HE'S BACK & THE CULTURE WARS MAY NEVER BE THE SAME. "Having demolished the scientific case for Darwinism in his first book, Phillip Johnson now answers the question 'So what?' In a brilliant analysis, he shows how Darwinist assumptions underlie current controversies in ethics, law, education and public policy.'? CHARLES COLSON, founder ofPrison Fellowship "In a brilliantly controversial polemic, Johnson fires an intellectual broadside against what he sees as the marginalization of theism in public life." KIRKUS
REVIEWS "Combining the cardinal excellencies of intellectual breadth and spiritual depth ... Reason in the Balance is a compelling plea to stem the irrationality that threatens the modern mind and the imbalance that staggers our uprooted culture." RAVI ZACHARIAS
"With rare lucidity and bracing urgency, Johnson makes a convincing case for the liberation of nature, and of human nature, from naturalism's claim that reality is less than we know it to be."
RICHARD JOHN NEUHAUS "Phillip Johnson is an author who is simply to be read, and closely studied, by all who wish to understand the forces that actually govern the intellectual world." DALLAS WILLARD "No one who wishes to understand the contemporary culture wars and be involved in their resolution can afford to neglect the study of this book." J. P. MORELAND
In his first book, Darwin on Trial, Berkeley law professor Phillip Johnson took on the heavyweights of science. And now Johnson's back. With Reason in the Balance he expands his critique of natural ism from science to law and education. He faces a formidable chal lenge; for, according to Johnson, the philosophy of naturalism under lies everything from current judicial readings of the Constitution's establish ment clause to the controversy over abortion, from the demise of public morality to the physicists' quest for a Grand Unified Theory. Wrestling with naturalism in its own arenas, Johnson shows why it has become the "established religion of America." How it has succeeded in mar ginalizing opposing views as "irrational." Where its weaknesses lie. And what "reasonable" alternatives might lead us from the cultural battlefield to genuine cultural dialogue. Phillip E. Johnson has taught law for over 20 years at the University of California at Berkeley. A graduate of Harvard and the University of Chicago, he was a law clerkfor ChiefJustice Earl Warren of the U.S. Supreme Court .
Available at your local bookstore or from
InterVarsity Press P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515 1-800-843-9487
Editor':in-Chief Michael Horton
Managing Editor Sara McReynolds
Copy Editor Melanie McLeod
Layout/Design Shane Rosenthal Contrib~ting
Scholars
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Dr. John Hannah
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Dr. Joel Nederhood
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The Re-v. Kim Riddlebarger
Dr. Rod Rosenbladt
Dr. Robert Preus
Dr. R. C. Sproul
Dr. Robert Strimple
Dr. Willem A.. VanGemeren
Dr. Gene E. Veith
Dr. David Wells
The Opportunities of a Postnloclern Culture
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THE TOWER of BABEL
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THIS UNIQUE MOMENT
David Wells
16 POSTMODERN TIMES Gene E. Veith
20
POST AGE DUE
Rick Ritchie
28
WHERE NOW?
Michael Horton
Douglas Abendroth Michael E. Aldrich Jo hn G. Beauman Cheryl Biehl The Rev. Earl Blackburn Dr. W. RobertCodfrey The Rev; Michael Horton James Linnell Dr. Robert Preus
for
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Michael Horton
CURE Board of Directors
CHRISTIANS U NITED
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In this Issue
Page 2
Letters To The Editor
Page 2
An Interview with Neil Postman An Intervie"v with Thomas Oden
Page 15
Page 26
R EFORMATION
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COVER: ©1986 Scott Mutter's photomontage from Surrationallmages (University of Ilinois Press, 1992).
SEPTEMB E R IO C TOBER 1995
In This Issue
.,' by Michael Horton HOMOSEXUALITY
SOM.EHAVE REFERRED TO IT
,as "v~lcro dragged 'acrpss the
'intellectual landscape:' a collec-"
tion of diverse viewpoints that all
have one thing in common: Dis
illusionment with "modernity:'
Essentially, "modernity" refers to the period of the Enlightenmentanp its aftermath when brave souls .;set out to find some universalbasis for " knowledge. ', ' Rejesting all authority-church, revelation, tradition-the "Enlightenmept was a project "of rebuilqing the world, 'escaping the "dark ,ages" of super$tition and religious dogma. But? aspost~ modernists argue, the aJ:Shitects of them()dernworld merely substituted their 0}\T11 secular doginas. Ratio nalists, after Rene Descartes, insisted that the ,>individual could;, attain certaiilty , of truth claims ~; within the limits of reason alqne. Empiricists like David Hume countered that only observation of natural phenomena through sense-experience could bring -such certainty. T~ii)kers like Immanuel Kant tried to harmonize thesetwo schools, but ofone thing most enlightenment fathers were agreed: certainty could' be reached apart'from looking beyond the natural world. Postrnodernis.ri1 represents .a barrage of critical assaults >on this worldvieW, \but it is perhapseyen more varied and eclectic' than the Enlightenment. cCDecQnstructionism" in literary studies,"multi cultu(alism:' and the "hermeneutic of suspicion" are the common lingo fora new worldviewtn<it not only questions theoptimism of Enlightenmentcertainty, but the. possibility of arriving at truth at alLln this issue,<;l number of Christian writers who ·have achieved recognition for their grasp ,of this subject will be explaining the movement ingr~ater detail so that we can all become better communicators in
our time. ;¥
?~~v} <,
GOOD NEWS?
The article by Rick Ritchie entitled, "Is There Good
News in Your Gospel?" was well worth the reading.
Our modern evangelism methodologies often focus
too heavily on pragmatic "how-to's" and blur pure
Biblical proclamation.
One thing Iwould add. The Gospel is "good news" not so much because it is "a message you could receive with joy. " It is "good news" because God's plan is fulfilled and His righteous decree is secured in Christ. Anonymous CURRENT EVANGELISM IN SAD SHAPE
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The article "Such Were Some Of You" was a refreshing addition to the May/June issue of modernREFORMATION . This article portrays the grace, mercy, and long-suffering of our God without mini mizing His holiness and perfect standard required of us all. In his account of experiences with preachers, psychologists and congregations, the writer unveils the disillusionmentwhich results from those who hold no position doctrinally on homosexuality or place excessive emphasis on its "greater evils." Instead of a "happily-ever-after" testimony which seems to exalt the individual, this writer boldly admits the ever fleeting happiness and occasional void still experi enced by the Christian. Personally, I was encouraged to re-examine my own sins and run to the perfect Savior for refuge. Thanks, "Mr. Matthews," for your article. These sore eyes received a renewed hope in our Savior and in the power of the Gospel. S. C. Atlanta, Georgia
We received the latest issue of modern REFORMATION and devoured it immediately. Terrific issue! Current evangelical evangelism (a contradiction in terms?) is in sad shape. Thanks for shedding the light of Scripture and reformation thought on the subject. I called CURE the next day and ordered 5 more copies to distribute at the para-church ministry for whom I work. Our ministry is steeped in the 19th century revivalism, Arminianism and other various winds of doctrine. I'm holding on for dear life ... I'm the only Reformed person in the place! Unfortu nately, I don't think the issue will be a big hit around this office. Keep up the good work. We pray for you. C. H.
Via America On-Line
modern REFORMATION
DON'T BE DISCOURAGED The May/June issue of modern REFORMATION has hit the nail on the head, as it points out the fallacies of the popular methods of evangelism that I had, for one, was brought up with. I well remember being berated by the evangelist for nothavinga long listof "souls" that I "won for Christ." There would be those lost for all eternity because I did not press for them to make a "decision for Christ!" What a burden was lifted to realize that it is God who saves, and not our feeble efforts to wring a decision out of someone. Shane Rosenthal's article was particularly painful, as he pointed out how poorly prepared most of us are. Another article that caused great discomfort was Russell Matthews' "Such Were Some of You." It is so tragic that at the very place he should have found forgiveness, encouragment and comfort, he instead found only rejec tion and condemnation. We have so much to repent of! I enjoy the new letters section of the magazine. Don't be discouraged by accusations of ridicule and sarcasm. Much of our present day methods and theology (or should I say lack of it) deserves ridicule and sarcasm. Keep up the good work, and keep your sense of humor! R. S. Via America On-Line MISSIONS & THE REFORMATION I just wanted to send a note about Michael Horton's article on the Reformers and Missions. Aware that secular histo rians rewrite history, revising it according to their PC views, so it seems Christian history is rewritten according to the historian's theology. Horton underlines this in regard to Dr. Ruth Tucker's interpretation of history. I had Dr. Tucker for History of Missions at Trinity Evangelical D. S., and it seems that her teaching is filtered through a Christian feministgrid. Shewould say something like, "We look up to David Livingstone as a great mission ary, but consider how poor a husband (because of Mary's problems) and father he was." Dr. Tucker tended to grade missionaries on their relationships to family first and fore most, instead of what they are known for, which is their missionary exploits. But David Livingstone and company should be known primarily for their strength as missionar ies, and for that we give praise to God. They had weak nesses, too. They should have been better in their family roles. But their achievements came with a price. Carey's wife was emotionally unstable. She probably would have faired better back in England, but then India would never have had the blessi ng of Carey's many translations of Scripture. From my time in the classroom I am leary of a feminist evaluation of church history and missions. As I journey on the road to Reformation, I appreciate the boost and defense of the Reformation in regard to missions. It's a "keeper." }. H. Via America On-Line
EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTED I was extremely disappointed in your magazine, and am consequently not a listener of your program. modern REFORMATION alienates the very people it purports to instruct by making them subjects of mockery. Mockery is not an inherent quality of criticism or debate (or even of humor). Your use of it smacks of a certain pride in "being right" and creates the impression, however false, that you delight in, rather than grieve over, the errors of your fellow servants. It is therefore counterproductive; and that is most saddening of all. You have a wonderful idea and a great opportunity to perform a desperately needed service. I am certain you have done much and will do more to this end. However, I would, albeit boldly, caution you to self-exami nation; and for convicting and edifying instruction and sober criticism I will, for the time being, go elsewhere. C. P. Seattle, WA STRUGGLING As a staff member of Campus Crusade for Christ, I can tell you that our ministry is strugglingwith many of the problems you address. Decisions are easy to manipulate, but changing lives with a theologically precise Gospel is much more time consuming and takes more effort and study. Your issue on Evangelism will help us proclaim the evangel as it is done in the scriptures.
R.M. Via Internet
A POEM FOR CURE It is evening, I watch my young boys playing in dirt and water ... let them revel, for the latest modern REFORMATION issue is here! Again my sights are lifted from the mud, and routines of motheringI am not just raising dirt trackers, mess makers, time takersI am charged with building the Truth into two little lives. I will find my Heidelberg Catechism (child version) and lay in the first little stone tonight at prayers ... Thanks, K. B. W.
Bellflower, CA
Send letters to: modern REFORMATION (Attn. : Letters to the Editor) 2221 East Winston Road Suite #K, Anaheim, CA 92806 E-mail: CURElnc@netcom.com.orCURElnc@aol.com
SEPTEMBER IOCTOBER 1995
3
TheTowero Babel
BY MICHAEL HORTON
Modernity built the tower-now postmodernity must face the challenge ofcondemning the "unsafe structure."
O
ur Time is the epithet David Wells attaches to modernity and its postmodern '. successor. Princeton philosopher Diogenes Allen declared, ''A massive intellec
tualrevQlution is taking place that is perhaps as great as that which marked off the modern world from the Middle Ages." 1 It is a shift that shapes every intellectual discipline as well as the practice of law, medicine, politics, and religion in our . culture. This article will serve as a basic introduction to a topic that has become paramount in every university discipline at the present time: the collapse of the modern world-view and its much-hailed successor: postmodernism. Theologian Thomas Oden argues that "moder nity" began \\ ith the storming ofthe Bastille on July 14, 1789 and ended \\ ith the fall ofthe Berlin Wall in 1989,2 while art philosopher Charles Jencks decided to be even more specific: It ended at 3:32 p. m. on July 15, 1972, "when the Pruitt-Ingoe housing development in St. Louis (a prize-\Ninn ing version of Le Corbusier's 'ma chine for m odern living') was dynamited as an uninhabit able en ironment for the low-income people it housed ."3 O b\ iously a lot of people have their own opinions about when the shoe dropped, but most agree that it was faid recently. In both ofthese attempts at fixing a time-line, how ever, we have a window on the character of this period we call "modern ity." Why did Oden, for instance, choose the storming of the Bastille as the beginning of the perio d ? The French Revolution was one of a num ber of revolutions that sought to remake the world from scratch. niversal reason, progress, and planning would eventually create the perfect society in spite of the great costs in terms of genocide as a means to arriv ing at the gates of Utopia. Not only economically exhausted, but spiritually weary, the Soviet empire col lapsed under its own weight. It is true that the United States "spent" the Soviet government out of business, but the spiritual and philosophical issues underlying the collapse are far more significant. W hen the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, it marked the end of the naive opti mism toward ideological movements. Perhaps Utopia would have to wait after all. But Jencks also gives us a vista from which to view
L!.
SEPTEM BE R IOC TOBER 19 9 5
modern REFORMATION
the identity of<modernity:' From the architectural side of things he reminds us of the silliness of it all. Taking itself far too seriously, ideology, art, politics, religion, education-everything-was drafted into service to the Great Idea. Humility has not been a major charac~ teristic of this era, as human beings have come to believe that they can control the earthly environment and their own destiny, collectively and individually, through technology, politics, military power, and science. That is why Jencks saw the demolition of the Pruitt- Igoe housing development in St. Louis as a marker. A «machine for living;' this highly rationalized and carefully-crafted environment actually ended up being uninhabitable. Ever since the Industrial Revolution, everyone from scientists to artists tended to view the world in mechanical terms, so that even one's home could be considered a «machine" that «fixes" social ills. The building's demolition, like the collapse of the Ber lin Wall, marked the end of the «engineered society:' Or did it? That is the question. Many would argue that mo dernity has not really ended and that it has actually accelerated, so that even those who decry modernity the most and wear the label «postmodern" proudly, are often actually hyper-modern in their outlook. This seems to make a great deal of sense when, for instance, so-called «postmodernists" fail to realize that the label itself assumes the idea of progress, one of modernity's cherished dogmas that has come under sharp fire by postmodern academics. But what is it? What is modernity and why is there such a reaction to it? Where is the church in all of this and how does our faith relate to this massive upheaval in human thought during our own lifetime? Let's be gin with the first question: Defining modernity. Some people think in more visual than conceptual terms (a postmodern influence), so one way oflooking at the modern worldview is to picture Rockefeller Cen ter' city projects, and tract homes. Each in its own way reveals the modern spirit. Modern architecture tends to accent order. Driving down some of the major streets in Washington, D. C., one can see these towers of modernity dominating on either side. Modernity created these large business-like buildings with little embellishments for a reason. Unlike an old Victorian town square in the Midwest or a Bavarian village, there is no distinct local style. One could be in New York, Nairobi, Singapore, or Sao Paulo and have to look at one's travel itinerary to remember where one is in the morning at the modern hotel. While many styles
throughout history have been primarily regional and distinctive, the modern style is global, and it is part of a culture that is obsessed with doing business, making money, selling things, and engineering the New World. The buildings say that. Tract homes say that, too. Organized, well planned communities are part of the modern world-view. Mobility has already uprooted us from
'Vhat is modernityand why is there such areaction to it? Where is the chut'ch inall of thisand how does our faith relate tothis massive upheaval in htlman thought during our o\vn lifetime? our ancestral places, so our new «communities" are also landmarks of the modern world-view. Each home is basically the same as the next, convenience being more important than charm. Others, perhaps less visual, may think of modernity in sociological terms. Having already men tioned mobility and rapid transportation (which already makes one feel somewhat rootless), there is also the technological revolution. Neil Postman's Technopoly has explored this with such fascinating detail and entertaining prose that every reader of this article should pick up a copy at the next available op portunity. We all assume that technology is a friend, Postman says, for two reasons. First, technology is a friend. It makes life easier, cleaner, and longer. Can anyone ask more of a friend? Second, because of its lengthy, intimate, and inevitable relationship with culture, technology does not invite a close examination of its own consequences. It is the kind of friend that asks for trust and obedience, which most people are inclined to give because its gifts are truly bountiful. But, of course, there is a dark side to this friend. Its gifts are not without a heavy cost ... .It creates a culture without a moral foundation. It under mines certain mental processes and social relations that make human life worth living. Technology, in sum, is both friend and enemy. 4 Expressing the dissatisfaction with modernity is Sting's «If I Ever Lose My Faith In You": You could say I lost my faith in science and progress.
You could say I lost my belief in the holy church.
You could say I lost my sense of direction.
I never saw no miracle of science That didn't go from from a blessing to a curse. I never saw no military solution That didn't always end up with something worse ...
