This kind of freedom was unheard of in earlier eras of western civilisation. Perhaps the theme song of modernity could be summed up in Frank Sinatra’s big hit, “I Did It My Way”.

But ‘I’, ‘me’, ‘my’ are lonely words. With the rapid breakdown of many traditional communities such as families and neighbourhoods towards the end of the Modern era, there is a new quest for community among the postmodern generations. Two of the most favourite words on the Web are ‘connected’ and ‘community’ – in fact both words have become one new word, ‘connexity’. Cyberspace companies like Amazon.com claim they are in the ‘connexity’ business – making connections and building community (Sweet: 109). Modernity’s pursuit of individualism and the legacy that has resulted in fractured lives and broken relationships has led to a hunger among the younger generations for connectedness and community. For Generation X and the new Generation.com (i.e. those kids who have grown up with the internet) the web is less an information source than it is a social medium. Research shows that 28% of Australian homes are wired to the Web and 51% of teenagers use chat rooms to connect with their peers. For my own teenage children, the Internet is probably their chief way of maintaining community with their friends.

From Word to Image

Modernity is a word based culture. Modernist theologians developed an intellectual, propositional, word focused faith centred on reason. Students were taught to analyse, critique, and above all, be objective. Mystery and metaphor were banished as being too fuzzy, too illogical, too mystical. Words alone had the power to encapsulate and express truth that would serve the intellectual and scientific quests of humankind.

However, ‘the times, they are a changing’. In the words of Leonard Sweet, “After forfeiting to the media the role of storyteller, the church now enters a world where story and metaphor are at the heart of spirituality” (86). The visual – image, story, metaphor – not words, are the heart language of the under 40s. This shouldn’t surprise us. Until the Enlightenment period image, story and metaphor had always been the fundamental tools of human communication. Just consider the parables of Jesus for example. In the words of one famous premodern, Aristotle, ‘the mind never thinks without a picture.’ Postmoderns negotiate their world through the power of images. The implications of this shift from word to image has huge implications for how we as a church provide worship services that will engage the younger generations. For most of us moderns, my generation and older, such services won’t even look or feel like authentic worship at all. And that’s the problem!

From Progress to Centrelessness

Modernity taught us that things were getting better – there would be no child living in poverty in Australia by the 1990s! Scientific advances would lead to a fairer, safer, healthier society. And economically even the lowest on the social ladder would benefit from the ‘trickle down’ effect. Few postmoderns (and I guess even moderns) would believe that today.

Progress presumes a beginning point, a centre from which things develop in a logical, sequential manner based on the scientific method of observation and experimentation. But contemporary philosophers of science now challenge this understanding. They argue that shifts in theory happen not through logical modifications that build on past knowledge but through a radical transformation in the way scientists see the world – what Thomas Kuhn calls a ‘paradigm shift’. Science is not simply the neutral observation of raw objective data as the modern outlook assumes. Scientists bring their own belief systems and worldviews to their task. The reigning paradigm or worldview of scientists determine what they see, what they measure and what experiments they choose to conduct. Postmodernity takes this new understanding of reality seriously. It affirms that there is no given universal centre from which we can build our knowledge base. Rather, postmodernity claims “there are as many different worlds as world-creating languages (Grenz: 56).”

From Uniformity to Diversity

“Ah that’s real Uniting Church worship!” These were the words spoken in an aside to me by one of the past Moderators of the New South Wales Synod during a synod worship service about 15 years ago. Like me, he was a child of modernity. Modernity taught us that there was one way to do it right, that there was one central system of myths and stories that would unite all people into one. But the postmodern era has spelt the end of any central worldview that could bind us together. Among other things this means that the church no longer has to see itself as the moral custodian of society. The church has been moved from the centre to the edges of contemporary society. Hence as Christians and as church we are free to present our worldview, the Gospel narrative, and give others the freedom to present their worldviews.

The emerging culture is one of incredible choice, change and diversity. Not only are there many different ways of being Christian, there are also many different ways of being Uniting Church – both in worship as well as in ministry and mission. Each congregation needs to be free to discover and pursue its own unique identity and calling under Christ.

From Mechanistic to Organic

As a result of the impact of scientists like Galileo and Newton, modern thinkers rejected the organic view of the world that had shaped ancient and medieval understanding of life. A mechanistic understanding of the world now came to the fore. This mechanistic understanding of modernity reduces reality to a set of basic elements, particles and forces (eg. gravity) each of which has its own independent nature and value. When these independent particles come together they interact with one another in a mechanical way that does not affect the inner nature of each particle, like the way the different parts of a mechanical clock work together. The outcome of this way of thinking has been to view reality as a set of closed, fixed, rules and structures that control the way physical and also social systems operate. If only we could develop the most appropriate rules, systems, structures and practices the wider system (eg church, school, economy) would run smoothly!

However, scientific developments over the last few decades such as Einstein’s relativity theory and quantum physics have undermined the modern mechanistic model of the world and also the modern assumption of scientific certainty. For example, evidence indicates that energy sometimes acts like waves and sometimes like particles, depending upon the way we view them. The new science is saying that elementary physical particles are far more dependent upon their relationship to one another than the mechanistic model of modernity supposed. This shift in science has lead to the emergence of a different metaphor. Postmodernity sees the world more like a plant than a machine – more organic than mechanistic. In the emerging postmodern culture horizontal, relational networks that cross over organisational and even national boundaries are replacing the vertical, hierarchical structures of modernity. And the advent of the internet has meant that information, and therefore power, is available to all who have a computer and modem. This is an unprecedented change in human history. Information and power are now in the hands of those who don’t necessarily hold office and authority.

Conclusion

In looking at this move from modernity to postmodernity I’m not wanting to imply that one side of the shift is right and the other wrong. Neither am I saying that it’s a case of either or. In reality it’s both and. We need to critique postmodernity just as much as modernity. For example, as Christians we would take major issue with postmodernity’s claim that there are multiple truths. Central to our faith is the claim of the uniqueness of the Jesus story for all religions and cultures. Moreover, it’s important that we hold onto the positives of modernity (eg. the importance of reason) without absolutising them. We must maintain a balance and not throw the baby out with the bathwater. However, as the 1996 National Church Life Survey shows, with only 20% of UCA attenders aged 15-39 compared with 49% over 60 years (Kaldor, et al: 32) we must take seriously the emerging culture if we are to continue as a church in mission beyond 2020.

Endnotes

GRENZ, Stanley, 1996, A Primer on Postmodernism, Wm B Eerdmans Publishing Company

KALDOR, Peter, et al, 1999, Build My Church: Trends and Possibilities for Australian Churches. Openbook Publishers

ODEN, Thomas, 1992, Two Worlds: Notes on the Death of Modernity in America and Russia. (Quoted in VEITH, G, Jr, 1994, Postmodern Times: A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture, Crossways Books

SWEET, Leonard, 2000, Post-modern Pilgrims, Broadman & Holman.

Graham Beattie (Rev Dr) Mission Consultant Uniting Church in Australia Queensland Synod

27 June 2001

http://www.missionconsultants.ucaqld.com.au/postmodernism.htm

Shalom!

Rowland Croucher jmm.org.au/

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