Christian Attitude and Post Modernity – Repost

The greatest challenge for the Christian church in each generation is to make itself understood by people from it’s own time. This fact is important, for we will never be able to speak of any subject if we don’t communicate in the cultural language of our society. So, we should take the work, researching and understand what is called the “epoch’s spirit”, or the ways of thinking of the actual man, so that the message comes to the hearts of people.

But what time is this we are living in that we have to discern what we should use to the expansion of God’s Kingdom and also to prevent ourselves? In general, philosophers call it Postmodern Age. This name doesn’t mean much but is exactly this definition that characterizes post modernity. Post modernity is a kind of non planned reaction of modernity or modern age. Modernity is characterized by some specific dreams. Firstly, modernity enthroned reazon as main way to gain knowledge and take decisions. Secondly, it rejected all kinds of religion or doctrine that had contact with any transcendent being that could reveal himself to the human being. Thirdly, it established natural science as a way to make humanity perfect. This means that through the domination of nature by natural laws, the erradication of diseases and therefore the man’s immortalization, by the automation of work which would make man work a lot less and the erradication of evil through a perfect world where nobody would want to steal or kill their equal for everyone would enjoy welfare and eternal happiness, man  would be able to build up his paradise without apealling to the inadequacy of religion.

We can see clearly that these objectives of modernity miserably failed. Nature wasn’t tamed, on the contrary, more and more the Earth groans and rebels against men through major cataclysms because of the environmental impact of human progress. Pests weren’t tamed, on the contrary, there is the appearance of new epidemics in addition to multi-resistant bacteria that are costing dearly to be tamed. In terms of work, man never before did much efford to work primarily in the improvement and study and then in the workload and the stress that comtemporary work brings, filling the hall os psychologists. In terms of poverty, data of many associations shows in the world a bigger concentration of income with rich people while big populations don’t have the minimum to survive. In terms of warfare, two world wars which happened on the twentieth century, when humanity lost its atomic virginity, made entire cities desappear. All these failures of the rationalist enlightenment’s ideals left men perplexed after the second world war. In this point, modern man is left with no way out, as they don’t want to go back to the mythic religion which he had rejected before, neither to continue with the bankrupt project that vanished in the rubble of war. So the reaction was a rejection to the modern, without knowing exactly where they were going. The result of this reflexive unattended reaction is the post modernity, a kind of rejection to the ideals of modernity, though there is no concrete and elaborated proposal.

That’s why it was said that modernity has indefinition as a characteristic, not because it was adopted consciously, but because it lives in this indefinition, due to the rapid collapse of the dominant thought.

In this postmodern reaction we can find some positions that proceed from this kind of profile which is quite typical of those who didn’t find their way after the trauma.

First, is the widespread remorse. Postmodern man suffers of remorse because of various things that previously, he judges, were done mistakenly. An example is the nature, before a barrier to progress, now is almost venerated as a goddess mother of humanity. Technology, another example, has now achieved a greater focus in relieving  the stress of human strains and rewarding the effort done to work, producing social status. Technology, therefore, assumes the more immediatist and rewarder role of all human effort, rather than a mythic door for the humanity’s improvement, as it was before. The meaning also suffered it’s metamorphosis. While in modernity the meaning of a text would be specifically conveyed to the author’s mind who wrote it, in post modernity this signification wouldn’t belong to him anymore in the very moment he puts it to paper, but turns to be free so that the reader can take from the text what more suits him. Thereby, the definition of truth and lie turns to be subjective, what might be true to one may not be true to the other. Consequently,  the absence of a pattern of truth and lie also is reflected in the structure of the human being regarding to his personal identity. The man’s search for his own meaning loses it’s sense for it gets lost in the reference of what it should be. The result is an existencial crisis of almost all pos modern man, because of the emptiness of goal of his trajectory. In other words, the explosive mixture of searchig for a meaning to be coupled with the intensive work for survival, makes man a dart board to existencial anxiety which takes him to deep depression not only personal but social. Summarizing, it is to a growing emptiness of purpose that we are going into.