SEPTEMBER /OCTOBER 1995
5
It is the confidence in the machine, in organized labor, management, and distribution; in science, tech nology, social and material progress; in consumerism and marketing and in the strength ofeconomic systems to liberate the human spirit (whether capitalism or communism). This is a large aspect of what is called "modernity:' Let us look at some of the most obvious features from a more philosophical perspective. Modernity arose with the triumph of the Enlight enment. The Renaissance and the Reformation had previously unleashed powerful forces toward liberty, civil rights, the freedom of the secular spheres to oper ate independently of the church, and had given birth to the rise of modern science, education, and universal literacy. However, the Protestant Reformers were just as insistent as the Roman Church on the importance of authority. Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone) meant that the Church could never have the last word, but that the final place for hearing the voice of God was in the pages of Holy Writ. Carefully interpreting the sacred text, the church was supposed to appeal to gifted teachers to instruct the faithful (and all of them, not just the de voted monks and clergy) in the greattruths ofthe Faith. Individualism was not tolerated, as the Reformers criti cized the many sects of their day for their disregard of the institutional church. However, much changed when Rene Descartes (1596-1650) put forward his famous formula, Cogito ergo sum- "I think. Therefore, I am:'
Foundationalism Devoted to rationalism, Descartes insisted upon abso lute philosophical certainty. There must be a way of knowing things beyond any doubt, Descartes insisted, and therefore he sought a foundation for grounding all human knowledge. That foundation was universal rea son. Like Plato, Descartes believed that instead of the world shaping the mind, the mind shaped the world. In other words, when I observe a "dog;' I attribute characteris tics of"dog ness» that I already have formed in my mind. Immanuel Kant followed Descartes in this watershed, but was, in his words, "awak ened from my dogmatic slumbers» in rationalism by the British empiricist David Hume (1711-76). Hume in sisted that the only universal foundation for knowledge was empirical observation. While Descartes and Kant were busy with their rational "ideas» of 6
SEPTEMBER /OCTOBER 1995
"dogness;' Hume wanted to study the dog without any presuppositions-starting from scratch, if you will, building his idea of "dogness» from the dog itself in stead of the other way around. Kant's later work, therefore, blended rationalism and empiricism. For instance, he argued that there were two realms of knowledge: the "noumenal» and the "phenomenal:' To the former class belongs faith, since he believed that it could not be rationally or empirically demonstrated. Much of philosophy and especially science, however, belong to the phenomenal realm, since they rested on evidence or deductions that had something to do with reason or observation. Kant went on believing in God and some aspects of his pietistic upbringing simply because he could not conceive of the possibility of morality apart from such a presupposition. If we must live as if God exists, then he most likely does, said Kant. But from then on, faith would be regarded as outside the realm of rational in quiry. It would become a synonym for "blind leap:' In fact, Lessing spoke of his own wrestling with the ques tion of faith and reason in terms of a "ditch» that was widening before him. Hume at least had the temerity to suggest that there was no such thing as this "noumenal" business. "Knowledge" -if that word means anything at all-cannot include mystical leaps or a priori judg ments. It must be based on empirical observation, and if in our universal experience we know that resurrec tions simply do not occur, then it would be foolish to make room in our thought for such a preposterous possibility of that having happened in first-century Palestine. He was rigorously consistent, except when he applied his own empiricism to his own beliefs. Christianity could not be true-not because its his torical truth-claims had been falsified-but because miracles simply do not happen. In other words, it was a presupposition, an a priori assumption: the very thing Hume abhored. To simplify, there are two major effects of this shift: First, Enlightenment rationalists and empiricists both claimed the possibility of absolute certainty. Either by deduction (rationalism) or by induction (empiricism), the knower could attain certitude. This gave modern men and women a tremendous confidence-indeed, arrogance-in their powers to rebuild the world from scratch on a universal foundation of knowledge. Even religion, now, could be explained in terms of the "uni versal ideas" that are common to them all. The result was the modern university's "religion department;' where Christianity, Buddhism, and fern worship are all studied "comparatively" in order to find the common threads. Those common threads, of course, are simply part of the universal reason that underlies
modern REFORMATION
foundationalism. Postmodernism, as we will see, is doing us a favor by dismantling this approach by call ing into question that possibility of some grand explanation above these other explanations. Chris tians believe that biblical revelation is the grand explanation (in postmodern parlance, the "metanarrative"), not merely the best religious expres sion of natural religion. Second, foundationalism made the individual self central. The rationalist, born out of"I think, therefore, I am;' made the knower the center of the universe. My own individual mind is competent to form ideas ofwhat the world is like. Like an ice cube tray, my ideas could provide a secure grid for understandin g everything apart from revelation or the church. The empiricist at least turned the focus from the subjective knower thinking and chas ing its tail in one's own mind to the observable world outside. Gravity is a re ality apart from the mind. It is not merely an "idea" the mind imposes on reality, but the nature of reality itself, and the only way we can come to know that reality is by adj usting our ideas to suit the nature of the case. Nevertheless, it was still the knower who was central, and revelation, tradition and community were simply not factors in the modern experiment. One can see how this led to related ideas that have been remaking our civilization for the last three centu ries. First, there is the notion of"progress."
much ofmodernity is simply a bastardization ofChris tianity. After all, the Christian view of history makes the idea of progress possible. In Eastern Religion, his tory is cyclical, anchored in reincarnation. But in biblical religion, it is linear-always looking forward. Eve looked forward to the fulfillment of the promise of a Messiah, as did the patriarchs and prophets. Even after Christ's advent and ascension, we are still looking forward to the Second Coming, final resurrection, the restoration of creation, and eternal life with God. The triumph of evil lies in the future: this is a Christian
Enliglttenment rationalists and empiricists both claimed tlte possibility of absolutecertainty. Tltis gave modern men and women atl'emendous confidence-indeed, arrogance-in their po\vers to rebuildtheworldfrom scratch on auniversal foundation of kno\vledge.
Progress The roots of this modern idea actually reach back into the Middle Ages. Joachim of Fiore, an imaginative monk, wrote a commentary on The Revelation that enjoyed widespread popularity-except among the clergy, and for good reason. It was heretical. The Age of the Father (Old Testament) was superceded by the Age of the Son (New Testament), and at any moment the Age of the Spirit would dawn. In this age, there would be no need for the Bible, sacraments, or the church, and Joachim's Gnostic bent becomes obvious here. The Anabaptists picked up on this influence at the time of the Reformation, challenging the Reform ers for "chaining" the Holy Spirit to a book, water, bread and wine, and an institution called "the church:' Instead, they insisted that they themselves represented the Age of the Spirit and were prophets of the New World. Petrarch, a Renaissance mystic, also picked up on this idea and predicted the soon arrival of this age when all of the world's religions would be united. One can see the idea of progress in this scheme. Of course,
hope. But modernity hijacked the idea, and instead of waiting for God to act, it decided to usher in the Con summation by substituting redemption with progress. The plot thickens with the arrival of G. F. W. Hegel (1770-1831), who pushed Joachim of Fiore's vision of an Age of the Spirit to the limits. Although still claim ing to be a Christian who was making the faith relevant to an increasingly skeptical modern age, Hegel's idea of God was "the Absolute:' The evolution and progress of history was God! It was the Spirit triumphing over matter, good winning out over evil. And the way his tory made its route toward Utopia was in a zig -zag pattern, from thesis, to antithesis (its opposite) and finally synthesis. To adopt this confidence in progress, one has to presuppose that human nature is basically good, and this the moderns did without difficulty. Evil structures and institutions are to blame, and Rousseau's "noble savage" is captured in Gaugin's famous paintings of Tahitian natives. Rousseau once wrote, "Savage man, when he has dined, is at peace with nature, and the friend of his fellow creatures .... The case is quite differ ent with man in the state ofsociety.... Nature made man happy and good, and society depraves him and makes him miserable:'5 It is this world-view that gave birth to twins who, in spite oftheir Cain -and-Abel rivalry, were both deeply shaped by this outlook: Marxism and Capitalism. Economic structures would liberate the human spirit and bring progress until finally evil would be vanquished. Whether the proletariat or the "Invis ible Hand of the Marketplace;' modernity would achieve Utopia. A devote to Hegel and a great admirer SEPTEMBER IO C TOBER 1 9 95
7
of the Anabaptists, Karl Marx (1818-1883) believed that history was moving toward the abolition of church and state. Ofcourse, this would first have to be achieved by its very opposite: totalitarianism, but this fit per fectly within a Hegelian framework. Even capitalism, Marx believed, was a positive development toward the ultimate end of communism. Opposites attract. When the "prophets" are filled with "holy zeal:' even genocide may be necessary to achieve the proper ends. It was not Stalin, but Rousseau, who declared, "Mankind will have to be forced to be free:' Order will not just "happen:' and the modern age is obsessed with order, from totali tarian regimes to the planning of communities of tract homes. The enlightened prophets always know best, and however much they rebelled against the tyranny of the church and wars of religion, far more bloodshed and anguish followed on the heels of their apocalyptic dreams. It was this basic orientation that inspired the proph ets ofthe modern world in Europe and America. In the United States, pragmatism was promulgated by Will iam James (1842-1910). In a modern world, where the machine is the key paradigm, whatever works is the test of truth. John Dewey (1859-1952), father of modern education, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), father of psy chology, and Emile Durkheim (1858-1917), father of sociology, developed entirely new disciplines based on the modern world-view and its spirit of independence from religion and authority. Charles Darwin (1809 1882) seemed to provide modernity with the proof for its experiment in progress with his Hegelian version of biological evolution. These disciplines would provide certainty at last and serve humanity in the goal of uni versal knowledge and progress. Where theology once provided the "big picture:' a unified way of viewing distinct disciplines, fragmentation began to take place in understanding the world and the self. Friederich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), the father ofmodern lib eral theology, attempted to reconcile Christianity with modernity, but in the process left the church with noth ing to say that was not being said (almost always sooner) by everybody else. Truth is found by looking within, Schleiermacher argued, in the feelings rather than in revelation.
Individualism With the self (i.e., the "knower") at the center of the universe, modernity attacked authority, institutions, tradition, and community and instead set up its own authoritarianism, centralized bureaucracies, market place whims, and individualist tastes. Unfortunately, much of the orthodox Christian re sponse to all of this has been to either conform in the 8
SEPTEMBER {OCTOBER 1995
interest of"relevance:' or to simply react and bury one's head in the sand as if the Enlightenment had never happened. Whatever his failures in terms of coming fully to an orthodox position, Karl Barth (1886-1968), himself a liberal who became disenchanted with mo dernity, launched the most unrelenting barrage of artillery against modern liberalism since the triumph ofmodernity itself. Alexander Pope had declared,"The proper study of Man is Man:' But Barth recoiled at this idea he had once happily embraced. Humanity is not at the center, Barth insisted; God is at the center, and we do not learn the truth about him, about ourselves, or about redemption, from either deducing things from our rational "ideas" or by observation of the natural world. Christianity does not simply echo the best in the world's religions, united by "universal reason" or "uni versal experience": It totally contradicts reason and experience. We don't find God, Barth demanded, but God finds us. We can understand the over-reaction, but it was an over-reaction. While Barth was correct to insist upon the God-centered character of revelation and redemp tion, Romans 1 and 2 especially seem to point us in the direction of recognizing that even unbelievers can have true knowledge of God apart from biblical revelation. The problem is that they supress the truth in unrighteousness. The last thing Barth should have done, in this writer's opinion, is to have attacked mo dernity by standing on its foundation, established by Kant. Barth accepted the idea that faith was opposed to reason and in this acceptance of a key tenet of the En lightenment, he could not refute the most fundamental problem between Christianity and the modern world. Individualism, pragmatism, order, progress-'-all built on the supposedly universal foundation of reason and experience: These became the warp and woof of modern existence that reigned unchallenged until recently. Even as they were building the Tower of Babel, many of its architects were aware that something was missing. Marx declared, ''All that is solid melts into the air" in the modern world, and Nietzsche spoke of a "weightless" existence following the "death of God:' Yeats poetically announced, "Things fall apart; the cen tre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world:' Barth remarked, "The new thing in Nietzsche was the man of'azure isola tion,' six thousand feet above time and man; the man to whom a fellow-creature drinking at the same well is quite dreadful and insufferable; the man who is utterly inac cessible to others, having no friends and despising women; the man who is at home only with eagles and strong winds; ... the man beyond good and evil, who can only exist as a consuming fire."6
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More than anything else, the Enlightenment was an adolescent's rebellion against his parents' religion. Colin Gunton observes, «The distinctive shape of modernity's disengagement from the world is derived from its rebellion against Christian theology. In that sense, there is something new under the sun. Modern disengagement is disengagement from the God of Christendom:'7 This is why Vaclav Havel warned that the foundation of the West is ex actly the same as that ofthe East, and our future is their present: «I believe that with the loss of God, man has lost a kind of absolute and uni versal system of coordinates, to which he could always relate everything, chiefly himself. His world and his personality gradually began to break up into separate, incoherent fragments corresponding to different, relative, coordi nates:'8 This makes the breakdown in a coherent theological system within evangelical Christianity (the part of Christendom that at least claims to still be cling ing to the historic faith) all the more serious.
hits in recent decades. However, the idea that evil insti tutions are responsible for corruption rather than sinful human nature and the possibility ofengineering a good society through pragmatism and ideology dies hard. It is difficult to determine whether «postmodernism" is actually «modernism" at warp speed. In the next few articles, we will explore the
Whethe,' you are astudent taking upper-division philosophy or ahomemaker trying to ligul'eout \vhy the ground seems to be moving right underneath you \vhileyou are trying to raiseyour kids,this topic is terl'iblyrelevant.
Postmodernism It is against this backdrop that a tidal wave of criticism has broken on the shores of the once-cheerful beaches of «enlightenment:' After two world wars «to end all wars:' existentialism began to turn on modernity with a vengeance. Confidence was lost in the project, and no longer was Utopia seen as an attainable goal. Per haps suicide is the best way out, Sartre declared. But those who have opted for less terminal solu tions include Jacques Derrida and a host of «postmodern deconstructionists" who have wed Marxist ideas to existentialist despair. Ironic, isn't it? That architects of modernity (Marx, Freud, James, Dewey, et. al.) would be regarded as offering solutions to the problems they helped to create is a sign of our bankruptcy. Where does our culture go for answers? Derrida, Lyotard and other deconstructionists have argued that we are all involved in «language games:' and that Nietszche was correct in his assertion that all human intercourse is part of the «will to power:' Lan guage, we are told, is an instrument of cleverly disguised oppression, and this has been most fully exploited by academics interested in advancing vari ous forms of Marxist ideology (Liberation Theology, feminism, etc.) . Words do not really mean anything in themselves, but in reading between the lines we can at least anticipate the next move of our opponent. Called the «hermeneutic of suspicion:' deconstructionism maintains that there are no norms for meaning and human language. The idea of progress, too, has taken some serious
nature of this postmodern reaction. Whether you are a student taking upper-division philosophy or a home maker trying to figure out why the ground seems to be moving right underneath you while you are trying to raise your kids, this topic is terribly relevant. In order to be disciples of our Lord, we must be as wise as ser pents and as harmless as doves. Before we can «take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ" (2 Cor 10:5), we must first have thoughts and attempt to understand other thoughts out there that present them selves as rivals. This is not easy to do, of course, but neither is any other aspect of our discipleship. Conver sion does not give us an instantly renewed mind any more than it provides us with an instant victory over our sinful affections or actions. Our marriage to Christ, like an ancient marriage between princes of allied na tions, is a declaration of war on all that would oppose the peace, liberty and advancement of Christ's king dom. May we be given the grace and the resolve to «gird up the loins of [our] minds" (1 Pt 1: 13, KJV), in this age of unprecedented challenges and opportunities. ~ Michael S. Horton is the president of CHRISTIANS UNITED for REFORMATION. Educated at Biola University and Westminster Theological Seminary, Michael is a Ph. D. candidate at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford and the University of Coventry and is the author/editor of eight books, including The Agony of Deceit, Made in America: The Shaping of American Evangelicalism, Putting Amazing Back Into Grace, and Beyond Culture Wars. 1. Gene E. Veith, Postmodern Times : A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture (Wheaton : Crossway, 1994) , p. 27 . 2. Ibid. 3. David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), p. 39. 4. Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), xii. 5. Cited in Colin Gunton, The One, The Three And The Many: God, Creation and the Culture of Modernity (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 224 . 6. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. 3/2, pp . 232 , 240. 7. Gunton, op . cit., p.16. 8. Ibid., p. 71.
SEPTEMBER /O C TO BE R 1 9 95
9
• IS The Changing of the Guard
• I U <5 What it means for Christians Today
omen BY DAVID F. WELLS
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SEPTEMBER IOCTOBER 1995
e a living, I believe, in a unique cultural moment. r generation, I know, imagines that it is unique. most generations, unfortunately, believe that their u queness lies in their superiority over all that lies in the past. Mark Twain once observed that when he was a boy he was embarrassed because of his father, who appeared to know so little, but when the younger Twain was a few years older, he was amazed at how much his father had learned in so short a period of time! Every generation tries to get airborne on the plastic wings of this kind of conceit, and in this atmosphere it is almost inevitable that we become breathless about the present and begin to say and do foolish things, as did the pastor whose morning prayer in church began: "0 Lord, have you seen the New York Times today?" I nevertheless believe this is a unique cultural mo ment. First, I want to layout my reasons for saying this. Second, I want to elaborate on some of the conse quences of this for the Church. Third, I want to underline what, in a Christian context, needs to be done next .
