The Gospel in a Post-Modern Age
We often hear that we live in a “post-modern age”. But what does
“post-modern” mean? And does it present a threat or an opportunity to our
preaching of the Gospel? This was the topic of a workshop at the recent
Diocesan Lay Conference, led by Rev Simon Chesters,
the Diocesan Ministry Development Officer.
Post-modernism is not so much a
movement in itself as a reaction to the way of thought which has dominated the
cultural scene for the last four centuries. Post-modernism is a reaction to
modernism, so we need first to understand what modernism is. Modernism can be seen
as beginning with Isaac Newton. Although Newton himself was anything but a
modernist – much of his work shows him as a man of his times who believed in
alchemy and numerology – he made a key contribution in that he was able to
explain the movement of the planets with a few simple and elegant equations.
This gave rise to a view that truth could be discovered through rational
thought, that understanding would be progressive as one scientist built on the
work of another, and that explanation could come through some single big idea
that would that enable everything else to fall into place around it. This way
of thinking can be seen in science – such as
But in the second half of the last century, people began to sense
problems with this way of thinking. The certainties promoted by modernism
revealed a dark side: in politics as the evils of totalitarian ideologies became
apparent; as disillusionment with the idea of Empire as a means of bringing
benefits to less developed countries set in, and as scientific progress began
to be seen as at best a mixed blessing with the development of weapons of total
destruction and concerns about the environment and sustainability. Moreover
science began to find that truth was not so simple: whereas Newton could be
taught to schoolchildren, Einstein’s refinements, and what has followed
Einstein, such as Chaos Theory, has placed scientific explanations beyond the
comprehension of even well educated people. Now much of science has to be taken
on trust.
The reaction to these problems with
modernism meant that people began to reject the big ideas as no more than a means by which the
powerful are able to exercise control, and especially in matters of politics
and society people were no longer prepared to accept the certainties of their
rulers without question. Post-modernism thus arises from the idea that there is
no single big idea which can explain everything, and even that there is no
single truth in such matters that can be discovered.
Post-modernism thus emphasises the
idea of perspective, that truth may
depend on one’s point of view; and plurality,
that we have a degree of choice about what we think and what we do, and these
choices can all be seen as valid. Some see this as a threat to religion:
relativism seems to carry with it the idea that “anything goes”,
and this must be resisted. But there are things we use.
Certainty can be very harmful: when people think that because they are right
all others are wrong, it quickly leads to exclusion, separation and even
oppression. Remember that Jesus said I am
the way, the truth and the life – we are called to believe in a person, not
a fixed set of ideas and dogmas. This idea leads away from religion as a
system, to a religion as a story, or more properly a set of stories, from the
original narratives of the Gospel through the lives of Christians through the
ages to the testimonies of Christian today. We learn of God’s love and grace
through the way it works in people’s lives, and in the rich and diverse
response that people have made to that love and grace.
This focus on story also brings with
it the notion of community: one story is not enough to reveal the whole
picture, and it is through our relations to others that we express our faith: the Kingdom of heaven is in the midst of us.
We need to hear many stories, and not just stories of individuals but of
believing communities living out the Gospel in their shared lives. The
depiction of the Trinity in Orthodox icons as three persons joined in perfect
understanding and love is a powerful image of what a believing community can
aspire to be.
The ideas of post-modernism can help
us to make a shift in perspective: away from dogma towards discipleship; from a
rigid set of instructions to a set of principles we can respond to in the light
of our own situation; from arguments we are supposed to understand to pictures
and stories to which we can respond; from institutions which we join to living
communities to which we belong.
There are some dangers in
post-modern thinking - we do need to keep hold of the idea that what we believe
is true, and there are limits to valid choice - but if it can help us to
rediscover the need to find our own response to Jesus, and to recognise the
importance of living out that response as part of an inclusive community of
believers, there is much of value too.
Trevor Bench-Capon
August 2005