The position of man in history’s line would be something like this: looking to the past, man would see no purpose for he eliminated  the religion  that would tell him that there was a transcendent God in this world who created man to a specífic plan and set purpose. Looking to the future, man gets disappointed for the science, which was supposed to bring the paradise on earth only produced hell with all those wars and environmental destruction, taking away the expectation of a better world.

So, what is left to man? Answer: present. In other words, man has to take from his today all his expectations of fulfilled desire, significance and achievement of a lifetime. The burden of the present takes man to a great insatisfaction, for there is no immediacy that can account for all human expectation and hope.

Therefore the expectations don’t end here. when he feels the emptiness of purpose inside of him, the post modern human being makes from understanding the key goal of his will. Since the relaxation time with friends at the bar, going through a tourist trip to the radical sports in contact with nature, it’s always sought the pay pleasure for all the undefined context of post modernity. Even religion, formerly accursed by modernity, is back to scene, not as before, but as an instrument of human relief to the inner conflicts of existence. This means that this post modern religion doesn’t need consistency in it’s assumptions but just welcomes man giving him hope and it doesn’t matter on what.  Because it doesn’t require coherence of vision or doctrine, it can abuse for irrational mysticism or economic pragmatism without falling into contradiction and the religions which have these characteristics are the most sought by the population.

Now that the stage for the contemporary tragedy is mounted, what could the Church of Christ do to testify about God in this time of history?

It’s interesting to say that though this time is confusing, we cannot deceive ourselves thinking that a gospel without theological or biblical precision will be totally accepted by people. Also, on the other hand, we are not supposed to reject this post modern time as if it were completely evil. This means the shutdown to the world because of the fear of contamination, shielding the church culturally and making efforts to develop itself with a separated culture. We can see through history that the victorious church is the one that interacts with the world in a wise way, which means without comforming to it, bu not getting out of it. Sometimes this balance isn’t that easy but is necessary for the church’s life. So we have two aspects that the church must identify itself and two that it has to repulse post modernity. The aspects that bring identification will make the church’s testimony easyer and the aspects that bring separation will armor the church from the bad influence of this century. Let’s go to the two characteristics of identification:

1- Emphasis on relationships:

The bankrupt modernity is marked by individualism, which means that modern man thought he didn’t need anybody and through his knowledge he would be perfect. That’s why he would prefer to stay in the presence of capable people just as he, who were not weak or inept. Post modernity has the characteristic of valuing personal connection. Post modern man looks for a community where he can identify himself and be identified. In short this is great for the church to transmit it’s message. If people are looking for their identity in a social group, church could perfectly be this group. For this, however, is necessary to receive people in a personal and not massive way. The post modern human being runs and have being running from the feeling of being just one more in the multitude. He wants to feel important and outstanding where he relates. That’s the reason why the church has to avoid magical formulas to bring people in droves as they have bein doing constantly. These plans of growing have more to do with modernity where the common goal was infinitely more important than the personal value. An example is the millions of anonymous people that died in wars because of their countries and collective targets.

2- The emphasis on the variety of forms and tendencies:

The standardization of all things were done was one of the main characteristics of modernity. It’s what was called series production, which means that the imporatant was a basic form that could be reproduced several times with less cost and energy expenditure. This characteristic of modernity took man to the dispair of monotony. Many equal houses in the same neighbourhood, many equal clothes with low price, uniform cars coming out of factories, this is the great achievement and conquer of modernity. Today we know that it’s not like this, people don’t want what is produced for many people to wear anymore but what is handmade. Today they choose homemade food, the manual detail in a cloth, the name embroidered across the badge. This variation of forms and tendencies has aroused post modern man to his singularity, that is when he interacts with what’s different. In the same way, the church, if wants to reach the man from this era, is not supposed to specialize in this or that. It can not look for their own spiritual development or the growing numbers of it’s evangelism, formatting strategies that will formate people that posteriorly will formate other. These strategies based on the modern thought of producing a lot with little effort and similar ways will separate the church from the world (as it has been doing) and from it’s evangelizing work. Which strategies should we use to have converted people to the bunches? Which course will we invent to produce leaders to the tonnes? What kind of cult are we going to do so that all in once have a new experience with God? The answer is none! This is because the church isn’t uniform but multiform with no extreme, but have tendencies, it doesn’t have a gift but a variety of them. And it is in this variety that the church finds natyrally and spontaneously it’s way to be in society.