This Unique Moment - The Emerging Wodd Culture I believe this moment is unique culturally for two rea sons. First, this is the first time that we have seen emerging a world culture. There have always been those who have nurtured dreams of world domination like Napoleon and Hitler, but that is not what I have in mind here. I am speaking instead of the emergence of a cul ture, voluntarily brought about, that looks about the same whether it is encountered in Boston or Paris, Lon don or Bombay, Sydney or Cairo. What is unique about this is that up until now cultures have always been local and never global. That is, what any society comes to think of as being normal in matters of belief or behavior has always been deter mined by that people's history, its traditions, certainly its religion, its ethnicity, and perhaps its geography. Thus, it is that we differentiate Russian culture from Indian,African culture from European, Hispanic from Chinese. Cultures have always been local, but today we are seeing the birth of a culture which is global, which owes little or nothing to anyone in particular, and there fore can belong to everyone in general. However, to stretch so far, to incorporate so many otherwise diverse people in its embrace, modern culture must necessarily be very thin, no more than skin deep. It must be stripped of the values which actually give depth and meaning to life. I do not wish to exaggerate the importance of this new development by leaving the impression that this is all that is happening in our world. While it is the case that this new civilization is emerging, it is also the case
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~
that our political and cultural life is spawning factions, special interests, regional antagonisms, ethnic con flicts' generational frictions, and gender wars. Tribalism, in all of these ways, continues to be a persis tent reality in the world today, albeit sometimes taking novel forms. This is not, however, inconsistent with the emergence of the new world culture of which I have spoken. They are both part of the same dance, the one emerging from modernization and the other from its breakdown in postmodernity, to which we will return shortly. For the moment, though, we need to focus on what is indeed unique, which is the emergence of this new civilization, one which is being built by four main realities whose presence are increasingly global, and whose effects are generic. They are urbanization, capi talism' technology, and telecommunications. Let me explore these four makers of our modern world briefly before considering the consequences of their domi nance and interaction with one another.
Urbanization There have always been cities, but what is different about our time is both the percentage of people who live in a city and the size of our cities. A century ago in America, only 25 percent lived in a city; today 94 per cent do. We have moved from being a rural culture to one that is urban. Throughout the world we are seeing large cities emerge because in the last fifty years the world has doubled in size, and much ofthis growth has spilled into cities. Today, there are more than 400 cities of more than one million. This change in our social organization has had profound effects on howwe experience life. Cities bring into close proximity those of differing worldviews, re ligions, and social practices, and that means that they enforce a civility, a kind of secular ecumenism, which easily spills over into relativism. Not only so, but the public environment in the city is impersonal and works by rules that often are not ethically derived but are commercially driven. Urban cul ture tends to sever our two worlds, that which is private from that which is public, and allows us to live by different values in our different worlds. This bifurcation be tween private and public, as well as the relativism which is so much a part of urban society, has profoundly changed what Christian faith means for many people. Given the pressures of modernity, it has increasingly become a private matter, its truth claims dislocated from the public square, and its uniqueness rubbed away. The inroads modernity has made, the power it exercises over what is now considered appro priate belief, is evident in the fact that among those
who claim to be evangeli cal, 40 percent think that other religions are also paths to God, and 53 per cent think that there are no moral absolutes. This represents a stunning re versal in what Christians have historically thought.
Capitalism Capitalism, the second of the makers ofthe modern world, is simply the most effective way to produce the goods and services we have come to desire. Dur ing the last century in America, industrial output has increased about 5,000 percent in the process, generat ing complex financial, legal, and commercial systems, which together have changed the way in which we ex perience the world. Capitalism, however, is more than just a system of production; it is also the world to which we have affixed ourselves spiritually, because the sheer success and ex travagance of our productivity, have rewritten our lives around the habits of consuming. Now it is not only products that we consume, but also images, sex, reli gion, and people, each of which we use as if it were a product in order to satisfy an internal need which we, the consumers, have identified. Technology Technology, the third of the ligaments in moderniza tion' is not only transforming our world, and transforming what we can do in the world, but it, too, transforms the way we experience our world. It was Jacques Ellul who first made the case that technology
Tostl'etch sofal', to incol'pol'ate somany othel'wise divel'sepeople in its embl'ace, model'n cultul'e must necessal'ilybe vel'y thin, no mOl'e than skin deep. tends to create a naturalistic world, one in which we are its sovereigns, over which we preside, where what is efficient becomes what is ethical, and where all prob lems are resolved by management, not only in the business world, but in the human spirit as well. Today, the two most admired cultural types in our society, Robert Bellah has found, are the manager and the psy chologist, and it is not difficult to see, even in the
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Christian ministry, how intrusive this mentality has become. In his study, the pastor often becomes the C.E.O., and in the pulpit, a psychologist.
Telecommunications Television, finally, is not only our window on the world but also our eyes in the world, making us witnesses of all the world's great shaking and shaping events. Televi
community and craft that is driving the anxious search for the self, for self-fulfillment, in our society. Given the loss of outward connections-and perhaps most im portant that to God himself-all of reality must now be relocated from the exterior world to the internal. Ours, in consequence, is a therapeutic society where all of life's problems are submitted to psychological under standing on the assumption that what were once sins needing forgiveness are now problems needing management, where victim-hood is ubiquitous, and moral culture is vanishing. This, then, is the world culture which is en veloping us, driven by urbanization, capitalism, technology, and telecommunications, and the environment that results is producing a situation unlike any which the Church has faced before. There is, however, a second reason for saying that this is a unique cultural moment.
The int'oadsmodernity has 'Dade is evident inthe fact that among those who claim to be evangelical, 40% think that other religions are also paths to God, and 53% thinkthat there areno mo.'al absolutes. sion and jet travel together have annihilated space, bringing us ever closer to being omnipresent and om niscient' attributes that rest very uneasily on our frail, broken psyches. Space and geography were once the barriers around the human spirit, perhaps producing a narrow ignorance about the world, perhaps unhealthy parochialism, but also a sense of community, securing the many ligaments of human relating that are now gone. Cognitively, we are world citizens, and we scarcely belong in local communities at all. Today, our «communities" are mostly voluntary, made up of those who want to associate together on a regular basis around some interest, but what is shared in these asso ciations is typically only a fragment of our lives-a common interest in bird watching, or Bible study, or going to the theater-and because our communities depend on the will of those who come, they are ex tremely fragile and often fall apart. These are no small developments. Long ago, Reinhold Niehbuhr suggested that the self builds its substance from a threefold connection: to family, com munity' and craft. What has happened to these? Since 1970, there has been a 200 percent increase in single parent homes, and fewer than 60 percent of children now live with their biological parents. The upshot, for many, has been a loss of connection to family. Modernization has mown down most geographical communities in America, replacing them with cities and the larger world which we inhabit by television, thus severing another connection. And work is not satisfying for many, either because ofits boring, repeti tive nature, or because it is encased in a bureaucratic straight jacket. Indeed, 50 percent say that the effort required in the modern workplace is not rewarded by satisfaction commensurate with that effort, and thus the third connection is endangered. It is, I believe, this loss of connectedness to family, 12
SEPTEMBER {OCTOBER 1995
This Unique Moment-Our Practical Atheism This is the first time that any major civilization has deliberately attempted to build itself without religious foundations. Beneath other civilizations, there have al ways been such foundations, whether they came from Islam, Hinduism, or Christianity itself. Beneath ours there is none. We are building a civilization of the most marvelous intricacy and complexity, but we are build ing it on a vacuum, one in which the processes of life have no framework of ultimacy, one in which all must find within themselves the reasons for their legitimacy in society. This is not to say that religion has disap peared. On the contrary! America is a very religious country, as religious as is India. That, however, is speak ing of what is internal and private; what is external and public is a very different story. Here, God has been evacuated from the center of our collective life, pushed to the edges of our public square to become an irrel evance to how our world does its business. Marxism rested on a theoretical atheism; our secularized world rests on a practical atheism in the public domain, though one that coexists with private religiosity. And this, many say, is what the framers of the Constitution had in mind! The challenge of a public square stripped of the divine is not entirely novel. Those who lived under Marxist regimes recognize some of the elements. What is different, however, is the fact that this practicing athe ism in America, unlike the Marxist countries, goes hand in hand with freedom and, further, it is the cul tural context in which capitalism is flourishing, filling our world with manifold abundance. This is where the novelty of the challenge lies. We recognize our secularism for what it is; we do '
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not recognize the corrupting power of our affluence for what it is. Why is that? The answer, I believe, is painfully simple. We consider our abundance as essen tially harmless and, what is just as important, we have come to need it. The extraordinary and dazzling ben efits of our modernized world, benefits that are now indispensable to our way of life, hide the values which accompany them, values which have the power to wrench around our lives in very damaging ways. It is this matter which we must now take up.
Dining with Modernity If this is our world, the modernized world in which we now live, is it surprising to learn that most Americans dismiss the idea that there is such a thing as absolute truth defined as beliefs that are true for all people in all places? Having done so, 50 percent think that every thing in life is up for negotiation, from values to behavior, belief to practice, and 60 percent rest this negotiation on the premise that they can know nothing beyond what they can experience. A majority, 66 per cent, do not believe in moral absolutes. It is, however, what lies beneath these figures that we need to explore. Ifmodernization has often severed connections to family, community, and craft, it has also created a cul tural environment in which God has disappeared. This does not mean, however, that everyone in America is blatantly irreligious, as we have seen. As a matter of fact, more people attend church today than they did in Puritan times, and non-Christian religions, such as New Age, are growing rapidly. No, what has been lost is not the belief in God in general but the belief in the biblical God in particular, the God who is outside of ourselves, who addresses us by his Word, whose nature is centrally defined by his holiness, and who, in consequence, treats us as moral beings first and foremost, calling us to repentance, faith in Christ, and obedience. This is the God no longer at home in the mod ern world, and the Church is rapidly accommodating itself to his absence. The telltale signs are everywhere. The habits and appetites modernity encourages are, today, simply at odds with those that biblical faith requires, and where that has not been recognized, a fateful series ofsubstitutions takes place. Faith that has been infused by the spirit of modernity becomes fo cused on self rather than on God. It imagines that the world can be understood aright by gazing through the peephole ofthe self, so this kind offaith leans much on intuition and little on God's revealed truth. It is guided more by circumstance than by conviction, and it is more pragmatic than principled. Christian faith, in consequence, is cast in therapeutic terms. Self-fascina
tion replaces the older self-denial, the latter becoming a new obscenity and the former a new gospel. The search for wholeness then replaces that of holiness, feeling good that ofbeing good. This, in turn, begins to obscure the difference between good and evil, or to make that difference one of small consequence, and perhaps out of this there develops an entirely new un derstanding of what good and evil really are. Good, in a secularized and affluent age, is to have, and to have is to be; evil, by the same token, is to be deprived, and to be without is to be lost. Salvation, therefore, is not salvation from the judgment of God but simply salva tion from the judgment of modernity. To be saved is simply to have a personal sense ofwell- being, however that comes about. In short, those who wish to sup with modernity had better have a long spoon, because it has the power to wreck faith and to rob us of our ability to think of God's world on God's terms.
Counterculture However, one ofthe strange new twists in our culture is that modernity has brought forth, from its own loins, its most vociferous critics. I refer to the postmodern artists, authors, rock stars, and movie makers. Inas much as they are still a part of what is the modern world, they might better be called antimodernists than postmodernists, for they have set themselves to attack the soul of modernity. The world brought about by urbanization, capital ism, technology, and telecommunications, it just so happened, also provided an environment that gave great plausibility to Enlightenment ideas. That is why
What has been lost is not thebelief in God in general but the belief in thebiblical God in particular, the God \vho is outside of ourselves. modernity has been so powerful and intrusive. The social context reinforced the ideology; the ideology gave life to the context as soul does to body. Thus it was, for example, that the Enlightenment dismissed all pre vious sources ofreligious authority, such as the Church or the Bible, and substituted for them the human being as the source of morality, mystery, and meaning. Byan entirely different route, however, modernization has brought us to the same point by severing the connec tions of the self in family, community, and craft, thus forcing us to relocate all reality from the exterior world to that which is interior. So it was that the self move ment arose, and thus it is that we imagine that the art in life is to find the self and fulfill it. By two entirely differ-
SEPTEMBER /OCTOBER 1995
13
ent routes we have arrived at the same place: the human being is the source of morality, meaning, mystery, and satisfaction. What has now happened, however, is that the postmodernists have turned on the Enlightenment, rightly seeing it as a failed project. The attack has been savage. The intellectual soul of modernity has been eviscerated and replaced by emptiness. Where the En lightenment spoke ofpurpose, the postmodernists now have havoc;, where the Enlightenment believed that what was true could be rationally discovered, the postmodernists mock the notion of truth as si'm ply nostalgia for the past and believe that reason points to nothing but itself; where the Enlightenment gave itself hope in the thought that life was progressing, the postmodernists have abandoned that hope and plunged into nihilism; and where the Enlightenment had order, the postmodernists have only anarchy. They have, in other words, stripped modernity of the hope and sense of order that, however wishful and even fraudulent they were, had made life a little more bear able. It is the argument of the postmodernists that since there is no truth, all such claims actually mask the lust to power and, therefore, their task is often conceived as exposing this lust, deconstructing the world around them. When this mood is translated into movies and TV, it may lose some of its nastiness, but it still inclines us to accept a series of fateful substitutions. It asks us to substitute what is ephemeral for what is durable, fash ion for substance, style for reality, role for character, and impressions for truth. Those who are drawn into this world are being drawn into a vortex where meaning of every kind perishes. Enlightenment skeptics attacked Christian faith because, they said, it was not true; postmodern skeptics attack Christian faith because it claims to be true. Thus, it is that the battle lines have shifted. Along the way, however, the postmodernists have taught Christians a lesson. They undertook to deconstruct the Enlighten ment worldview simply because it rested on straws, but we need to deconstruct the modern worldview because it is also sinful. It is, in fact, the contemporary realiza tion of what the Bible speaks of under the language of "the world:' Worldliness has very little to do with the trivial taboos with which it is often associated. In the Bible, worldliness is that system ofvalues that takes root in any society, that has the fallen human being as its source and center, that relegates God to the margins, and that makes sin look normal and righteousness look strange. Modernity and postmodernity are in large measure for us what the Bible calls the world. It is not only from our falleness, not only from the powers of 14
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evil that we are redeemed, but also from the world (Eph 2:2). Thus it is that God and the world are in competi tion for our lives. We cannot love the one unless we hate the other (Jas 4:4). The chief reason that modernity has been able to toy with the life ofthe Church as it has is that the Church has not recognized modernized culture for what it is. Most Christians, as a matter of fact, see this culture as essentially neutral and harmless. In a study that was carried out in 1993, for example, the views and atti tudes of students from seven evangelical seminaries were studied. While 79 percent affirmed that human nature is essentially "perverse and corrupt;' only 38.4 percent also considered culture to be perverse and cor rupt-and the same was true ofthe self, though culture is an extension of human nature, and the self is a part. Most, however, saw culture as neutral and the self as innocent. In other words, the transition from theologi cal belief to principled practice in the modern world simply is not being made very well. And these are the Church's leaders of tomorrow. It is, therefore, our cultural naivete that is betraying us. From a biblical perspective, culture is not neutral, and the self is not innocent. This naivete, however, is also the expression of spiritual weakness and confu sion. Unless this confusion is resolved, and this weakness overcome, Christian identity will be de stroyed. What we need most is what we have most lost. It is to understand ourselves afresh as moral beings made for transcendence, for whom asense oftruth is as indis pensable as breath itself. More than that, what we need to find afresh is that truth, the truth ofGod's Word, that, even in our cynical and harsh world, can shine its light on our path. We need this because we must understand how God views our world and live in accordance with his view; for God's view is the measure of what is real. That being so, we must become so centered on this truth and on the God of this truth, that our under standing oflife becomes consistent with what God has revealed that life to be like. It is God alone who can sustain us in truth, encourage us in hope, and build in us that kind of moral character, without which we are unrecognizable as his children and are unable to resist the powerful currents that flow through our society as it now begins to unravel in very serious ways. ~ Dr. David Wells is the Andrew Mutch Distinguished Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary , South Hamilton, Massachusetts, and an ordained Congregational minister. The author of six books, this article summarizes some of the material found in the author's two recent works : No Place for Truth : Or, Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology? (Eerdmands, 1993) and God in the Wasteland: The Reality of Truth in a World of Fading Dreams (Eerdmands, 1994).
