Page 2 of 7 | Original Research
worldview in our postmodern world of the 21st century? Indeed, I will be working towards the formation of what I will be calling a post-postmodern Christian worldview.
Despite the debacle of World War I, when Koers began
publishing, Modernism with its faith in reason, science and
technology as the singular, linear, inexorable and progressive
forces for health, knowledge, continual growth and success was still in full bloom. However, as the twentieth century
unfolded – for a complex of reasons of which the Holocaust is emblematic – Modernism’s hope and faith in the power of
reason and science to deliver freedom, security and happiness
withered and wilted. Despite unparalleled advances in almost
every field of human endeavour, especially technology, our
city streets are filled with the hungry and the homeless,
violence and war continue to plague us, we are running out of the basic elements necessary for life: clean air, good food, stable currencies, caring families, intimate friendships,
vibrant churches. Underneath we are at un-ease, running
scared, something, we fear, is seriously amiss.
In its place, both parasitic on Modernism, even as it is a
spiritual resistance movement – a para-site – to Modernism, a
new Zeitgeist or Stimmung which we now call Postmodernism has unmistakeably crept in like a fog with its own smell, feel,
and touch. Almost everyone senses that something novel is astir, and gathering force, but like a perfume sprayed in the air where one cannot determine where the scent begins and ends, Postmodernism can be characterised but not defined. In its cultural use, Postmodernism typically has a wider range than in its philosophical deployment; yet, even philosophically, Postmodernism functions as an umbrella term covering a variety of paradigms.
At the same time, there are a number of common characteristics
or family resemblances in a postmodern ethos that stand out and can be circumscribed. However, because many Christians, including many theologians, respond nervously and negatively to Postmodernism, identifying it more or less with relativism[1] if not nihilism, I want, at the outset, to be upfront with my conviction that Postmodernism need not be seen as an enemy. In fact, in this article I will be arguing that, in a number of important aspects, Postmodernism is more a boon than a bane to the cause of Christ. Indeed, as I see it, there are certain cardinal features of Postmodernism that deserve to be recognised, honoured and accounted for in a Christian worldview – even if, in terms of the Gospel, they will be revised, even radicalised, in what I want to call a postpostmodern biblical worldview.
Embrace of difference
In contrast to Modernism’s suppression of difference, the most distinctive feature of Postmodernism is its desire to embrace difference. For Modernism, difference is by the nature of the case always oppositional, in Hobbes’s words, ‘the war of all against all’. According to Freud, Hegel, and Sartre – three of Modernism’s most influential thinkers – there are only two possibilities: dominate or be dominated. In Sartre’s worldview, the other person is hell because the gaze of the other person turns us into an object. For Freud, love of neighbour is only possible at the expense of love of self. There is either inclusion in sameness or exclusion in otherness.
In ethical Postmodernism, difference is not the enemy, a threat, defect or deficit which needs to be controlled,
bracketed, or eliminated, but a challenge to connect with,
attend to and honour. The proper relation to the other person is deference, rather than domination, condescension, dismissal, or persecution. Genuine community is being together in difference and diversity, rather than marginalisation or fusion into sameness – in, through and despite adversity.
In our pluralistic, multi-faith global village, the honourable
and respectful embrace of difference is the greatest challenge
facing our postmodern world. We urgently need to develop a model of non-oppositional difference, an economy of love in which power-over (with its opposition to the other) is
replaced by power-with (mutual recognition, attunement and empowerment). Love of self and the other is not oppositional, but correlational. Loving the other enhances the self, hating the other diminishes the self (Olthuis 1997:146−151). However, no matter how promising the idea of non-oppositional difference, in our fallen world the ever-present economy of violence makes it extremely difficult, often virtually impossible, to put into practice. For it is only when we are secure in our own identities, firm in our faith, that we are enabled vulnerably to run the risk of suffering violence that attends all efforts to respectfully connect with the other and different. Whether on account of previous hurt that gives rise to fear, the guardedness that comes from ignorance, or unattended anger, there lurks in all of us the impulse to control, domesticate, dismiss, or even eliminate difference.
However, a post-postmodern biblical worldview needs to be
hospitable to and respectful of difference. That is the biblical mandate:
- When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him or her. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him or her as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the Lord your God. (Lv 19:33)
At this juncture in history, and intrinsic to the practice of neighbourly love, it is particularly incumbent on us as Christ-believers to give shape and contour more keenly to an economy of love as the only possibility of escaping the pernicious economy of violence that so often seems inescapable. The more we forthrightly and enthusiastically shape, work out and publicise such an economy of love as inherent to our understanding of what it means to be
Christian, the more religion could become, not a conversation-stopper as Richard Rorty claimed and Modernism believed, but a conversation starter.
http://www.koersjournal.org.za | doi:10.4102/koers.v77i1.28
- ↑ For instance, even a highly respected, sophisticated biblical scholar such as Richard Bauckham (2002:64, 62) talks of ‘postmodern relativism’ that reduces ‘all truth claims to preference’, because ‘there is no basis on which to argue or persuade’. In contrast, for Jacques Derrida, perhaps the most influential postmodern philosopher, the crucial point is not that truth claims are finally matters of preference, but the very different claim that there are no airtight, knockdown arguments for Truth. In the end, we live by faith.
