Challenges of a Post Christian Culture
We are living in challenging times and the storm is still rising. We have yet to see the full fury of our Post Christian culture (Yes, Hurricane Gustav is on my mind). Wondering what a Post Christian culture really is? This is the topic of the new Sunday series that I’ve started in the chapel. Let me make two additional points to illustrate our Post Christian culture1. In class, I mentioned that the spirit of the age challenges any view that there is objective truth. Even mathematics, which most are sure is an objective discipline is based on agreed upon rules. Nancy Pearcy has reported that in Minnesota teachers are instructed to be tolerant of “multiple mathematical worldviews” (see Total Truth, (2004): 44). If you would like to see more about her source Connected Mathematics, click HERE. This curriculum is based on the theory social constructionism– the theory that concepts and practices that may appear to be self-evident are in actuality the invention of societies and cultures.2. Last night, I found this piece that illustrates the dismissive spirit of our age. I was reading a blog that I look at regularly (usreligion.blogspot.com) and I ran on to this comment about John McCain’s new running mate:
“As many readers will know by now, almost two years ago the hot potato issue of creationism came up in the Alaska governor race. Running as the Republican candidate Sarah Palin responded with something like the old teach-the-controversy chestnut: “Teach both. You know, don’t be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both.” (Teach both, you know. . . Flat earth theory vs. round earth theory; aliens built the pyramids vs. humans constructed them; stars are holes in the canopy of the sky vs. stars are massive, luminous balls of plasma; thunder is caused by God bowling vs. thunder is the sonic shockwave from lightning.)”
Yes, you read that right! The idea of intelligent design is compared to flat earth, aliens, and gods that bowl. The Post Christian culture that acts as a platform for most thinking in America has a smug “objectivity” to it. The very idea that intelligent design might be taught in public as a reasonable “scientific” theory is shot down before any discussion begins to take place. How will we speak the truth in love to such an audience? This is the task that we will continue to tackle together.
I found Jason’s recent class on Postmodernism/Cultural Issues very thought provoking, and couldn’t help but realize how much the public vs. private barriers even exist in the church….
You are so right Rick. We tend to compartmentalize life into little pieces, and (at our worst) we have one set of morals in one place and “switch” when we drift into public. Even in the church, we like our private life to be “our business” and would prefer to keep it from everyone else. This doesn’t help our witness with the world to say nothing for the destructive impact that it can have on our soul.
Where do you see the barrier between public and private life?
Unfortunately, Intelligent Design is NOT a valid or reasonable scientific theory because it violates the definition of science. It relies on non-scientific means and also tries to say God can be scientifically studied or identified. Our belief in God is based on FAITH. I don’t want a God that can be quantified, measured, weighed, and experimented with.
While I think many of the ultimate conclusions reached are useful and good, there are a few generalizations made here which are rather troubling to me.
First, I think most post-modernists would object strongly to the dichotomy of public/private. I think their first response to such a classification would be “What exactly do you mean by ‘public’? What do you mean by ‘private’? These are just labels.” Postmodernism and deconstructionist schools of thought seek primarily to break all such binaries – to say that not only is there no distinction between public and private, but that neither of these words has any inherent meaning at all. The philosophy you describe in this first section is much more a description of a distant precursor to postmodernism called Logical Positivism. While there are some vestiges of it that remain in common thought, I think in general it is being eclipsed by subsequent lines of philosophy.
Second, I think your comment about conspiracy theories is, while certainly descriptive of the American populous at large, not really a true characteristic of postmodern thought. You can just as easily find conspiracy theories in the conservative, pre-postmodern train of thought too (flouridated water, moon landing, Obama is a muslim, etc). To ascribe this characteristic to postmodernism is, I think, a bit unfair.
While your ultimate point about postmodern relation to definitions (“Why?”) is, I think, quite accurate, I think your specific treatment of math borders on ridicule – (“Can you believe they actually come up with this stuff?!?”). Non-Euclidian geometry changes only one of Euclid’s axioms (specifically the parallel postulate), which people had been somewhat skeptical about from the time Euclid proposed it. Importantly absent from your discussion was the fact that non-Euclidian geometry is not only useful, but in fact readily observed in the physical world as well. If you board a plane in Houston and fly to London, you will follow a path that takes you over Washington DC, Maine, and then across the north Atlantic to get to London. You will do this, not because you are over land longer, but because it is in fact the shortest way to get there – one of the properties of elliptic (a type of non-Euclidian geometry) is that the shortest distance between two points is, in fact, not a line, but a curve. To simply dismiss mathematical concepts as silly or crazy because they at first appear to be different or have no immediate physical correspondence is not a good way to present a dispassionate or logical argument.
When you talk about relativism, I think it’s important to keep separate the distinction between *facts* and *beliefs*. The beginning of ethical relativism states that cultures differ in their ethical *beliefs* – a statement I would submit is clearly true. What is not supported from that statement is the idea that there are no universal ethical *facts*, for multiple reasons. The first and most clear reason is that disagreement in belief does not change the objective fact about a subject. While the full blown “there are no objective truths” (except that one) is obviously a logical contradiction, to simply ridicule all parts of the argument as being stupid creates a straw man that closer examination can incinerate. The problem of Truth (with a capital T) has plagued philosophers and theologians for the better part of three millennia. Even today, and even within the context of religion, what do we really *know*, if what we mean by knowledge is that which is timeless, certain, and universal – as Plato would say “that about which I cannot be wrong”? Certainly I believe in God, but in the back of my mind, I have (and I suspect you do too) a feeling that I *might* be wrong.
Finally, there seems to be an implicit assumption in your argument about a post-Christian culture that such a culture would be necessarily worse off. As evidence of the emergence of such a culture, you cite the disappearance of Christian “cultural artifacts” with the implication that their disappearance is obviously a bad thing. This seems flawed, however. Which society would you rather choose: 1) a society where the Ten Commandments are posted in every room of every public building or 2) a society where every member obeyed the Ten Commandments constantly, but the actual commandments were not posted anywhere? Would you rather live in a society where 1) every person went to church on Sunday morning or 2) no people went to church on Sunday morning, but every person spent some time every day having meaningful spiritual interactions with those around them? Indeed, I think in many ways the emergence of a “post-Christian Culture” may be a very good thing, as it forces us to examine which parts of our Christian heritage are core and central to the message of God and what things are truly artifacts that can, and maybe should, be reconsidered, changed, or eliminated in order to connect more closely with a new and emerging culture.