Post-modernity

I have been discussing the topic of post-modernity with colleagues from many religious backgrounds.

You might be aware of the cultural phenomenon of post-modernity if not its philosophical underpinnings.

Trying to describe or approximate post-modernity as a philosophy or culture is no easy task. Just type it into wikipedia and you will see what I mean.

But as everything else we know little about , it creates fear or distance.

For many of those I speak with, the arrival of post-modernity is a portent of all that is evil and dangerous about our world.

I would offer a more modest assessment : It is simply the context of the world in which we live, thus filled with possibilities and dangers like any other context. ( taken from the thoughts of Tim Keel. Read more in his book “Intuitive Leadership”)

Modernity

Modernity was a time of grand narratives about the nature and destiny of humans freed from the constraints of ignorance and superstition. Under such themes, Western civilization sought to colonize both the natural and intellectual world, unifying it into classifiable systems by reducing material existence into distinct, separate and easily identifiable categories.

Knowledge was broken down into disciplines or fields of inquiry.

People and populations were likewise identified, reduced, and categorized, whether by race or class or the combination of both.  The occupation and exploitation of foreign lands and native populations, called “colonialism” emerged in modernity as most European countries sought to expand boundaries and secure resources.

Theology + modernity = true

In the wake of the protestant reformation, religious authority and structures became tied to emerging nation states. State sponsored churches were in many cases the forerunners of  what we now know as denominations.

Theologians systematized theology(Christology, pneumatology, soteriology, ecclesiology etc) in much the same ways scientists systematized the natural world. Intelligence was given a measurable quotient.

Merchants produced and distributed goods and resources mechanistically, that is, by assembly lines in factories and via efficient, modern transportation systems. It goes without saying that those in control of the systems and structures that framed and supported modernity wielded enormous power.

What did modernity cost ?

And how are we now to live, engage and relate to a postmodern world and reality?

Read part 2 here ; Modernity, the cost?

The disciples were full of questions about God.
Said the Master, “God is Unknown, the Unknowable. Every statement about Him,every answer to your questions, is a distortion of the Truth.”

The disciples were bewildered. “Then why do you speak about Him at all?”
“Why does the bird sing?” said the Master.

Not because he has a statement, but because he has a song.
The words of the Scholar are to be understood. The words of the Master are not to be understood. They are to be listened to as one listens to the wind in the trees and the sound of the river and the song of the bird. They will awaken something within the heart that is
beyond all knowledge.

I have just finished reading this remarkable little book of parables by Anthony De Mello. You can find “the song of the bird” here. It is my favorite book this month.

I have read so many fantastic books 2008, old and new. Here are a few that are outstanding:

Fiction:

Midnights Children by Salman Rushdie

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostevsky

Nonfiction:

Let your life speak by Parker J. Palmer

The bookseller of Kabul by Åsne Seierstad

Biography:

a billion lives by Jan Egeland

Theology:

The CS lewis book on the bible by Schriftman,

Christian thought revisited by Gonzalez

Doxology by Geoffrey Wainwright

The new Christians by Tony Jones

The fingerprints of God by Robert Farrar Capon

What are your top books this year?икони