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with MR: In Amusing Ourselves to Death, you have a chapter on the influence of entertainment on religion. Do you think that modernity comes to us in stealth-like fashion, and sometimes Christians and other groups can be naive in viewing style as neutral? POSTMAN: I certainly think that it is a mistake to believe that style is neutral, especially if one means by "style" the form, or forms, in which messages address people. I try to make the point in Amusing Ourselves to Death that the style of television favors and amplifies the entertain ment mode. In cases like politics, news, and especially religion, I think that poses a very serious problem, because religion-and Chris tianity in particular-is a demanding discipline. And although there is joy and exultation that results from religious experience, when we present religion as nothing different from a Broadway show, I think it trivializes and corrupts the religious experience. If there are people who think that it makes no difference how messages are con veyed to people, that one form is just as good as the other, I think these people are underestimating the power of the forms in media. MR: You make quite a bit of the printed word in Amusing Ourselves Ourselves to Death and Technopoly, and one of the things that comes to mind is the sort of shift at the time of the Reformation from the image to the printed page. Do you think that is significant in our day that we've gone back to an iconographic sort of medium, especially for those of us who are Jews and Christians who appeal to the written word? POSTMAN: Yes, of course I do believe that. There is a rather rapid movement away from the word and the power of the word toward iconog raphy. One of the more interesting theologians of our time, Jacques Ellul, the French social philosopher who was very much concerned with the religious experience, wrote a book some years ago called the Humiliation of the Word. In
it he talks about the very issues you're raising, and I wonder if we really know what the results of this are going to be. Much of the Judeo-Christian religion, as well as the Judeo-Christian culture that comes to us is based on the idea that through the word we can understand ourselves and our culture. This was the great genius of Greek culture, and Christianity inherited that idea. Sociology, philosophy, anthropology, and psychology, and every thing else are somehow within the domain and can be put under control of the word. As culture moves away from the word towards pictures and moving pictures, it would be a new Reformation alright, but that could be a Reformation in reverse that seriously harms our traditional understanding of religion. MR: A lot of people talk about postmodernism; it seems as if it's merely in the realm of philosophy and the history of ideas, whereas I think one of the things you pointed out to so many of us is that there are other factors besides intellectual factors that shape the culture. In particular, when we think about postmodernism and its turn inward, involving a distrust of reason and of absolute truth. To what extent is it pushed along by the influence of such media as television and marketing? POSTMAN: Maybe to some extent its roots go further back. I'd say the most pervasive intellectual idea of this century (one finds it in physics, anthropology, psy chology, philosophy, almost everything else) is that the form in which we express whatever we have to express about the world controls to some extent what we are saying and what we can see. You find this in Heisenberg's remark that we do not see nature as it is, only by the questions we put to it. And you find in linguistics people discovering that different grammatical forms give people different perceptions of how the universe works. Some people say "We don't see things as they are but as we are:' It's this idea which I think is the major thrust of scholarship in our own century. MR: Would you say that the advent of not only television, but virtual reality, gives us that much more than jibes with our experience, telling us that the postmodern feeling is correct? POSTMAN: I think it is indisputable that this conten tion that is labeled the "postmodern view" is correct. I think we understand now that how we say things and what instruments we use to measure those things will influence the kinds of results we get. I think we understand that; it represents an advance in human understanding. Never theless, that sort of idea can have a psychopathic expression, and the idea that therefore everything is relative and that we cannot know anything is a corrupted extension of that idea.
Continued on ,Page 36 SEPTEMBER {OCTOBER 1995
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Facing a World of New Challenges 6 Opportunities
BY GENE E. VEITH
e ar · living in a time in which to be modern is to be out f ate. As the twentieth century limps to a close, ex usted and disillusioned, and as we begin to enter the ird millennium, a new worldview is emerging. We can see it in academia and in public opinion polls, in our pop culture and in our churches. As the twentieth century becomes obsolete, we are entering the postmodern age. Christians should be glad that the modern era is over. Scientific rationalism pummeled belief in any kind of supernatural reality. Liberal theologians, as is their wont, jumped on the bandwagon, relegating the Bible to ancient mythology and attempting to remake Chris tianity along secular lines. To the surprise of modernist theologians, orthodox Christianity has survived their onslaughts. The postmodern age is presenting a new set of challenges and temptations for biblical Christians. Postmodernism, like its predecessor, also attacks or thodox Christianity, though for completely different reasons. A new liberal theology is emerging-this time, ironically, among Evangelicals. But the postmodern age also presents untold opportunities for recovering the historic Christian faith.
progress. The "modern:' almost by definition, was su perior to the past. The future would be even better. Modernists genuinely believed that science would an swer all questions and that the application of scientific principles would solve all social problems. Through rational planning, applied technology, and social ma nipulation, experts could engineer the perfect society. Thomas Oden has said that the modern era lasted exactly two hundred years, from the Fall of the Bastille in 1789 to the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The French Revolution razed the past and on its rubble attempted to erect a new social order. The revolution aries who installed the "Goddess of Reason" in Notre Dame Cathedral ushered in an age of social engineer ing, culminating in the grandiose pretensions of Communism, "vith its dialectical materialism and to talitarian control of every facet of human life. But both the French Revolution and Communism degenerated into a reign of terror. Modernists failed to take into account the one Christian doctrine that, as Chesterton has said, actually can be proven empiri cally, namely, the doctrine of original sin. By the late twentieth century, it became clear that science had not answered all questions but instead had given us envi Modernism and Its Demise ronmental pollution and atomic bombs. Not only did The modern era began with the Enlightenment of the the promised utopias-whether of socialism or "The eighteenth century and accelerated through the first Great Society" -fail to materialize, but social prob half of the twentieth century. Although this span of lems were as intractable as ever, and in many ways were worse. time included many dissenting voices, in general it could be described as an Age of Scientific Reason. Rea The counterculture of the 19605 began looking for son,of course, was developed to dizzying heights bythe __ something different, and in many ways its advocates premodern classicists of Greece, Rome, and the Middle were the pioneers of postmodernism. As the student Ages. Science had its origins among Bible-believing protesters grew up, they entered academia, the profes Christians of the seventeenth century. But the scientific sions, and the mainstream ofthe culture, bringing their reason ofmodernism excluded on principle everything "new consciousness" with them. In the intellectual that could not be seen, measured, and empirically ana world, scholars began submitting scientific rational lyzed. Revelation was ruled out as a means of ism to a withering critique, arguing that what is knowledge, and belief in a supernatural realm that tran presented as objective truth is often a mask for per scended the visible universe was dismissed as primitive sonal bias, cultural prejudice, and power politics. superstition. Not only did Modernists believe in the Certainly modernism was not the total failure that inerrancy of science, they also had a devout faith in the critics of the 1960's made it out to be. Science and'
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technology have led to a standard ofliving beyond the wildest utopian dreams of our ancestors. But modern ism, despite its success stories, did not make everyone happy. Its exclusive' focus on the material world ne glected the spiritual dimension of human beings. The bitterness of its critics suggests not mere disillusion ment but, more deeply, a loss of faith. Modernism, in effect, failed as a religion. The Alternative of Postmodernism So what to do if modernism falls apart? One option is to return to the premodern, bringing the wisdom of the past-including the Christian revelation-to ad dress contemporary needs. This is one way of being postmodern, and many are rediscovering the riches of Christian orthodoxy. But the intellectual establishment and the culture as a whole are turning to another solu tion' the ideology of postmodernism. If scientific rationalism cannot be depended on to give us objective truth, may be there is no objective truth. The postmodernists ar gue that truth is not so much a discovery but a construction. Truth is relative, dependent on the individual's experience and culture. Morality is also relative, a function of the individual's choices and the prevailing cultural norms. Modernists valued unity; postmodernists value diversity. Modernists looked for universal frame works of knowledge; postmodernists question all "totalizing" or "foundational" systems. Modernists emphasized the individual; postmodernists empha size the culture. Modernists sought order; postmodernists prize disorder. Modernists valued sci ence, as a means of finding knowledge about nature; postmodernists care little for scientific knowledge, but they love technology. 0 blivious to how or why it works, postmodernists and the new information technolo gies feed on each other. Television, with its fragmented sequence of images and enter tainment mentality, and computer networks, with their decentralized anarchy and their "virtual reality" fantasy worlds, practically define the postmodernist state of mind. For postmodernists, all reality is virtual reality. The radical left has survived the fall of the Berlin Wall by adopting a postmodernist mutation known as "post-Marxism:' Whereas the Marxism ofthe modern era interpreted all of culture in terms of economics and class conflict, post-Marxism interprets culture in terms of other kinds of power struggles-the oppression of women by men, blacks by ,.."hites, gays by heterosexuals. Academia, once com
mitted to the search for truth, is now committed to the undermining of truth. Thus we have "deconstruction;' a mode of analysis that purports to take apart all ex pressions of objective meaning, showing that everything from a play by Shakespeare to the Declara tion of Independence to a scientific experiment is actually unstable linguistic constructions, masks for cultural power, and rationalizations for oppression. Post-Marxism and deconstruction are not only the sources of "political correctness" in our universi ties, they also reflect the fragmentation of our nation into competing interest groups and subcultures. Just as the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe has given way to bloody conflict between ethnic groups, the unity ofAmerican culture (on a much smaller scale) is breaking up into a new tribalism, evident in every thing from group entitlement schemes to the warfare of urban gangs. If values are all relative and culturally determined, no consensus is possible. If truth is rela tive, rational persuasion is also futile. Disagreements can only be resolved by naked power, unrestrained by reason or morality. While academia is thus in the hands ofthe politically correct, the impact ofpostmodernism on the general public is just as pronounced. According to one study, some two-thirds ofAmericans agree with the statement, "There are no absolutes:' In casual con versation, we hear statements like "that may be true for you, but it isn't true for me;' or "you Christians think you have the only truth:' Attempts to persuade others are understood as power plays: "You are just trying to impose your views on someone else:' If truth is relative, one idea is as good as another. In the absence of any reliable means ofarriving at truth with both revelation and reason discredited-the only criterion for adopting a particular idea, if only provi sionally' is desire. Reason is replaced by the pleasure-principle. Instead of people saying they agree
Just as the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe has given \vay to bloody conflict between ethnic groups, the unity of American cultu,'e is b,'eaking up into a ne\v tribalism, evident in everything from group entitlement schemes to the \varfare of urban gangs. or disagree with a proposition, we hear how much they "like" or "dislike" a particular idea. People pick and choose what they enjoy from a wide range of theories and religions, dependent solely on their personal pref erences and choices. The intellect is replaced by the will. Moral issues are similarly relativized. "You have to
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decide what's right for you:' we are told on the talk shows. «What's right for one person might not be right for someone else:'«Who are we to judge?" Moral issues are not seen in terms of absolute transcendent stan dards, as in the Bible, nor in terms of what is good for society as a whole, as in modernism. What makes an action moral or immoral is whether or not the person made a choice. The postmodernist approach to ethics lies behind some of olfr most contentious ethical debates. Few people admit to being «for" abortion; instead they are «pro-choice:' Whereas traditional, and to a certain ex tent even modernist, ethics look at abortion in terms of moral absolutes (such as «Thou shalt not kill") and objective facts (examining scientific facts about whether or not the fetus is a human being), postmodernists finesse both the philosophical and the scientific issues. The only relevant question is whether or not the woman had a choice in the matter. Whether she chooses to have the baby or abort it, that action is right «for her:' If she is coerced either way, the action would be wrong only because she was not given a choice. This pro-choice paradigm appears over and over in contemporary moral controversies. People are clamoring for «the right to die:' justifying suicide and even euthanasia insofar as the person «chooses" to die. Sexual perversions become totally acceptable and even chic when they are thought of as «lifestyle choices:' In a relativistic climate, the only remaining virtue is tolerance.The only philosophies that are wrong are those that believe in truth; the only sinners are those who still believe there is such a thing as sin. Traditional and mod ernist ethics stressed choosing the right course ofaction, but to postmodernists simply choosing is enough. Again, what we have is the apotheosis of the will.
Postmodernism and Religion The Reformation, on the contrary, stressed what Luther called «the bondage ofthe will:'The human will is fallen and is enslaved by sin. Simply following our wills can only lead us deeper into moral depravity. Nor can we simply «choose" to believe. Theologies based on the human will, rather than on God's Word, can only be deceptive and enslaving. The good news, the Gospel, is that we are saved by God's will, not our own, by His grace in Jesus Christ; we can live a moral life not by our following our wills nor by trusting our willpower, but by submission to the will of God, who sanctifies us through the power of the Holy Spirit. Christians recognize the void at the core of both modernism and postmodernism. Christians can agree with the Modernists that there is objective truth, while agreeing with the postmodernists about the limits of 18
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the fallen mind. The «foundationalism" of reason alone is bound to fail, but living without foundations is spiri tual death. «For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ" (1 Cor 3: 11 ). And yet, just as the children of Israel were con stantly tempted to blend their faith with that of their pagan neighbors, Christians have often succumbed to cultural pressures for religious syncretism. During the era of modernism, liberal theologians developed a modernist theology. They sought to make Christianity acceptable to the modern mind by minimizing the su pernatural content of the Christian faith, rejecting biblical authority on the grounds of spuriously «scien tific" biblical scholarship and by concentrating on social progress. Early in this century in America, the issues came to a head in the controversy between «Modernists" and «Fundamentalists:' Although the Fundamentalists in cluded formidable intellects such as J. Gresham Machen (who distanced himself from most Fundamentalists as well as Modernists), they lost the image war during the Scopes «Monkey" Trial (although Machen refused to embroil himself in this trial), and they became dis-, missed as backwoods throwbacks, unworthy of being taken seriously in the «modern age:' Soon the Modern ists entrenched themselves in the major seminaries and mainline denominations. The Fundamentalists them selves retreated from cultural and intellectual engagement and took shelter in their own separatist institutions and pietistic spirituality. And yet, as the century «progressed" and as liberal theology grew increasingly insipid, the Fundamentalists · struck back. Conservative Protestants ended their cul tural isolation, going back to the universities and aggressively defending the authority of scripture and the sufficiency of the Gospel. The Fundamentalists meta morphosed into "Evangelicals:' The mainline liberal denominations, crippled by their modernist theology, began to dwindle, while evangelical churches boomed. The Fundamentalists may have lost the battle of the Scopes "Monkey" Trial, but they won the war, at least on the level ofnumerical success. But now, having triumphed over modernism, many Evangelicals are succumbing to postmodernism. The new postmodern liberal theology is emerging from the evangelical movement. While postmodernism encourages the rise of such neo-pagan spiritualities as irrationalist cults and the New Age Movement, its Christian manifestation can be found in the so-called «mega -shift" theology and in the church growth movement. In a «mega -shift" away from classic Protestant theology, many Evangelicals are pro claiming a touchy-feely, therapeutic god who is light · years away from the Holy One of Israel. This is a god of
modern REFORMATION
tolerance, who condemns no one and who can be reached by many different paths. Instead of the for giveness of sins, the mega -shift preachers offer the gospel of a good self-image and earthly success through positive thinking. Often accompanying mega -shift theology is the church growth movement, which seeks to build megachurches by adjusting Christianity to the desires of the culture. Doctrine does not go over well in an age ofrelativism, so in order to attract new members, theo logical content must be 'minimized. Nor do people wish to hear about sin, so the church must cultivate an atmosphere of moral tolerance. Since people choose their religious beliefs not so much on the basis of whether they are true but whether they "like" the par ticular church, the life of the congregation must be made as pleasant and undemanding as possible. The exaltation of the pleasure-principle means that wor ship services above all must be entertaining. The exaltation ofthe will means that the customers must be given what they want. To be sure, some Evangelicals have adopted church growth methods while remaining orthodox, but they are playing with fire. Changing the church's message to make it more palatable to the world is clearly forbidden by Scripture (2 Tm 4:3). The way of the Cross is not easily amenable to consumer preference. Those who attempt to evangelize the culture by imitating its forms must beware lest the culture evangelize them.
\
"'-~
Postmodern Renewal The modernist theologians thought they were making Christianity relevant by updating its teachings and appealing to the mindset of "modern man." They succeeded only in making their theology completely irrelevant to modern man. If God is nothing more than a symbol, Christ is just another good example, and the church is simply an agent for social change, then why should anyone bother to get up on Sunday mornings to go to church? Similarly, the postmodernist preachers think they are making Christianity more relevant, but ifGod, like a cosmic Mr. Rogers, "loves you just the way you are;' demanding neither faith nor obedience, then why bother with Christianity? There is no point to the Gospel if there are no sins to forgive. If all religions and no religion-lead to God, one might just as well watch TV Ofcourse, churches might still grow to enor mous size if they are entertaining enough and meet the felt needs of the populace-just as rock concerts and psychologists' waiting rooms will be filled throughout the postmodern era-but Christianity itselfwill pretty much have been abandoned. But there is a better way to respond to the
postmodern condition. Now that modernism has been abandoned in the arts, many artists are experimenting with a postmodernist aesthetic, creating works that are purposefully disunified, blatantly commercial, and aggressively shallow. But other artists are reacting against modern art by going back to realism, beauty, and classical form, rediscovering the traditions ofWest ern art and bringing them into contemporary life. Whereas modernist architects erected plain boxes of glass and steel, triumphant in their technology but scornful of the past, postmodern architects are restor ing old buildings and erecting new ones that follow old designs. In the same way, many people today are redis covering historic Christianity-the profound depths of its doctrines, liturgies, and disciplines. In a postmodern age, being "modern" does not necessarily mean better, and people are open once again to what is ancient. They can accept the supernatural and are open to mystery. Furthermore, many who have gone through mod ernism and postmodernism are recognizing that both are empty. They have been taught that there are no moral absolutes, but they still feel guilty and see the wreckage of their lives. They have heard that they can create their own truths, but they yearn for something genuinely real. Christianity has thrived not by trying to offer people what they already have, but by offering them what they desperately lack-namely, the Word of God and salvation through Jesus Christ. Will orthodox Christianity prosper or languish in the postmodern era? That is hard to predict. Certainly, Christ has prom ised to preserve his Church against the very gates of Hell, let alone against a mere cultural shift. The biblical Church most definitely will survive, and its success cannot be measured in numbers. It must also be re membered that we are today in a time of transition. It is not yet apparent which version ofpostmodernity-the chaos ofrelativism or the renewal ofthe past-will win out. But it has been observed that Western civilization has gone through a time like this before-an age of philosophical relativism and religious pluralism, a moral climate that tolerated promiscuous sex and bru tal violence, a society that was both unified into a mass culture and divided by fractious tribalism. This was the Roman Empire at its decline and fall. This was the society that was successfully evangelized by the early Church, which, despite conflict and martyrdom, was then in its golden age. ~ Dr. Gene Veith is Associate Professor of English and Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Concordia University in Wisconsin. He is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma and received his Ph. D. in English at the University of Kansas . He is the author of The Gift of Art: the Place of the Arts in the Reformation (Intervarsity Press). Loving God With All Your Mind (Crossway). and Postmodern Tim es: A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture (Crossway) .