Now we can mention two characteristics that will armor the church from the evil influences present in this century:

1-  Rejection to the deconstruction of literature

As it was mentioned above, one of the most specific characteeristics of post modernity is to interpret texts not according to what the author wants it to mean but by what the reader wants it to mean for him in that very time. This post modern tendency passed under the doors of the churchs and biblical schools like a fog, reaching the way the bible is supposed to be interpretated. The significance of the scriptures stored in the biblical text, which was inspired by God and given to the authors of the 66 Bible’s books seems not to have this desire of knowing God intimately and know his will. Today, claiming an inspiration from the Holy Spirit, we take Bible verses and paragraphs out of context and give them another meaning that the author of the scripture never meant to give. For many times we call it Bible’s update for the moment today. In fact, what has being done is exactly what post modernity call to deconstruct the text and the most interesting is that this idea appears in church right on the very time that humanity has the idea to handle the text this way. Would it be a coincidence or a contamination and conformation of this century in our Christian minds? We can raise two basic arguments against this new gospel fashion. The first is if the Holy Spirit can speak to us through anything and this is the regular way he uses to build us up and transform our character, what significance would the Bible’s inspiration have? Why did men fight and lost their lives to save the inspired scriptures and differnetiate it from other books? If the major way of God to communicate with us is using any text or phenomenon, there was a big waste in the history of church to protect the bible from those who wanted to burn it, from the heretics who wanted to pervert it and, moreover, it wasn’t worthy the risk to take million of bibles to the coutries in the former iron courtain and into the muslim world. No! There is a difference in what is written in the scriptures and what we can receive as a personal revelation, and the scriptures become a trial basis for anything that claims to be personal revelation today. If it was not, there would be no reason for the inspiring canon to be closed after Revelation. The second argument would be a counter-arguments about what it would be to update the Bible or the message in it. We are supposed to have in mind that the message in Bible through it’s texts was idealized by God who inhabits eternity, which means that He is not a God that is subdued to time. So his message is also a eternal message for man in any time, for eternity is superior to temporality. It’s not difficult to observe, however, that this eternal message was transmited in a specific historical moment, and so that we can come to the pith of the message and enjoy it in all its intensity we should take count the time and space it was written, studying them so that we can better understand the author’s intention. When we understand this message that is given us through Bible, we touch a eternal message that has the authority of Christ himself and has the same power of transformation.

2- Superficiality’s and artificiality’s rejection in relationships

It was said before that the lack of identity and the willingness to relate is a positive point in post modern age. However, we can see a dark side in this behaviour. The desire to meet to end the lonliness doesn’t mean that the person ceased being selfish. Then community turns to be a place for him to feel accompanied but it doesn’t lose its strong sence of privacy, don’t allowing to be known by other. This stops the church’s true sense to become true. All the social sites have it’s heroes and myths and the church as a social community, for many times idealizes its heroic profiles as a result of its experiences as a community, but it shouldn’t be like this with the church of Christ. It is supposed to welcome people as they are so that they can relate with no masks and be able to produce in their transparence their part in the community, without building up for themselves a behaviour taken as spiritual and superior and avoid the production of idols and services to the personality for those that will aparently reach such pattern. So, in the same way the leadership must assume this level of transparence so that there minght be a reference in the flock as well. And all may contribute for what is the community’s construction. Just those who are free to relate with their gifts and defects can contribute for the construction of the body.

Summarizing, post modernity came to bring both good and bad things for the human thought. We must know how to discern what are our access doors through it for the evangelization and formation of the spiritual character of the christian. Moreover, we must forearm against the spiritual warfare that this century imposes to us so that we might not be conformed and be a prophetic voice in our generation.

Lívio Bruno

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