The Danger of Modernism

[Wilson L. Deaton]

Dangers of Modernism:

Modernity focuses on conquest and control. Thus we "win sinners" instead of "saving the lost." We create "special rules," etc.
Modernity glamorized and worshiped machines and thus began to see we humans as machine parts and God a machine designer. The result is that we put God in a box. We assume our "ordo salutis" is absolute and insist that everyone fits.
Modernity is about analyzing things and explaining things. When things can't be analyzed and explained they are discarded (thus modernity gave rise to skeptics and atheism, etc.)
Modernity crowned science King and relegated faith to a lesser level (faith is OK as long it doesn't contradict science).
Modernity sought to solve all mystery. There are things we just can't understand (Trinity?) but modernity says if we can't understand we must suspect its veracity. Or to put it another way, if it is true we should be able to understand it.
Modernity was an age of anti-diversity. Wherever we find disagreement we set out to persuade. We want compliance.
Modernity was an age of structure (organization, hierarchy, etc.,). Institutions and policies became more important than people.
Modernity was an age of individualism (a paradox from previous point). "Personal" salvation reigned supreme. We encourage people to adapt John 3:16, "For God so love me..." Bible studies became about, "This verse means to me...," regardless of what the author meant.
Modernity was an age of greed and materialism. More is better, etc. Status, status, status. Tell someone you got new shoes and the first question they ask is, "What brand?"


Given all these aspects of modernity, how did Christianity even survive? It seems the church may have been better off remaining Medieval!

Of course, the truth is, remaining Medieval wasn't a choice the Church was able to make. The world moved to the Modern era whether the Church liked it or not. (Of the course the church did not like it. Scientists were perseucted, etc.)

History repeats itself: Modernity is giving way (or has given way) to Postmodernity. The church (many at least) doesn't like it, but the church doesn't get to choose. The world is going (or has gone) postmodern whether the church likes it or not. The question is not whether we should or shouldn't, or whether it is good or bad. The question is how are we going to respond and carry out our mission in a postmodern world. Denying and/or criticizing postmodernism is definitely not the answer to that question.

(I'm very heavily indebted to McLaren for the list I've adapted and labeled as "dangers." I know it--at least my interpretation--isn't perfect but you get the idea...)

Wilson

[Roy Richardson]

In the Medieval church Kings ruled by divine right and the sun revolved around the earth.

My how things have changed.

[James Diggs]

Thanks for starting this thread

Peace,

James

[Dennis Bratcher]

Given all these aspects of modernity, how did Christianity even survive? It seems the church may have been better off remaining Medieval!

Grace?

In all this we probably need to keep in mind that much of what the Enlightenment and ensuing modernity rejected about the medieval church and its way of thinking did need to be jettisoned. The problem came not in moving into the Enlightenment and modernity, but in using those modes of thought to make our ideas about God formulated by reason (whether we acknowledged it or not) into an absolute truth that then determined how we lived as Christians.

Probably the climaxing epithet for modernity was the phrase “God said it, I believe it, and that’s enough for me.” Except, we never noticed that God didn’t really say “it,” but that “it” was just what we thought he ought to have said or what we understood him to have said based on our particular perspective (I have heard a version of that quote used by a Nazarene to say that blacks are created inferior!). We exchanged the tyranny of the Church for the tyranny of individuals.

Some advocate returning to pre-critical or pre-modern forms of the Faith. I say that it can’t be done, anymore than we can have a New Testament Church. Time and history will not allow it. We cannot pretend that we don’t know what we know, or pretend that the fourth century Church had it perfect. Whether we like it or not, we have to come to terms with the ongoing effects of the Enlightenment and the present scientific and technological world in which we live.

We live where we are as God’s people, dealing with our past failures at the same time that we understand we probably are making just as many mistakes as those of modernity. We can correct some problems and hopefully bring us closer to what God’s people should be. But we should be under no illusion as we attempt to correct the mistakes of the past that what we now think is any more absolute than what the children of modernity thought. That is something we should take to heart from post-modernism.

It is at this point that we must maintain some contact with the historic Christian tradition, not as an absolute that we must serve unwaveringly, but as a lifeline that helps us walk between the excesses that are always inherent in reform and renewal. It is not that there is no truth or that truth is relative to circumstance. It is that Christian Truth encompasses much less than we have thought and is far more about how we live and love as people of God rather than about what we believe to be true in order to be saved.

Grace and Peace,

Dennis Bratcher