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Post -Age Due
BY RICK RITCHIE
Has anyone noticed the difference between uE. R." (5 "Marcus Welby"?
o i"'dividual who lived at the end of the nineteenth .e :tury had a choice about whether or not he would :11: r the twentieth on January 1, 1901. Every mortal entered the new century on the same day, like it or not. Things are far different when one speaks of epochs of civilization; there we have a choice. I am told that we are entering the postmodern age, but I am also given to know that I might remain a modern instead ofbeeom ing a postmodern. Perhaps my choices are even more vast. I might decide to become a Medieval like Martin Luther, or maybe an Ancient, like Aristotle. I have met some who could be classified as honorary citizens of the Mesozoic era. In any age, there will be those who choose to be conscientious objectors to the prevailing values. The decisive question is not «By era are we enter ing?", but «By what philosophy shall we live?" At the beginning of a new era, especially, it is impossible to know what the next era will bring. We seem to be facing the large-scale abandonment of the values of moder nity, but we cannot say with any conviction what will replace them. Those who claim to know what is replac ing them are really attempting to create a self- fulfilling prophecy. If you claim to know what the values of the postmodern era will be, and call people to affirm those values to keep up with the times, then you might just succeed in defining the times yourself. 1 In politics this is known as the bandwagon ap proach. You say «Vote for Hal. He's a winner!" Some people are swayed by this and instead of voting their conscience will cast their votes for Hal. By attaching the name «Postmodern" to a popular academic philosophy, some academics gain adherents for this philosophy by projecting it as the winner. One problem with this approach (not a pragmatic problem, but a problem with truth) is that the votes are not counted until the end of an era. Perhaps sometime in the twenty -third century his torians will say that the 1990's saw the rise of a short-lived philosophy (then called post-modernism, but now not called anything) which was replaced a decade later by a new Platonism (the satellite discovery 20
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of four lost dialogues of Plato coincided with the mar keting of an audio-animatronic Plato, captivating the media addicts of the Millennial generation), allowing the modern age to stretch to the middle of the twenty first century. The epoch to follow the modern era was the ShortAges, though no one could agree as to whether they were named for the fact that nanotechnologies made everything small, or for the fact that they in eluded several brief periods of time when a given philosophy would reign unchallenged, or for the fact that there \\ ere lots of shortages. My point is that when we try to decide our philoso phy by adjusting to the spirit ofthe age, we will not only miss out on truth, but we might miss out on relevance as well. Contrary to popular opinion, it is much easier to identify '.\ hether a position is true than it is to predict whether a position will be relevant in the long term. In Our Time But Not of It St. Paul's encouragement to be «in the world but not of it" is relevant to a discussion of the Christian's stance toward the spirit of the age. There is more than one danger to avoid. There is, of course, the danger of be coming so enmeshed in the spirit of the age that we become indistinguishable from it, but there is also the danger that having identified the spirit of the age we become uncritically reactive against it, shunning not only its weaknesses, but its strengths. As we move from one era into another, I fear that the form this reaction will take for some Christians is that they will reject the postmodern (for Christian reasons ofcourse!), and yet themselves be slaves ofboth unchristian and outmoded modern values. The way out of this mess is to see that no age has a monopoly on virtue or vice. Fallen man is not capable of righteousness, yet he s:annot suppress all truth and survive. The reigning intellectual system of any age will be a mixture of falsehoods, which leads to death, and truth, which makes some measure of life possible. A fundamental change in the spirit of the age will often involve both the adoption of new falsehoods, but it can also be the occasion for the recovery offorgotten truths.
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Christian minds ought to be unprejudiced in their use of scripture to determine what in each era ought to be adopted or left behind. Many books on postmodernism, both by secular ists and Christians, offer little worth adopting. In reading postmodern books it surely comes as no sur prise to find that secularists espouse relativism. What is troubling is that in so-called Christian postmodern books, professing Christians do the same. There are some brilliant exceptions, but if you want a good syn thesis of Christianity and the more solid insights of postmodernism, you may have to do the work your self. One of the most promising postmodern books I have read comes not from the Christian world, but the secular. Stephen Toulmin's book Cosmopolis offers in triguing insights on the shift away from modern values. In several cases, the shift involves returning to medi eval and pre-enlightenment (read "Reformation") values. I would like to examine four areas where con sidering the values of postmodernism will be a worthy endeavor.
the modern era often did their work, even in some Christian ages. This still leaves open the important question of whether or not there is an answer to the big question. But I think that a Christian can decide that there is an answer, and still show interest in what is being done in the wedges. We will be more effective in dealing with our culture if we approach it as it really is. If we think that all modern philosophers are huddled in an anx ious corner waiting for God, we are mistaken. Worse yet, we will be unprepared to deal with them when they arrive at the hospital to quote to us our old theologians on the probable morality of pulling the plug on grandma. This work in the wedges is called "practical phi losophy" because it deals with everyday issues. The return to practical philosophy entails four returns to older ways of looking at the world. 2 They are:
Many Happy Returns Professor Toulmin has called the recent shift in think ing "a return to practical philosophY:' The modern world was dominated by overarching philosophical systems. Each system tried to offer an explanation for the world as a whole, and then show where the various disciplines fit in underneath. If you have seen the film series "How Shall We Then Live?;' you might remem ber Francis Shaeffer illustrating this by walking along a beach drawing a circle in the sand to represent a philosophy (say that of Thomas Aquinas). The next phi10sopher' Rene Descartes, crossed out that circle and made his own. That is, he toppled the previous philosophy and of fered his own account of the world. This went on for some time. Dr. Shaeffer left quite a trail ofcircles for the waves to erase. In recent modern philosophy, espe cially European existentialism, Dr. Shaeffer saw the end of systems, illustrating this by crossing out a circle without drawing a new one to replace it. Modern phi losophy' as he saw it, despaired of the existence of truth. It made no attempt to explain the world as a whole, for there was no reason for the world. Stephen Toulmin offers a different account of the present age. What may have been true of existentialism is not true of postmodernism. Instead of crossing out the big circle and leaving it there, the postmodern phi losopher divides the circle into wedges and chooses one to work on. This was how philosophers before
These are not just areas where philosophers do their work; they are a value-system. These four categories are set in contrast against the modern values ofthe written, the universal, the timeless, and the general. These com peting sets of values are not so mutually exclusive that the acceptance of one involves the total rejection ofthe other. We can, for example, value what happens both in time and eternity. But it is important to recognize that
1. A return to the Oral 2. A return to the Particular 3. A return to the Local 4. A return to the Timely
Whenwe tl'Y to decideour philosophy by adjusting to the spirit of the age,\ve \vill not only miss out on truth,but we might miss out on 1elevunce as well. 1
they have opposite tendencies. When we channel our
energy in one direction or another it should be by
conscious choice.
Have Ye Not Heard?
Professor Toulmin says that a return to practical phi
losophy involves a return to the oral. Given our written
revelation, the Bible, how could a Christian case be
made that modern man should return to the oral?
I do not propose the abandonment ofthe written. In fact, in a past modern REFORMATION article, I noted that people ofthe Book are people ofbooks. Christians ought to be readers. But having said this, I think that the oral has been neglected, and there are historical and even biblical arguments to be made for the value of the spoken word.
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Toulmin has said that the renewed interest in rheto ric is a sign of our renewed interest in the oral. Rhetoric is the persuasive use of language. In studying rhetoric, it is not uncommon for speeches to be analyzed, both as written texts and as live events. In the political realm, the oral has distinct advantages over the written. When President Reagan stood in front of the Berlin Wall and made the challenge, "Mr. Gorbachev, take this wall down!;' he was relying on these advantages. He could have sent Mr. Gorbachev a telegram and relayed copies
ture of the church. Luther said, "The church is not a pen -house but a mouth-house:'4 A pastor's job is not to write but to preach. And laymen are to repeat the good news that they have heard to each other. If pastor and laymen fail to do this, the results are serious. Luther said "[Where the Gospel] is not proclaimed, there Christ is not presenf'5 A postmodern focus on the oral could be a healthy thing for the church. In a sense, we have never left the oral, but we often forget what makes it a unique tool. The oral and the written should not be pitted against each other, for each has its place. Scripture speaks as though we are to be both read ing and hearing the Word. In some places, the ignorant are chastised with the rebuke "Have ye not read ... ?" (Mt 12:3),atotherswith the rebuke "Have ye not heard?" (Is 40 :28). Literacy in Old Testament times was fostered by the synagogue, where the Scriptures were publicly read, an event where the written becomes the oral. This dy namic is vividly pictured in those places where a prophet is commanded to eat a scroll (e.g. Ez 3:1, Rv 10:9). The prophet speaks what is written. In the ages when communication is at its best, our speech is formed by print and our print by speech.
If lve think that all modern philsophers are huddled in un anxious corner lvaitingfor God,weare mistaken.Worse yet, we "ill beunp.'eparedtodeal with them\vhen they arrive at the hospital toquotetous our oldthelogians on the probable morality of pull' .theplug on grandma. to the newspapers, but that would not have been as effective. As a speech, there was immediacy to the state ment. Both men knew that millions of people were witnessing the event. The public nature of the event gave it power. For the same reason, the oral has a place in the church. I am sure that at the birth of printing it was feared that laymen would vacate the church since they could read better sermons than their pastors could de liver. But most continued to attend. How come? What happens in church that cannot happen in one's den? For one thing, a sermon is a public event. People can hold each other accountable to knowledge that they know they hold in common. With print, a degree of precision in understanding becomes possible that is not possible with speech, but it remains a private mat ter. We can easily ignore it. A fair sermon preached may do more for a congregation than several excellent ones read, for the good points live on in conversation long afterward. Martin Luther noted one aspect ofthe oral which is often overlooked. It is received more passively. When we read, we control our intake. We can scan or peruse a book as we see fit. We study this and skip that. We can even speak of discovering something while reading, for we found it with our eyes. But not so with what is heard. The ears are passive. The message comes to them; they do not seek the message. They are the more appropriate organs of faith. As Luther said, paraphrasing St. Paul, "faith comes from listening, not from 100king:'3 This is quite a statement for such a prolific writer. This trust in the ears had ramifications for the na 22
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A Return to the Particular At the time ofthe Reformation, case-ethics or casuistry was the common method for arriving at ethical truth. While an objective moral code was recognized, it was not always obvious how to apply that code to a given case. In casuistry, these borderline cases were solved by references to similar cases where there was a consensus as to the right answer. It was hoped that familiarity with many cases would equip those caught in ethical dilem mas to find solutions to their ethical problems. Some thinkers found fault with this system. It had been misused to make clear violations of known moral principles look ethical by comparison with ill-suited borderline cases. At the beginning of the modern age, philosopher Blaise Pascal lampooned this procedure and helped to bring it into disrepute. Not a parallel test case, but an appropriate principle would be the answer to each dilemma. Casuistry made a comeback in our century, how ever, as medical and other technological advances made it more difficult to decide how to apply known moral laws to new situations. Even where we can agree on principles, application of those principles remains dif
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ficult. Situations which would have been undreamed of even a half century ago require us to ponder ethics anew. The Just War Theory was created (I ought to say discovered) by Aristotle. But how is it to be applied in a nuclear age? The Hippocratic Oath is ancient. But how do we relate its injunctions to heroic technologies? How far must doctors go in keeping the sick alive? If a technology is possible, does that make it necessary? Christians must be ready for this new situation. We cannot reject the postmodern system of ethics just because it can be twisted: The modern system had its own drawbacks. Moderns could often be very scrupu lous where their code was explicit but throw caution to the wind in a moral gray area. We need to understand the legitimate use of casuistry however, so that we are not left out of the moral discourse of the present day. The Bible again shows how modern and postmodern values are not polar opposites. An objec tive code and case ethics are both found in Scripture. As an example of an objective code, the Ten Com mandments will serve. To varying degrees, case ethics can be found in the book of Deuteronomy, the book of Proverbs, and Jesus's parables. These methods of arriv ing at ethical truth are complimentary.
put into the service of a sloppy relativism, but it need not be. The statements of the time-bound humans of Church history are much more amenable to this prac tice than the statements of Scripture. There the words of eternity are spoken in time. There is a context to be understood, but when God speaks he can figure out how to make himself relevant to the ages. We must expect that instances where counsel is"merely cultural" will be rare. Not only matters of practice, but broad motifs of thought are affected by historical setting. A more democratic understanding of the relations between God and man is more plausible in an American setting than in a feudal European setting. This ought to make us ask whether we have been unduly influenced by our environment in deciding doctrine. We must appeal to something objective to answer this, however. It is still possible that relations between God and man are, in fact, democratic, and that the American environment allowed hierarchically-inclined Europeans to see something new. Only after we have searched the scrip tures can we decide if this is so. Studying our own setting, however, can alert us to which cherished teach ings we had better not take for granted.
A Return to the Local A return to the local entails the ability to use anthro pology and history to understand the settings for particular ideas. If we do not know the context of a statement, we may fail to grasp its true significance. There are cases in church history for example, where a local condition gave rise to a judgment which some have since been universalized. One early church father, Ignatius, told his followers to settle doctrinal questions by asking their bishop. It is alleged that since Ignatius lived near the time of the apostles, this was an apostolic tradition. What can we make of this? Putting the statement in its context allows us to relativize it. No doubt, Ignatius believed the bishops of his time more competent than laymen to handle doc trinal squabbles. He was probably right. We could even say that the apostles might have commended his judg ment. That does not make it valid to universalize this principle. In our own day it would be foolhardy to follow such a principle in every case. With Episcopal bishops like John Spong or James Pike, or Catholic bishops like Pope Honorius, given the choice, I would rather accept the judgments of an untutored layman who respects the Scriptures. This type of reasoning can be, and often has been,
A Return to the Timely What makes E.R. different from Marcus Welby? Even if Marcus Welby had an MRI scanner and a couple of AIDS patients, he would be a character in a very differ ent show. How so? E.R. moves in rapid segments.
What makes E.R. different; from Marcus Welby? EtR. moves in rapid segments. People come in on gtlrneys. Thel'e is crisis. No overall plot, but alot happens. People come in on gurneys. There is crisis. No overall plot, but a lot happens. Marcus Welby, in contrast, is slowly developed. There are usually a couple ofwell-defined stories in the show. There is often an overall message. Dr. Welby is a well-integrated character whose Father-knows-best demeanor brings comfort to his beleaguered patients. In E.R. the doctors don't have it together. Glimpses of some compelling value are caught. Doctors comfort patients in spite of their own angst. St. Augustine would not have liked E.R. It was too "all-over-the-place:' Given a choice, he would have been a Marcus Welby watcher. According to Colin Gunton, though he doesn't say it in so many words, St.
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Irenaeus would have been an E.R. watcher. Whereas St. Augustine preferred the eternal to the temporal, and so would have preferred a show with an overall meaning to one with a lot of disconnected incidents, in Irenaeus no major contrast is drawn between the perfection of the timeless eternal and the imperfection of the temporal. That would have been to concede too much to gnosticism. 6 All the little things that happen in E.R. are no less important for happening quickly and being soon forgotten by the viewer. I use E.R. as an illustration of the question of the timely because that is when the question strikes me. It is easy for me to want to discover inside myself a feeling of balance, of homeostasis, of having arrived. E.R. upsets
are greater questions. All ofhuman history since the fall has been united in philosophy against the age to come. Only through Scripture will we be able to discover those places where we need to stand against all history and the combined spirits of the ages to be true. And only by grace will we find ourselves citizens of the age to come. I would like to conclude by means of a parable. It is not meant to specifically address all of the points ad dressed in this essay, but it does address the danger of being so enamored by the present surroundings that we forget where we are headed.
The Parable ofthe Three Kingdoms Long ago a certain king summoned his three sons to travel for him on a diplomatic mission. "Your travel to the far countries will be easy, for you will start out in spring. It isyour return which will be difficult," he said to them. "You cannot return by the way you went, for it will be winter. On your way home you must therefore travel through dangerous territories. You may enjoy the sights along the way. You may converse with the people. I ask each ofyou to bring back somethingfor me. But I chargeyou to return. If you stay too long without re membering me you will forget that all the great things you see came from me. You will find yourselves as slaves. But fear not. These are my territories. I overcame them long ago." The three sons set out as their father wished and had a pleasant trip to the far countries. Some of the foreign princes received them; some did not. On their way home, the first kingdom they traveled through was Modernity. For a while, all three sons were repulsed by the natives. After some time, however, the eldest son, who wished one day to be a general, noticed that some of the habits of Modernity were sensible and would enhance his father's kingdom. "I will buy father a typewriter. Perhaps I will even return home in an automo bile!," he exclaimed. The middle son, who wished one day to be a sage, was appalled. "Nothing good comes from this country," he sneered. "The forests are disappearing, and the people do not sing. I fear that you will soon forget our father." The eldest son was not convinced, and hailed the first taxi that passed. "You're leaving without us?," asked the middle son. "No, I'm just taking it to a room in town. You are welcome to join." Theyoungest son hopped in the back behind his oldest brother, and they sped into the city in search of room service and cable television, leaving the middle brother to
Beyond the conflictl of modern and postmodern values alte greater questions. A~II of human history since the fall has been united in philosophy against the age to come. Only through Scripture will \ve be able to discover those places \vhere we need to stand against all history and the combined spirits of the ages to be true. And only by grace will \ve find ourselves citizens of the age to come. this. I would like to know how an individual who insists on being in the "perfect will of God" at all times would cope when life crises came in two minute segments. The life of an emergency room doctor may be well-pre pared, but it is not well-planned. Perhaps when we try to create for ourselves Marcus Welby lives, we believe this is more Christian, because wrapping our lives into a plot gives them an air ofeternality. But ifwe trust God, he can provide meaning even if our lives are a blur.
