defining the post/modern

[Aaron]

One of my hopes for this Anglimergent project is that it will allow space to engage critical questions of identity. As part of this engagement, I am convinced that we have to begin to gain awareness of our implicit assumptions about self/faith/world which (I believe) can only happen through dialogue.

Now in the dialogues I’ve had and in the things I’ve read within the emergent conversation, a central tenet of this thing we call “emergent” is how we begin to “engage postmodernity” (which sort of problematically presupposes we are not already operating within the boundary of postmodernity, but that’s for another discussion thread).

While I agree that engaging postmodernity in pragmatic ways (in other words, the practical application of the concept of postmodernity to the holistic way we approach church/faith/world) is a primary and crucial part of our mission, I’m repeatedly baffled by the amount of taken-for-grantedness that exists about the definition of postmodernity as a concept. In other words, while we might all agree that “postmodernity” is a concept (we might not, too), I’m not convinced that we all share a similar understanding of the constituent elements of that concept.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t see this as a problem. In fact, this is a good thing. I would argue that to attempt contain the concept of ‘postmodernity’ to a set of theoretical elements would be to miss the point. To decide on a static definition would also be to miss the point. But I think that if we’re jumping straight to pragmatic redefinitions of church/faith/world based on the term without thinking dialogically about what constitutes the term we are also, in some sense, missing the point. I suppose this is another way of saying that I don’t conceive of ‘postmodernity’ as a thing to be applied, but as a set of elements unfolding before us (therefore revealing a bit of my own presupposition).

Therefore, I pose these questions to the group: What constitutes your postmodernity? Where does postmodernity begin for you? Where do you see/taste/touch/feel/hear postmodernity? Where does your postmodernity take you?

[Lenny Anderson]

I am not so sure that we are truly in a postmodern age. The term presupposes that the age modernism is closed or dead or something. But what I see in culture--its reliance on technology, science, its progression to the philosophical ends of modernist presuppositions (e.g. wariness of "absolute truth," tacit acceptance of a kind of nihilist/evolutionary/naturalistic/secular worldview)--modernism is still the dominant cultural shaper of the day. I think Oden's description of our age as "ultramodern" is more appropriate.

Perhaps the relatively newer focus on community and authenticity are signs of a change in cultural direction, but I think it's too early to tell. Attempts to find a new way to address reality do not a culture change make in and of themselves. It takes more fully developed reflection, application, and living with the consequences of those changes to make assertions that your course corrections were truly "different" or "better" even.

This is where the Church has unique opportunity, however. We can be the ones who bring into the discussion we aren't really where we want to as a culture. Post/ultra-moderns are dissatisfied with the current state of affairs. Some people are looking back into the past to find a way forward (e.g. radical orthodoxy, emergent Church, neo-tradtionalism), But I think most people are caught in the usual liberal/conservative, mainline/evangelical perceptions of Church and Christianity. The only palpable change is that the culture at large has lost the default "Christian" earmarks, where even atheists understood Christian "language" about God even though they rejected its beliefs. This is a boon and a burden. It's a boon in that there is less cultural baggage about what to expect from a preconceived idea of Christian thought and practice. It's a burden in that it makes the job more difficult to "translate" the Gospel to the culture (not to mention the stereotypes that do remain are less than flattering to Christianity; indeed, some who would by all accounts qualify as Christian by definition, shun the term "Christian").

Anyway, I've said enough. At least this gets the conversation going beyond merely one post to hopefully some additional comments.

[Aaron]

Lenny,

Thanks for engaging this question. I actually posted the first pass at my answer to the question on my blog: http://therivermerchant.blogspot.com/2008/02/postmodern.html

I completely agree there is a fine line between what might be characterized as "late or ultra modern," and what might be or not be "post/modern", though I might actually make the distinction.

As I was working on my answer in that post yesterday, one of the concepts which became very important is the question of agency. In other words, it seems to me that in most modern and even ultra/modern versions of reality, there is a sense that knowledge flows the same way, though is distributed differently. In other word, from [agent > recipient]. In the case of the church, that flow in society might look something like [church > world], with the presumption that behind the story is [God > church] and then [church > world].

In my version of the slight distinction between ultramodern and postmodern is that the knowledge flow or agency changes. The ultramodern church continues to maintain a sense of agency and the distinction between subject/object. Whereas the postmodern church sees only subject/subject and the agency shifts to a model like this: [friend <-> friend]. Behind the story is this: [God > friend]. In this sense, the postmodern church's mission includes listening as much as speaking, and receiving as much as offering.

[Lenny Anderson]

The change of "agency" you describe could be a shift that is genuinely postmodern (though I personally don't think that in itself is enough to say we are at the end of modernity, just a more friendly communal form of it). This change of agency flies in the face of the typical Nietzsche-an "will to power" motif which dominates modernity/ultramodernity. But it could be typical Gen-Xer wishful thinking/yearning for authentic community, which of course lies in ruins in much if not most of society now. If Millennials buy into this (my) gen-X dream for us to all get along and be thoroughly democratized, then I think we might be onto something in terms of a genuine cultural shift and not simply generational reactionism.