What is the cost of progress?
Modern travel, modern educational systems, modern medicine, and modern food production are a few examples of the ways in which humanity’s lot has improved through the progress achieved during this era.
However as the twentieth century waned a collective questioning of the assumptions of modernity emerged in many quarters, not least in my quarter.
According to Tim Keel and N. T Wright two theologians I draw on in this article, The very notion of progress itself is questioned.
They and others ask; how is it defined and measured, and by whom?
What is the cost of progress?
In the modern story, reality is that which is observable, measurable and repeatable. Everything that is available, accessible and verifiable to the five senses.
No wonder that anything beyond the senses was ignored. Materialism was birthed and the matters of the soul were ignored or reinterpreted within this tightly controlled version of reality.
Spiritual life?
When the life of the spirit is ignored, people will seek to feed the hunger of a neglected soul with the only nourishment available. In my context: the consumptive acquisition of material goods. If spiritually engaged, it is often reduced and turned into on more commodity to be packaged, sold, and consumed like so many other aspects of modern life. In a incredibly individualistic way.
The western church
The western church has been existing within this framework of reality. Church shopping has become the defining metaphor for deciding which community of faith satisfies ones needs.
My needs.
Churches rarely possess a corporate understanding of themselves as a people but rather as one more collection of individuals choosing to be together based on similar preferences (music,preaching,programs etc.)
How does the postmodern world respond in the wake of modernity?
read part 3 here; Can postmodernity save us?
Read part 1 here; Postmodernity, should we be afraid?
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