This Age & The Age to Come As responsible Christians, we ought to give careful con sideration to both the pitfalls and the opportunities that a new era presents. From a Christian perspective, I believe that both modernity and postmodernity tend to emphasize some truth at the expense of other truth. Consider the Parable of the Talents. There we find a written account of an oral presentation where actions in time affect eternity. Is this modern or postmodern? Neither and both. Scripture offers us a model for inte grating the best values of both times. We do not, however, go to Scripture primarily to find out how to react to a recent change in the spirit of the age. It has something to say to this, but it exists for its own sake. Beyond the conflict of modern and postmodern values 24
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ponder the forest. After a while, the eldest son became convinced that Modernity was not enemy territory. After all, Father be lieved in the eternal, and in Modernity they say that the laws are unchanging. Father had promised one day to put everything right, and here they claim that good government will eventually right all wrongs. Father was right. This was his kingdom. In time, however, the oldest son forgot the father and took a job as a tax-gatherer for the city. The youngest and middle sons tried to persuade him to return with them, but he would not. The next land on thejourney home was Post-Moder nity. As in a journey from Mexico to New Mexico, though the name change was small, they had crossed a definite border. This new land pleased the middle brother. It was not really a kingdom, but a loose confederation ofvillages and tribes that kept on getting looser. "This place is wonderful," enthused the middle brother. "I will bring home a laptop computerfor Father." This sounded ominously familiar to the younger brother. ''And how will you return? By jet plane? Our other brother was going to bring Father a typewriter, so you want to bring him a laptop?" "Would you stop it with your enlightenment attitude? Your thinking is so linear. As ifI would be confined to your Western either/or thinking. Just why does the solution have to be technological? I might just return home by astral projection." The two brothers decided to settlefor the night with a clan that had just burnt the tax office in the next village. (They kept silent about their third brother.) During the cold winter nights, they were told that the clan stayed up late and told stories. The middle brother was excited about this because they might be open to hearing about their father. Night-time rolled around and the younger brother was apprehensive about the upcoming campfire. "Do you think maybe we should be on our way?,"he asked furtively. "What's the rush? These are Dad's type ofpeople. Or do you miss the worldliness ofModernity?" "You don't see worldliness here?," the younger son asked. "How come the clan chiefis surrounded by public opinion pollsters? And why does he wear an ancient tribal headdress when he comesfrom a town in Modernity? And why are they videotaping the campfire if it is a spontane ous occurrence ofeveryday life? Does that seem genuine to you?" "You just don't recognize a mission opportunity when you see one do you?," sniffed the middle brother. The younger brother decided to attend the campfire
with his brother. He allowed himselfto be dabbed with war paint, and suffered through the chief's testimony about how he lost his integrity and got it back. He was silent through the singing of"Pass It On." Then story time came, and the village sage started talking about stories. He didn't really tell any stories, but gave a long lecture on ''storying'' in words which werefamiliar, but used in ways which were not. Many nouns verbed. The middle brothergot his chance to speak, and talked about hisfather. The younger brother now felt like perhaps he had been too hasty to want to leave. "Yes, I hearyou," said one ofthe men in the tribe. "But the word 'father' is so limiting. I relate to him better as my sensitive force. I feel the force right here," he said pointing to his left nipple. "Or was it here?" That did it. The youngest brothergot up and left, with the middle brother grabbing at his arm. "Why are you so quick to leave?," he demanded. "It was just getting good." "No it wasn't. They didn't hear a word you said." "But didn't you see that last man opening up?," he asked. "More willfollow, but I need to find out more about this 'storying' they spoke of I don't really know how to communicate. I'm going to sign up for classes at the local Diversity." "You mean University?" "That's too narrow a term for it. Such a modern concept. Besides, they told me I qualify for financial aid." The two brothers parted, and theyounger one started back to the father's house alone, on foot, and empty handed. He would tell his father that there were many wonders to be seen in his distant territories, but none compared to the father's house. As he came to the border ofhis father's land, father's old driver picked him up in the Rolls Royce, and sped him toward the mansion. "We need to get you back quickly," he said. "Your father is telling stories tonight." ~ Rick Ritchie is a CURE staff writer and is a contributing editor to Christ the Lord: The Reformation and Lordship Salvation. He is a graduate of Christ College in Irvine, California and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachu setts. 1. This scenario is illustrated delightfully in Ray Bradbury's story "The Toynbee Convector." 2. The following four points are outlines by Stephen Toulmin in Cosmopolis : The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990) , pp .186 192. 3. Quoted by Erik Erickson in Young Martin Luther (New York: W. W. Norton , 1958) , P.207 . 4. Martin Luther, Church Postil (1522) , W, X-I - 1, 626. 5. Martin Luther, quoted by Werner Elert in The Structure of Lutheranism, vol. 1 trans . by Walter A.Hansen (St. Louis : Concordia Publishing House, 1962) , p.67 . 6. Gunton, p. 80 .
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An Interview with Thomas Oden
Dr. Tho rnas Oden, formerly a liberal theologian , came to classical Christianity by reading the ancient church fathers, pa rticu larly the Eastern divines . No"", h e is on e of th e leading theologians of a growing movement for "postrnodern orthodoxy. " Profess or of Theology and E thic s at Dre\v University in Madison, New Jersey, Dr. Oden is th e author of such outstanding works as After Mo dernity ... \Vhat?, T'he \,vesleyan Theological Heritage, John V/esley's Scriptural Christianity, and his new volmne, Requie m: A La ment il1 Three JVlove ments.
MR: After the failed experiments of liberalism, both in theology and in politics, and the obsession with idealism, both on the left and the right, do you get the sense that the people in our generation feel like they're on a road to nowhere? ' ODEN: Well, the road may seem it's to nowhere, but God's providence in history is always hedging that road. And even if we may inwardly or subjectively feel that we're in a tremendously confusing historical period, Christians understand that great opportunities are being given to us to respond to this particular historical situation. It is not to nowhere, although we experience that; we feel it at times. MR: You are a Yale man, a University of Heidelberg man. You were definitely in the club. Can you tell us what was instrumental in turning you from liberalism to postmodern orthodoxy? ODEN: I'm really a son of the liberal tradition. I came up through United World Federalists, the!Students for Demo cratic Action, the Civil Rights Revolution. Then I was interested in existential philosophy and psychology, en gaged in psychotherapeutic experimentation of various kinds. You mentioned the term "failed experiment:' I think I tried them all-well, almost all of them. And I think my students taught me that what they needed most-and these were students who have emerged out of modern universities, and therefore had the disciplines of modern inquiry into history, modern inquiry into psychological analysis, and so forth-was the Christian testimony without dilution from modern categories. I think I had to learn how to do that. I taught theology for probably 20 years without being a theologian. MR: What is postmodernism? How do you define that? ODEN: All that I mean by "postmodernity" is the survival of the devastations of modern consciousness. Many of us are still trying to discover our identity; we're trying to survive. I do not have in mind, primarily, a literary theory. If you ask people in the university what postmodernism is really about, they would either say it's a political theory, or a literary theory, or a hermeneutical theory, that is, a theory of interpretation. I'm really concerned about the person who is struggling with the suffering that modernity has caused. I believe that modernity has been the source of enormous human suffering.
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MR: What would be the specific sources of modern suffering? ODEN: The premises of self-assertiveness, of absolute relativism, reducing sex to orgasm, and reducing political life to the exertion of power. Natural istic reductionism is what I call it, but it's the tendency to try to reduce any description to a scientific empirical description. We've had enough of that. We've got a belly-full of that. Now we're looking for ways of connecting with wisdoms that emerge, not simply out of modernity, but out of the past-the premodern situation. MR: Do you think, just at this time when everybody's talking about getting beyond modernity, evangelicals, unfortunately, are chasing after it? For instance, we see the church growth movement following sociology or pop psychology being preached from the pulpit instead of the ancient wisdom of the Scriptures and of the apostolic witness. Do you think the churches, even in the evangelical tradition, are becoming more captive to modernity at the time when the culture itself is saying "enough" with moder nity? ODEN: There is a great hunger in evangelical circles to connect with the contemporary mind, and that's as it should be, because the Christian message has a mission to the culture, so I think that's positive. However, to make that connection by means of accommodation, rather than standing in significant dialogue with the culture is danger ous. You see, we evangelicals are not ready for dialogue with the culture. We're so bound up with the assumptions of modernity that it's very difficult to gain a foothold of histori cal awareness by which we could become critics of modern consciousness. I believe that's something Christians are capable of contributing to the crisis of modern conscious ness. But I don't think we've learned very well how to do it, because we have lacked historical awareness. MR: Do we not know enough theology? Is it that we don't know enough of the truth of Scripture to be able to distin guish when we are being actually formed and shaped by the culture, rather than by Scripture? ODEN: I think that we have great gaps in our knowledge of scripture. But one of the things I'm particularly interested in is the first thousand years of Christian consciousness, and a consensual mode of interpretation of Scripture that emerged over that period. In other words, it seems to me that every text of Scripture was worked and reworked, and
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reworked, in different emergent cultural settings in the first thousand years. And there was, in that first millennium, a significant tradition of consensual Scriptural interpretation. That tradition fragmented in the medieval period, in the Reformation period, and by the time we get to the modern period, it is totally atomized. And with our modern ineE vidualism, we have made ourselves the focus of interpretation. In other words, here I sit with my Bible in hand, and it's just me and the text, and God-and mostly me-mostly my subjective consciousness. Now, what we've deprived ourselves of is that great cloud of witnesses for twenty centuries, witnesses who have suffered martyrdom, and have gone through all kinds of historic challenges, and have been confronted by many different cultural situations than simply modern consciousness. We have a lot to learn from those folks. MR: You think of Luther and Calvin, and their extensive references to the early fathers. They were saying, "wait a second, we are Catholic:' in that larger sense-not in the sense of being Roman Catholic, but in the sense of belong ing to the whole history of the Christian church. And don't we often, these days, set out to create a successful church based on Madison Avenue, rather than on the apostolic witness? ODEN: Right. And that is a form of accommodation to modern culture. We're taking over the methods of manage ment, of public relations, of various kinds of sociological, psychological interpretations, and we're identifying that with the Christian message. In some cases, all we are is reflectors, or mirrors of the culture. And I think we've got something much better to give. MR: You think, for instance, of Newsweek's cover story some time ago, "The Curse of Self-Esteem:' And a growing chorus of books seem to be talking about the culture getting bored of pop-psychology. And yet, it's the same time that the church seems to be so enamored with it in sermon after sermon on Jesus, as though he were Saturday Night Live's Stuart Smalley. ODEN: As a matter of fact, the field that we call "pastoral care" is a very good example of this accommodation. I, in fact, did an empirical study of the references in recent works on pastoral care and found (this was about 15 years ago) numerous references to Freud and the post- Freudians, to Jung, and to the Behaviorists, and absolutely no refer ences to Gregory the Great, or Gregory of Nyssa, or Augustine, the Greek Christian pastoral writers, or Thomas Aquinas, or Luther, and Calvin. These are sources that have been available to us all the time. They've been sitting there in our libraries. Every library has these texts. But we have consistently and systematically deprived ourselves of those texts. So, what pastoral care has tended to become, until very recently, is simply accommodation to modern psychotherapy. That's all it is.
MR: Are we trying to become so relevant, that we end up really having nothing to offer the culture? ODEN: Well, that is where relevance becomes irrelevant, and where you have a syndrome of accommodation and toleration that finally ends up incapable of witness because we don't know who we are. MR: You make the point that evangelicals, and fundamen talists specifically, share something in common with modernity, and with liberals, in fact. They are much more alike than either would like to admit. In what ways are fundamentalists and liberals alike? ODEN: I'm making a very simple point, that fundamen talism is an extremely modern notion. It is far less in touch with the early Christian writers, the martyrs, the saints, the writers of the early Christian period, and certainly with the Reformation writers. I would make a distinction between Christian orthodoxy and fundamentalism. MR: Interesting. Related to that, you write, "Why are these five concerns more fundamental than others, such as divine providence, justification by grace through faith, or the Triune God? What is the ordering principal of selection? Where is the church, the Holy Spirit, sanctification, sin? All of this supports an ironic correlation:' Then you go on to say that "Modern fundamentalism is more akin to liberalism than either one of them would be willing to admit. So it is not surprising that fundamentalism was far less interested in the doctrinal significance of the Resurrection than the fact of the Resurrection. It did not defend the doctrinal meaning, or confessional import of the virgin birth, nearly so vigorously as the fact of the virgin birth:' This is inevitable without roots, isn't it? ODEN: Right, I think we're probably going to be con demned to repeat the past and its failures if we don't understand something about it. It's such a rich past; we all have good reason to understand it. Let it speak for itself. Simply take the text of Augustine's Confessions and read it. Let it speak to us as modern people. MR: This is my favorite line in After Modernity. .. What?:
\Ve're SO bound up withthe assllmptions of nlodet'nity that it's vet'y difficlilt to gain a foothold of historical alVU,l'eness bv which we couldbecome critics of model'n consciousness. t;
"When a theologian forgets the distinction between hetero doxy and orthodoxy, it is roughly equivalent to a physician forgetting the difference between disease and health, or ax and scalpel." ODEN: Well, we have forgotten, haven't we? We don't
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WHER
BY MICHAEL HORTON
Suggestions for the Way F01ward ulture wars have set cultural conservatives against cul tural liberals, those who support "Judeo-Christian" ~~Mrlples against "secular humanists." However, as these articles have attempted to show, the ·convulsions are much deeper beneath the crust of politics, morality and entertainment. By ignoring these deeper issues, the techtonic plates beneath our civilization continue to shift while we chase the ambulances and try to rescue victims here and there. Before proceeding, it is essential that we understand that however valiantly we may be engaged in "culture wars;' we are certainly not offering any serious challenge to secularism. If, as we have seen, secularism is really worldliness and that form of worldliness that we call "modernity;' then contemporary Christians-conser vatives as well as liberals-are almost equally culpable. Contrary to popular sentiments, recent evangelical efforts at combatting secularism are not having any long-term success in pulling the culture out of its deter mined course toward a new dark ages. We may think that our conservative activism is an attack on secular ism, but evangelical Christianity is as captivated by modernity as liberal Protestantism. Let me offer some examples.
Relativism and Fragmentation If modernity is architecturally illustrated by a ten -story granite federal building, a government housing project and tract homes, postmodernism is archtecturally sym bolized in the average shopping mall. Instead of order, unity and planned conformity, the mall celebrates con flicting styles. One store looks nothing like the one next to it, in contrast to the old malls built in the '60s and '70s, where only the sign distinguished the department stores in a mall. As Peter Fuller put it, "The west front of Wells Cathedral, the Parthenon pediment, the plastic and neon signs of Caesar's palace, Las Vegas, even the hidden intricacies of a Mies van der Rohe curtain wall: 28
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all are equally 'interesting.'" 1 But is this not the approach that many evangelical Christians take to truth as well? What happens, for in stance, when questions about worship style are raised? Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" and Kendrick's "Shine, Jesus, Shine!" are both equally "interesting:' One may attend a successful Wesleyan, Lutheran, Reformed, Pen tecostal, Baptist, Roman Catholic, mainline liberal, conservative evangelical, charismatic or non-charis matic service and find the same sermon and "worship experience." That is not because the Spirit has breathed some new unity into his fragmented body, but is itself a part of the fragmentation of the age. In other words, there are no doctrinal or liturgical distinctives anymore precisely because few of these churches take such things seriously. It is not the unity of the Spirit, but the unity of the marketplace, that has determined the homogeneity of these groups. They are all patterning their preaching, worship and outreach to the consumer trends. When it comes to morality, some of these leaders will happily employ Allan Bloom's Closing ofthe American Mind, ap parently unaware that the author's arguments against the "dumbing down" of the nation in the interest of peace, harmony and "sensitivity" is precisely the same trend one observes in these successful churches today.
