"I believe it is part of the task of the church today to accept the post modern critique of modernity but to insist that it is not the last word. Modernity stands accused of arrogance, with its technology, its philosophy, its economics and its empires - and, in a measure at least, its theology and exegesis. Postmodernity, with Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche in its vanguard, has made its point. The world of the Enlightenment had a lot to do with money, sex, and power. But despite the misplaced enthusiasm of some, postmodernity does not give us a new home, a place to stay. What it provides is a fresh statement of the doctrine of the Fall, which in Christian theology ought always to invite a fresh statement, in symbol and practice as well as word, of redemption. I believe that part of the task of the church in our own day is to pioneer a way through postmodernity and out the other side, not back to modernity in its various, even Christian, guises, but into a new world, a new culture, which nobody else is shaping and which we have a chance to." (Wright, Paul. 173)
2 comments:
I think that a movement (?) that is entitled "post" anything is, by it's name, implying that it is transitional and not a movement in its own right. It is a reaction to something that preceded it, not a statement of what is new. I agree that it is a doorway to what is next.
Amen!
What gets me going is thinking about how we can participate in shaping what is next. I think that far to much energy continues to be focused on reacting to / defending against post-modernity.
Let's use that energy for creating what is next rather wasting it on propping up the toxic/deceased worldview that is modernity.
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