Keynote Lecture #1 Professor John Drane Truth in Conflict Keynote Lecture #1 Professor John Drane Thursday August 30th

Introduction What is Truth ? Objective Scientific v Relativistic ? Truth as Cultural Imperialism ? Western Truth is part of the problem not the solution ? Greater understanding leads to greater wisdom Western culture looks to non-rational truth claims

Changing Culture The end or a new beginning ? Listening to postmodernism with care Religious Education discource

Gene Edward Veith, Postmodern Times (Wheaton IL: Crossway 1994), 192. Changing Culture 1 Of course, the “modern man” the liberals tried to appeal to did not really exist. This new breed of humanity, so scientific, so rational, was a projection of modern philosophy, a myth created by a tiny number of intellectuals who wanted to attribute their own scientism and rationalism to the whole human race. Gene Edward Veith, Postmodern Times (Wheaton IL: Crossway 1994), 192.

Changing Culture 2 In country after country ... religious upsurges have a strongly populist character. Over and beyond the purely religious motives, these are movements of protest and resistance against a secular élite. Peter Berger, The Desecularization of the World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1999), 11.

Truth Claims in Popular Culture Focus on popular culture Challenging ‘high’ culture Key characteristics of post-modern culture Centrality of story in the search for meaning Retelling the story for the new contexts Meta-narrative

Truth Claims in Popular Culture 1 ... it’s not healthy to live life as a succession of isolated little cool moments. “Either our lives become stories, or there’s just no way to get through them.” ... We know that this is why the three of us left our lives behind us and came to the desert - to tell stories and to make our own lives worthwhile tales in the process. Douglas Coupland, Generation X (New York: St. Martins Press 1991),

Truth Claims in Popular Culture 2 We know that life is really about a spiritual unfolding that is personal and enchanting ... we know that once we do understand what is happening, how to engage this elusive process and maximize its occurrence in our lives, human society will take a quantum leap into a whole new way of life - one that realizes the best of our tradition - and creates a culture that has been the goal of history all along ... The following story is offered toward this new understanding ... All that any of us have to do is suspend our doubts and distractions just long enough ... and miraculously, this reality can be our own. James Redfield, The Celestine Prophecy (New York: Warner 1993), 226-227.

Truth Claims in Popular Culture 3 I think I am a broken person. I seriously question the road my life has taken and I endlessly rehash the compromises I have made in my life. I have an insecure and vaguely crappy job with an amoral corporation so that I don’t have to worry about money. I put up with halfway relationships so as not to have to worry about loneliness. I have lost the ability to recapture the purer feelings of my younger years in exchange for a streamlined narrow-mindedness that I assumed would propel me to “the top.” What a joke. Douglas Coupland, Life after God (New York: Simon & Schuster 1994), 309.

Truth Claims in Popular Culture 4 When reasonable persons from different cultural backgrounds agree that certain institutions or cultural practices cause harm, then the moral neutrality of cultural relativism must be suspended ... We have moved beyond the idea of a value free social science to the task of developing a moral system at the level of our shared humanity that must at certain times supersede cultural relativism ... [this] does not diminish the continued value of studying and affirming diversity around the globe ... suspending or withholding judgment because of cultural relativism is intellectually and morally irresponsible. Fluehr-Lobban, Cultural Relativism and Human Rights, in AnthroNotes 20/2 (Winter 1998), 16-17.

Challenges for Religious Educators Where does this leave us ? Defining our own personal perspectives Knowing where we come from Engaging in new styles of discourse Defining and Describing our discipline