Human-Centered Orientation & Belief in Human Nature Here, Karl Barth's criticisms of Protestant liberalism sound like the criticisms we often make ofcontemporary evangelicalism. The tendency of the human heart is toward Pelagian ism - the ancient heresy of self-salva tion. We believe in ourselves and in our potential to "pull ourselves up byour own bootstraps:' Eighty-six percent ofAmerica's evangelical Protestants believe that in salva tion' "God helps those who help themselves;' and seventy-seven percent of evangelicals believe that hu mans are, by nature, basically good. This means that the
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great majority of evangelical Christians in this country are, in ancient terms, Pelagian, and in modern terms, secular. The irony of the evangelical attack on "secular humanism" was indelibly stamped on my mind when Robert Schuller suggested to me that we work together in confronting a common enemy: secular humanism. This from the man who said that the Reformation erred because it was God-centered rather than human-cen tered. From this human-centered orientation, we see the flowering of a human -centered diet in preaching and Christian discourse. For instance, the average Christian bookstore is dominated by books on the horizontal di mension of life: "Christian" tips on self-esteem, recovery, child-rearing, per sonal fitness, happiness, success and political victory. Replacing theology with ethics and Christ with moralism was once the thing that liberals did best. Even evan gelism - the place where one might expect a thoroughly God-centered, Christ-cen tered message-is often couched in human-centered language: "Here's what God will do for you if you say 'yes.'" I am expecting one day in the not so distant future to hear an evangelist promise, "Try God. And if you're not completely satisfied, simply return the unused portion for a full refund:' Everything, from the Law to the Gospel, is "sold" for its usefulness to the "buyer:' not because the Law is the' expression of God's personal character and the Gospel the expression of his saving intention. The "Me Generation" is now in power, in Washing ton, D. C., where rebellion against authority and tradition have now taken on a more respectable aura than the campus revolutions of the '60s. The evangelical activists have emphasized this '60s-rooted rebellion, but what they fail to realize it seems is the fact that the evan gelical movement itself is a massive rebellion against authority (creeds, confessions, the institutional church, church discipline, etc.) and tradition (theology, liturgy and classic hymns). While James Dobson might remind us of the disastrous effects of Stanford's radical student cheer, "Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western civilization has got to go:' the same tradition of our western religious inherit ance in the ancient church and the Reformation is being cheerfully thrown out of the conservative evangelical churches. And why? For the same reason the radicals disdained the rest of western culture: It is old. It is "irrelevant:' "impractical:' "constraining" and "confin ing." It does not allow us to "express ourselves" in freedom. The same sentiments that lead liberals to aban don "traditional values" leads conservatives to abandon "traditional worship:' Recently I was reading through some church growth literature and under the section on
"values:' a number of the megachurches stated that, at the top of the list, "We value individualism and personal expression. We don't want to tie people down to doc trines, rituals and rules:' The "therapeutic revolution:' as Philip Reiff called it, transformed the mainline churches into Freudian or Jungian citadels, but now evangelicals are pop psychology's greatest admirers, and this just at the time Newsweek announces the passing of the latest trend in banality in a cover story, "The Cult ofSelf-Esteem:' Lib eralism-or, more broadly, secularism, is always carried out with the best of intentions by spiritually-motivated people. In Germany, liberalism was championed by
If the evangelical activists can lament theascendency of the "Me Generation"in\Vashington, surelythe I'est of us can also lament theascendency of the "Me Generation"in theleadership of theevangelical movement. those (mostly pietists) who sought to make Christianity relevant by recasting it in modern terms. It was called "evangelism" and "apologetics:' but it was secularism just the same. Modernity's narcissistic self-preoccupa tion is alive and well in the evangelical community. Ifthe evangelical activists can lament the ascendency of the "Me Generation" in Washington, surely the rest of us can also lament the ascendency of the "Me Generation" in the leadership of the evangelical movement. The Power of Pragmatism William James, the father of America's unique philo sophical contribution, pragmatism, belongs to "modernity:' and yet "postmodern" philosophers such as Richard Rorty have revived him for their project. Once again, "postmodern" may simply mean "moder nity" at warp speed. Peter Fuller writes, "Postmodernism knows no commitments: it takes up what one of its leading exponents, Charles Jencks, once called a'situational position: in which 'no code is inher ently better than any other."'2 That is why the College de France's report on French education summarized the problem thusly: "We live in the age of feelings. Today there is no more truth or falsehood, no stereotype or innova tion, no beauty or ugliness, but only an infinite array of pleasures, all different and all equaI:'3 William James himself said that the test of a truth is "its cash value in experiential terms:' But before we get too high -and mighty, we must realize that this is the
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prevailing sentiment in the churches, whether conserva tive evangelical or liberal Protestant. The charismatic movement is not founded on a revolutionary exegesis of relevant biblical passages; it is simply in step with moder nity and postmodern intensification of pragmatic sentimentalism. Even in conservative circles one gets the impression that churches are "all different and all equal." Whether one is a Roman Catholic "evangelical" or a Bap-
Gnosis over Scripture In our last issue of modern REFORMATION, we focused on Gnosticism and its revival in this postmodern era. In its denial of place, tradition, authority, time and history, modernity has predisposed us sociologically for this her esy. At the same time as it was reacting against the sterile intellectualism of the Enlightenment, nineteenth cen tury Romanticism was the precursor to postmodernism. As Roger Lundin observes, "Long before Wordsworth, Blake, or Emerson began to tout the virtues of imaginative inwardness, Protestant radicals had eagerly champi oned the Christ who dwells exclusively in the human heart."4 But now it is the evangelicals, not the Protestant liberals, who make this their cardinal doctrine. Schleiermacher, the father ofmodern liber alism, urged people to "turn from everything usually reckoned religion [i.e., doctrine, lit urgy, Word and sacraments] , and fix your regard on the inward emotions and dispositions, as all utterances and acts of insired men direct."5 But now this sentiment would characterize the average evangelical sermon, praise song or conversation. What surprise, then, it would be to most evangelical brothers and sisters to learn that this "super-spirituality" is actually an effect of "modernity" and the seculariza tion of the church! Religion in this age is something that is concerned with what happens within, not with what happened outside of our hearts, in real history. Nor is an external Word superior to the inner light, the direct ex perience, the personal relationship with God. In short, if evangelicals are going to really challenge secularism, they are going to have to repent of their own accomodations to modernity in the form of the church growth movement, the recovery movement, and the movement-mentality in general. Christ founded a church, not a movement, and the very idea of "move ment" has its origin in modernity. Having said this, what are we to do after we have recognized our worldliness? In the remainder ofthis article I want to suggest some posi tive ways forward.
If eva,ngelica,ls aIle going to really challenge secularism, they aIle going to have to repent of their o\vn accomodations t9 modernity ill the form of the church growth movement,the recovery movement, and the movement-mentality in general tist or Pentecostal "evangelical;' all that matters is the feeling, the experience, ofbeing"born again:' This is not a new Age of the Spirit; it is the Spirit of the Age. The church growth movement is impervious to criti cism on theological grounds because it justifies everything on the basis of"whatever works." If an evan gelist is successful or if a movement (the Vineyard, Promise Keepers, whatever) is "working" and its public ity can reflect that, what more do we need? Modernity has turned us into creatures of the marketplace, where consumer trends dictate our surroundings, and this is as true for the churches these days as it is for shampoo and automobiles.
Progress over Providence Ziggy Marley, the Reggae singer, asks Americans, "To morrow people, where is your past? Tomorrow people, how long will you last? A people with no past have no future:' Ever since the Enlightenment, the tendency has been to look backward in disgust and forward in antici pation. Do evangelicals reflect this influence of modernity? In biblical religion, God is guiding history to its appointed end, but the danger is to confuse divine provi dence with human progress. The many advances of modernity, technological, scientific and economic, have given the mistaken impression that we are advanced be yond our ancestors in wisdom and truth. But the existence of microwaves does not guarantee that the people operating them are not adolescents in the realm of true wisdom and knowledge. We are barraged with in formation, and this gives us the illusion that we are better-informed, but even as technology gives us this ability we are losing our intellectual, moral and spiritual ability to distinguish worthless information from genu ine knowledge. 30
SEPTEMBER /OCTOBER 1995
A New Openness to the Supernatural The eclectic smorgasbord of spirituality and supersti tion that the Apostle Paul saw in Athens is very much part and parcel of our postmodern condition. Nevertheless, at least people-including academics-are now actually showing some interest in religious explanations that were once regarded as inadmissable in the court of human mqUIry. "Blind watch-maker" deism may work when the universe is viewed as a machine which, once built and started, runs under its own power. But that world-view
modern REFORMATION
has passed. Scientists now see the cosmos as always changing, constantly in flux, and that dynamic charac ter appears chaotic. Instead ofbeing like a machine, it is like a modern symphony, where at certain points the orchestra seems to be out of control. But in reality each musician is closely following the notes printed on the page, composed by one artist and directed by another. In other words, science is demonstrating every day the impossibility ofthe odds that such observable "random ness" and "chaos" could actually be unchecked without the slightest accident destroying us all in a variety of ways. That is why Einstein said, "I do not believe that God plays dice with the universe:' If there is a God, he is directly involved in every detail of our existence: That is the great news that science offers to believers in this present day. Deism is simply not an option, at least in theory, and that is very good news.
Common Sense Realism The only philosophical school during the Enlighten ment that opposed "foundationalism" (the belief in one universal basis for truth, whether rationalism or empiri cism) was Thomas Reid's Scottish Common Sense philosophy. We do not need absolute philosophical cer tainty, Reid said, in order to come to reasonable conclusions. Although we all operate with certain pre suppositions about the way things are, experience teaches us that we are constantly reassessing those as sumptions in the light of reality. There is a real world independent of the mind, Reid insisted, and it exists whether we understand it or not. Thus, he retained objectivity while allowing for the subjective aspects in arriving at knowledge that experience requires and postmodernism now holds so dear. Because ofits non -foundational ism (i. e., it does not require absolute certainty and makes room for presup positions, which are re-evaluated in the light of experience), I am convinced that this is the epistemo logical way out. Postmodernism, for all of its diversity, is united in its repudiation of "foundations" and "cer tainty" But that does not necessarily lead to relativism. Even Reid acknowledged that we must settle for more modest successes. One of the most influential philoso phers of our time, Willard V. O. Quine, compares knowledge to a spider's web. ''A conflict with experience at the periphery occasions re-adjustments in the interior of the field ." 6 Similarly, Thomas Kuhn's Structure ofSci entific Revolutions, itself responsible for a revolution of sorts in the academic community, argues that science advances not simply by accumulating facts, but by con structing paradigms-that is, "big picture" ways of viewing the whole collection of puzzle-pieces. Is this not pure relativism? Not necessarily, since one piece that does not fit can cause us to radically alter our paradigm
or "big picture:' This is all that Christians need in order to make their case. One historical fact-the Resurrec tion of Christ-upsets the entire world -view of modern and postmodern men and women . As long as one event, one piece of information ofenormous magnitude can be always allowed to overthrow a reigning world-view, Christianity has enough epistemological room in which to make its case. As Nancey Murray McClendon puts it, "The crite rion of truth is coherence."? Does it hold together? Although we might prefer a correspondence theory of truth to a coherence theory oftruth, postmodern episte mology does leave the crack in the door open far enough for us to demonstrate that non -Christian ways of think ing do not hold together; they do not conform to the coherence theory of truth, but are internally contradic tory. Having accomplished this, however, what are we to put in its place? Presuppositional apologetics (Gordon Clark and especially Cornelius Van Til and his succes sors) is at its best in exposing the incoherence of non-Christian thought. However, we need something sturdier to put in its place than, "Now that you know that you are operating with circular reason, why not accept our circle instead of yours?" After all, to the question, "How do I know that the Bible is the Word of God?" the presuppositionalist answers, "Because it says that it is the Word of God:' A recovery of Common Sense Realism, which once reigned in American Reformed and Presbyterian circles, would allow us to meet the challenges ofpostmodernism while at the same time resisting the naive pure "foundationalism" that has no credibility in any repu table faculty.
ANew Openness to Tradition Postmodernism also respects the idea of tradition that modernity has been consistently assailing. To be sure, we obtain knowledge from tracking satellites and testing experiments in a lab, but we operate every day with as sumptions about the way everything fits together. Everyone has a working hypothesis, a world -view, that is more or less thought-through. Unlike extreme empiri cists, we must acknowledge that there is no such thing as a theory-independent "fact;' but unlike the rationalists, we should realize that the facts we ob serve are not merely inventions of the mind, but are somehow descriptive of the way things really are out there. As long as we acknowledge our presuppo sitions and test them by common sense rules of analysis, we do not have to be come relativists. As philosopher of science Michael Polanyi described his purpose, "[It] is to achieve a frame of
SEPTEMBER /OC T OBER 1995
31
mind in which I may hold firmly to what I believe to be true, even though I know that it might conceivably be false:'8 Colin Gunton even compares this favorably to
cannot achieve universal happiness and is cynical to ward political or ideological grand-standing. There is no hope in utopian movements, either liberal or conser vative; communitarian or democratic. Fragmentation is prized over a rational, or dered world -view. And yet, we must ask these people whether they have merely exchanged their own "universal foundations" (like frag mentation) for the older ones (rational order). They know what's wrong with mod ern ideas, but they have few of their own except by negation. Far from a coherent world-view, postmodernism has been de scribed by Tyron Inbody as "intellectual velcro dragged across culture:"'ln its extreme form;' Inbody writes, "it has been described as a 'supercalifragilisticexpialodoxic' totalizing negation of modernism, breathlessly presented as a rejection of ev erything from Plato onward:' For postmodernism,
The early church expanded not by sophisticated academic systems, but byevangelismand bythe church simplybeing the church, Nevertheless, it ended up creatingaInassiveintellectual tradition. Similarly, the Reformationwa.snot a periodof calln, sophisticated aca,demicreflection, but of revolutiona,ryproclamation. Calvin's notion of"certainty."9 IfChristianity can be dem 0nstrated to be true, it must be at least conceivably possible for it to be false. One is not a fool to embrace the Resurrection without knowing all the facts, but is cer tainly foolish to embrace it in clear opposition to facts. The truth-claims ofChristianity are historical rather than scientific,and this means that the way one tests the Resurrection claim, for instance, is not with a micro scope and repeatable experiments, but the same way a historian or lawyer would investigate the claims of any past event. Nevertheless, there are some parallels that may help us think through our witness in this age. John Polkinghorne, a leading Cambridge physicist who has written a good deal on the relation of science and Chris tianity, writes, "Science has not been immune from the acid attack of the hermeneutics of suspicion, so charac teristic of the thought of the last hundred years. Yet it is from the sidelines that these sceptical voices are raised. Very few of those actually engaged in scientific work doubt that they are learning about the actual pattern and process of the physical world:'IOWhat is called for, says Polkinghorne, is the realization that both science and religion require the existence of facts and the interpreta tion of those facts: Because we can only approach reality from some initial point ofview, experience and interpretation are inevita bly intertwined. We cannot escape from the hermeneutical circle. In Paul Ricoeur' swords: 'We must understand in order to believe but we must believe in order to understand.' The scientist commits himself to belief in the rationality of the world in order to discover what form that rationality takes .... The possibility of er ror is a necessary element of any belief bearing on reality...To withhold belief on the grounds of such a hazard is to break off all contact with reality. 11
Conclusion The postmodern person is a disenchanted modernist. He or she is convinced that human reason and cleverness 32
SEPTEMBER IOCTOBER 1995
knowledge is inherently local, provisional, and confessional...These two ways of doing theology, mod ern and postmodern, distinguish between concern for rationality and concern for transformation ...Reality is interpretation 'all the way down."'12 They are against universal systems, utopian progress, and absolutes, but they do not quite know yet what to substitute. There are myriads of proposals, but no single direction - perhaps that is required in a system that glorifies fragmentation and contradiction. And yet, as Inbody noted, there is a new opennes to an emphasis on confessional, communal interpretations of reality (and, thus, of Scripture) that avoid the modern arro gance of individual theologians and philosophers reinventing theology from scratch. We must, it seems to me, do two things in this mo ment: (1) As Marx said every intellectual had to pass through the "fiery brook" of Feuerbach's dialectical ma terialism' today every intellectual must take seriously the challenges to modern ways of thinking and reassess our presentation and defense of Christianity in the light of those challenges; (2) Without "jumping on the band wagon" of academic fads, we must exploit the new opportunities afforded by the collapse of the materialis tic and rationalistic world-view. Since the Enlightenment was itself a decisive attack on Christian orthodoxy, we should not defend modernity against postmodernism simply because the former is familiar and comfortable. Hyper-rationalism is no kinder to faith than hyper-irrationalism, and both offer their own distinct challenges and opportunities. We do not have to take sides in order to exploit opportunities. Our confessional Christianity allows us, in a certain sense, to remain somewhat aloof and judge both phi-
modern REFORMATION
losophies from a transcendent perspective. Our own classical doctrines give us a fresh opportunity to explore their relevance in a new intellectual environment. And for all of the "huppla" over "the sacred:' meaning every thing from telepathy to Mormonism, the collapse of materialism has opened up fresh possibilities for discus The sions about God and the supernatural. anti -supernatural world -view that has dominated west ern culture has now given way to an almost irrational and superstitious outlook, but this can be exploited. As Princeton's Diogenes Allen remarked, The philosophical and scientific bases for excluding the possibility of God have collapsed ... Hume's and Kant's quite sophisticated objections have been found to fail. ..Theconviction that we live in a self-contained uni verse can no longer be supported by a philosophic consensus. In a postmodern world Christianity is intel lectually relevant. 13 Each period of church history calls for different theological approaches. The early church expanded not by sophisticated academic systems, but by evangelism and by the church simply being the church. Neverthe less, it ended up creating a massive intellectual tradition. Its successive battles with heresy created a resevoir of wisdom from which to draw, since, at the end of the day, "there is nothing new under the sun." Contemporary innovations are usually revivals of ancient heresies. Similarly, the Reformation was not a period of calm, sophisticated academic reflection, but of revolutionary proclamation. Like the early church period, the Refor mation was subversive-not in the sense of overthrowing kingdoms-but in the sense of under mining unbelief and bringing spiritual crisis as the Word brought God and man into confrontation. But like the middle ages following the early church, the post -Refor mation period of Protestant orthodoxy was a period of systematization. The theology of the Reformers and their descendents did not differ, but the method was different because the moment called for a "paradigm shift" rather than the systematic restructuring ofthe new paradigm. We are, I believe, on the verge of another paradigm shift in theology, a period similar to that of the early church and the Reformation. Leaving the evangelicals to one side for a moment, let us consider our own Re formed and Lutheran defenders of orthodoxy. Most orthodox Protestants- I mean the ones who still believe in the creeds and confessions-seem oblivious to the fact that we have gone through the Enlightenment and now are encountering a massive rejection ofthe Enlight enment. We cannot simply be "premodern:' as if nothing has happened in intellectual history for the last three centuries.
Our best orthodox theologians grappled with their own time and place, but we largely do not. We are acting as if the Enlightenment won and the best that we can do is gather together our eight orthodox folks and hope for better days. The systematic theologies that came out of the post-Reformation period all the way down to the Muellers, Hodges and Berkhofs, is our greatest wealth of theological reflection and should become more, not less, important in seminaries. B. B. Warfield and his Old Princeton co-horts went into the jaws of death (liberal German universities) in order to understand modernity with a view to confronting it with the Christian truth claims. Nevertheless, something more is needed. If we are in one ofthose periods of"paradigm shifts:' then our age parallels the Reformation period itself, not the pe riod of systematization that followed it. It is not merely a period of building and buttressing the ediface of ortho doxy, but of fresh proclamation. Like the old European cathedrals lying in rubble after World War II, "Christendom" is over. Perhaps God is calling us, therefore, to do exactly what the apostles and church fathers, together with Mar tin Luther and John Calvin did in their respective ages: Not simply to get the facts straight and defend the par ticulars of a system (as important as that is), but to bring God and this age into a critical confrontation that will have massive paradigmatic effects. In other words, we need to "think big:' and view the world as our audience, instead of "thinking small:' with the orthodox as our audience. Men and women who find theology boring may find it so because they are encountering it as an objective study rather than as a living encounter. Sadly, both lib erals and fundamentalists have made theology boring. "Theology:' writes Duke professor Stanley Hauwerwas, "is a ghetto activity as insulated and uninteresting as the Saturday religion pages of the local paper. God knows, it is hard to make God boring, but American Christians, aided and abetted by theologians, have accomplished that feat. Accordingly, theology is seldom read by Chris tians and non- Christians alike because it is so damned dull." 14 Perhaps our appropriate rejection of Barth's view of Scripture, election and universal salvation has barred us from appreciating his emphasis on "en counter." Here the existentialists remind us of one of Scripture's own central themes. The Bible is not simply a text-book of propositions (although it is that); it is also a record of God's saving encounter with his people. I say it is a record of God's saving encounter with his people and not the other way around, because Scripture is divine
S E PTE M B E R /0 C T 0 B E R I 99 5
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revelation and not merely human reflections on God and religious experience. Theology is not really at odds with a "living encounter;' but in the minds of most the antith esis between the two is one of the greatest obstacles to gaining interest in theology. Think of Luther's famous remark that a theologian must be someone who has ex perienced damnation. In other words, God's Word speaks to us in our situation, in our despair and guilt and unrighteousness. It addresses us in a particular context. Similarly, Calvin criticized Cardinal Sadoleto (and im plicitly the Roman curia) for having a "lazy theology" because the Cardinal had never experienced the depth of his own depravity and guilt. There should be greater attention to the relationship between theology and expe rience, with the orthodox taking the latter more seriously and the rest immersing themselves in serious theological classics. We should engage in theological reflection as an ob jective study and we need more, not less, of that. But we who affirm that premise also need a recovery of the exis tential aspect. Liberation theologians, including its European inventors (viz., Moltmann, Metz), sought to recover the situational and existential importance of the Christian faith for the everyday lives of suffering people. But, in the tradition of Hegel, their "salvation" was en tirely earth-bound and secular. It was a political, economic, and social liberation, and sin was understood primarily if not exclusively in institutional terms. What liberation theology sought, however, is on the mark: a connection of Scripture with the real world and while they were making that connection, orthodox theolo
postliberal theologian, are relevant. He urges us to re cover our familiarity with Scripture and its language: Pietists were wary ofany use except that oflegitimating and evoking a particular kind of religious experience; legalists and social activists looked only for directives for personal or collective behavior...The leaders of the Enlightenment...were not believers, but they were bibli cally literate and biblically cultured. Conversely, Bible-believing fundamentalists sometimes know re markably little of the content of scripture...When I first arrived at Yale, even those who came from nonreligious backgrounds knew the Bible better than most of those nowwho come from churchgoing families ... Playing fast and loose with the Bible needed a liberal audience in the days of Norman Vincent Peale, but now, as the case of Robert Schuller indicates, professed conservatives eat it up ...Nowwe are in a postmodern age. Authors steeped in the Bible are diminishing in number, and one cannot help but wonder about the future ofthe western literary tradition ...With the loss of the knowledge of the Bible, public discourse is impoverished. IS While liberals and conservatives chase after modern fads, think of the amazing power Christian orthodoxy might have in the postmodern context: At a time when high culture has lost its faith in humanity, the Gospel question makes a difference. In some circles of evangeli cal theology, it is just now time to get in step with modernity, with its passion for finding the common threat in all religions, its human-centered focus, its em phasis on experience over doctrine, and its theological relativism. Representing this flank, Clark Pinnock cheers, "We are finally making peace with the culture of modernity:'16 Once again, evangelicals who want to be "relevant" sim ply end up showing up late to these things, just as "the culture of modernity" is collaps ing and being subject to sustained attacks. Well has Peter Berger complained, "The theological novelties that have dominated the Protestant scene in the last two decades all seem basically to take up where the older liberalism left ofC17 Intellectuals are wondering where evil comes from and how to under stand it, with secular psychologists asking, "Whatever became of sin?" and national secular periodicals run ning cover stories on the subject of sin and grace. Ironically, those who will be most relevant in this age will most likely be those who have something to say about these classic questions that were the heart of the Refor mation debate. No religious expression will be given the time of day right now unless it connects with the real world and makes a difference in people's lives. Therefore, it is not only the explanation of the doctrine of justification, for instance, but its proclamation in the pulpit and its appli
Thisis notimeforcavingin to theTower of Babel just as it is crumbling,but atime to recover"the faith once and for 8,11delivered to thesaints." gians were often simply engaged in damage control and defensive measures. It is partly for this reason that a new generation of evangelical theologians has become enamoured with non-evangelical theologies. We must sail between the Scylla and Charybdis of conservative paranoia and modernist fashion. In our day, a fresh proclamation of the biblical truths of Cre ation, Divine Sovereignty and Transcendence, Providence, Incarnation, Redemption, Justification, the work of the Holy Spirit, the Second Coming of Christ and the Consummation will take on new significance, providing a mine from which to draw for a culture look ing for transcendent answers. In Christianity, God reveals his name, his identity, and his redemptive plan through the Living and Written Word. On this score, the insights of Yale theologian George Lindbeck, a leading
34
SEPTEMBER {OCTOBER 1995
modern REFORMATION
cation to such areas as Christian liberty and one's voca tion in the world, the problem of evil and suffering, and the fear of death, will be just as necessary. After every doctrinal presentation, we must ask ourselves the ques tion every postmodern hearer is thinking: "So what? What difference does it make?" That is why the Heidel berg Catechism, after each series of questions on a particular doctrine, asks, "How does this comfort you? " And this is actually a biblical approach, where the in dicative is never separated from the imperative, the theological from the pradical, the propositional from the situational, as it has been in modern theology and thought in general. Orthodox ministers must overcome their justified fear of "application -oriented" sermons and begin to apply saving truth to life here and now, just as pietistic evangelicals need to rediscover the theology and the text of Scripture, so they will have something to apply. This is no time for caving in to the Tower of Babel just as it is crumbling, but a time to recover "the faith once and for all delivered to the saints." God grant us his Spirit to meet the challenges and opportunities before us. :f\.l 1. Cited in Colin Gunton, The One, The Three and The Many: God, Creation and the Culture of Modernity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press , 1983), p. 69 . 2.lbid., p. 69 . 3. Ibid ., p. 105. 4. Roger Lundin, The Culture of Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans , 1993), p. 64 . 5. Ibid ., p. 68 . 6. Stanley Hauerwas, et. aI., ed ., Theology Without Foundations: Religious Practice & the Future of Theological Truth (Nashville : Abingdon, 1994), p. 13. 7. Ibid. 8. Gunton, op . cit., p. 135. 9.lbid . 10. John Polkinghorne, Reason and Reality: The Relationship Between Science and Theology (London: SPCK, 1991), p. 5. 11 . Ibid ., p. 7. 12 . Tyron Inbody, "Intellectual Velcro," Theology Today (January, 1995) . 13. Frederic B. Burnham, ed., Postmodern Theology: Christian Faith in a Pluralist World (New York: Harper and Row, 1989) , p. 25 . 14. Stanley Hauerwas, Dispatches from the Front (Durham : Duke University Press , 1994) , p. 27 . 15. George Lindbeck, "The Church's Mission," in Frederic B. Burnham, ed., Postmodern Theology, op. cit ., pp . 43-50 . 16. Clark Pinnock, Grace Unlimited (Minneapolis : Bethany, 1975) , p. 26. 17. Peter Berger, A Rumor of Angels: Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the Supernatural (New York : Doubleday, 1990), p. 12 .
For Further Reading:
If one had to choose four books from the evangelical perspective , explain
ing the particulars of postmodernism, I would highly recommend the
following : Roger Lundin's The Culture of Interpretation (Eerdmans) , Gene
Veith's Postmodern Times (Crossway), Thomas aden's After
Modernity ... What? (Zondervan), and David Wells' God In The Wasteland
(Eerdmans) . Beyond these titles, the following books might also be of
help :
Aladair Macintyre , Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (South Bend:
University of Notre Dame , 1988) .
Leslie Newbigin , The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (London : SPCK, 1991) .
Jacques Ellul , The Humiliation of the Word (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1985).
Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves To Death (New York: Penguin, 1987);
Technopoly (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1993) .
Diogenes Allen , Christian Belief in a Postmodern World (Louisville:
Westminster/John Knox, 1989) .
Timothy R. Phillips, ed., Christian Apologetics in the Postmodern World
(Downers Grove: IVP, 1995) .
Brian McHale, Constructing Postmodernism (London: Routledge, 1992).
David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (Oxford: Blackwell , 1989) .
Ann Douglas, Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920's (New
York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995).
MAC'BEN'S POSTSCRIPT:
J. Gresham¥achen (1881-1937)was a criticofmoder~
nity {rom its inception. In the following excerptj Machen points toward a seconare(ormationin light of the failures ofmodernism: Atrue Reformation woulQhecharacteriz~d by justwhat is missing in the·Modernismof the present day; it wbuld be characterized above all hy a heroic honesty whiChfor the sake of 'principle would push all consideration' of conse quences aside. Such a Reformationwe on our part believe to be needed today; only, we believe that it wouldbebroughfaqput, not by a new religion which consists in imitation ' ()f the :xeduced Je.sus ofrnodern naturalism, btiLby the rediscov: ery of the'gospeLof Christ This is not the first time iothe history of the world when the Gospel has been obscured. It was obscured in the Middle Ages, for example; and how long and how dark, in some respects, was that time!" But the Gospel burst forthwith new power-the same Gospel that Paul and Augustine had proclaimed. So it may be in our own ·day; the Gospel may come forth againtQ bring light and iiberty to mankind. But this new Heformafiorifor which we: long will not be brought 'about by human persuasions, or by those who seek to save souls through a skillful use of ecclesiastical influences, or by those who refrain from speaking thetruth through a fear of "splitting the Church'" or of making a poor showing in columns of Church statistics. flow petty, in the great day when the Spirit oiGod again moves in the Church, all such consid erations will seem! No, when the true Reformation comes, it will come through the instrumentality of those ,upon whom God has laid His hand, to whom the Go~pel has become.: a burning fire within them",who speak because they are compelled to speak, who, 'caring nothing for human influences and conciliation and external Church . combinations and the praise Or blame of speak the word that God has given them and trust for the results td : Him alone. In other words, it will~ebroughtabout by men of faith. . We do not know when such all event will come; and
when it comes it will not be the work of men but the work
ofthe Spirit of God. But its coming will be prepared for, a't
any rate, n?t by the' conceahnent of issp.es, butby~lear
presentation of them; not by peace in the Church between
Christian and anti-Christian'forces, but by earnestdiscus
siQn; not by darkness, butby the light:
lfllat Is Faith?, p.l03-105
men,
0
S E PTEM B ER /O C TOBE R 19 9 5
35
Postman Interview Continued MR: Will it contribute ultimately to the disinte gration of the mind and of high culture? POSTMAN: When you read some of these postmodernists, you would think that's the direction. I think there's an essential sanity in most people so that they have reality tests. Thank God. MR: They have to live with their own common sense. POSTMAN: Yes. They know if they want to go from here to there and there's a mountain in between, they're going to have a problem. And they know this whether they speak English or Spanish, or anything else. There's a biological basis after all, to the human condition. We recognize that, and through our engagement with what we call «reality" there are some things we know. I think that will act as a kind of modifying idea so that our intellectual life won't be destroyed. The fact is that the astrophysicists at NASA were able,by using language and their math ematics, to get some people to the moon. There was nothing arbitrary about that. There may be some- . where in the universe another mathematics that could also have helped us to achieve that. But we can act as if that mathematics is real and as if its structure has some correspondence with the structure of what we call reality. I don't think that the postmodern thought will in the end destroy intellectual life, I think it adds something to it. If people are not carried to psycho pathic extremes about it then I think we'll be alright. MR: That sanity that you bring to these subjects is very much in view in Technopoly, in your opening reference to Thamus and Theuth, where one character is so worried about the other's technology that even the invention of the printed word is perceived as disastrous for its effect on memory and analysis. We can become Ludites, can't we, rejecting the gifts of God,s his providential oversight of technological advances because of a blind commitment to «the old ways?" POSTMAN: I think that would be a mistake, too. I think that we have to recognize that some part of our genius is made manifest in our ability to make these machines and invent technology. And we ought not to disdain that genius. On the other hand, we also know that almost anything we create will cause problems. I think what we don't need is a point of view that says, «Let's get rid of the machinery:' which in any case wouldn't happen, but a point of view that says, «Let's see if we can exercise some control over it:' ~ Dr. Neil Postman is a critic and communications theorist, and chair of the Department of Communication Arts at New York University. Among his seven teen books are Teaching as a Subversive Activity (with Charles Weing Artner), The Disappearance of Childhood, Amusing Ourselves to Death, Technopoly, and Conscientious Objections.
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SEPTEMBER /OCTOBER 1995
Oden Interview Continued know how to make that distinction. We're afraid to make the distinction. It scares us to death even to talk about it. But it is an essential word in the church's vocabulary. MR: You also write, «The leading cal!didate for 'Most Ugly Issue in Theology Today' is unquestionably, heresy. We avoid it like bubonic plague." Why? ODEN: Because we are programmed to affable religious permissive-: ness, and the rhetoric of compliance. It is what has been called the "Protestant sIllile.)' MR: Do you think that part of the one aspect of modernity to which we've capitulated, not only liberals, but evangelicals, is sentimentalism? ODEN:. Right. We reallywantto be part ofthe club, and the club isthe modern club. That is, we want to be a part of modern power structures. We want to influence the society, and we do pay a very heavy price for that. I think it's largely a price of amnesia, a loss of identity, a loss ofself. MR: You're talking about heresy within the context ofliberalism,but there's a way in which evangelicals begin to say, "<Well, you know, one person's truth is another person's heresy." What do we say to a person who says this? ODEN: Well, to place the question in that way is to assume that all ideas are born equal, and to assume that there is no basis for rational discourse about the truth value ofany idea. So, if you take the premise of radical tolerationism, if that becomes an absolute value for you, then you've already given up the philosophical quest; you've given up the quest for truth because there's no basis for it unless you want to question your own absolute value. MR: But don't you sacrifice academic freedom, Dr. Oden, if you expect pastors or Christian scholars to follow a particular confessional line? Aren't you restricting their freedom and their civil rights? ODEN: No, their freedom is not restricted, because all confessions of faith are free ..Ifyou confess faith, it can never be coerced, can it? MR: Interestingly enough, TIME magazine ran a special issue on approaching the year 2000, and former ambassador to Austria; and fonnerpublisher of TIME, had this to say: "Secular humanism, a respectable term, even though it became a right wing swear..:word, stubbornly insisted that morality need not be based on the supernatural, but it grad ually became clear that ethics, without the sanction ofsome higher authority, simply were not compelling. The ultimate irony, or perhaps tragedy, is that secularism has not led to humanism. We have gradually dissolved-deconstructed-the human being into a bundle of reflexes, impulses, neuroses, nerve endings. The great religious heresy used to be making man the measure ofall things, but we've come close to making man the measure ofnothing."
He goes on to say, "The mainstream churches have tried in variousways to adapt themselves to this secular age, turning from saving souls to saving society. The major Protestant denominations also increasingly emphasize social activism, and try to dilute doctrine to accommodate 20th century rationality and diversity." This is coming from TIME maga zine. He concludes by saying, "Where will all this lead? Just possibly to a real new age offaith ." He says that we are looking at a time where there's a real possibility for a rebirth offaith, concluding with the comment that "While orthodox religion can be stifling, liberal religion can be empty. " This was the former editor and chief of TIME magazine. ODEN: It's just one of many invitations from the secular establish ment, disenchanted with modernity's failed promisesto discuss Christian truth; I just hope we're up to it. ~
modern REFORMATION
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