THREE SESSIONS  Judeo-Christian beliefs = apathy or contempt?  Opt for believing in things that seem incoherent or bizarre?  Popular culture nurtures aberrant beliefs or misinformed beliefs

MY GENERAL APPROACH  Data  Primary sources  Context  Coherence  Play fair

UNDERSTANDING THE POST-MODERN, NEO-PAGAN, POST- CHRISTIAN WORLD

 Many contemporary worldviews  Secularist-modernist  “Book” religions  Spirituality (no “book”)  NRM’s / cults  They still compete for space, but … OUR FOCUS TODAY

 … a bigger idea argues that not only is there no clear winner, but that it’s wrong-headed to insist that one is better  Pluralism  “Emergent” Christianity  Good: Wants coherent thinking and authenticity  Bad: Christianity driven by looking inward, social causes, but NOT insistence on truth. OUR FOCUS TODAY

 How did it come to this?  Postmodernism  Two Trajectories  Historical Forces/Ideas  Contemporary Spin OUR FOCUS TODAY

“That postmodernism is indefinable is a truism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Better described …  A reaction against:  modernism  i.e., “the modern mind” and its certainties … DESCRIBING POST-MODERNISM

Certainties …  About scientific omniscience  About human progress  About truth propositions  About religious truth claims  “meaning” (“epistemic certainty”) These trends are NOT recent DESCRIBING POST-MODERNISM

Although “post-modernism” as term was coined in 1979, the intellectual/spiritual force has been around a long time.  Human discovery and science have been undermining religious certainties since 16 th century.  “modern era” = post-Renaissance DESCRIBING POST-MODERNISM

 Age of Exploration vs. entrenched Bible interpretations  Darwin vs. entrenched Bible interpretations  Einstein/relativity vs. Newton  Fascism / nationalism (= World wars) propelled in part by all the above DESCRIBING POST-MODERNISM

 By the 20 th century, western culture was already “post modern”  What most Christians think of today as postmodernism = “not the way it used to be” when it comes to Christian dominance  pluralism, politics, political correctness, etc.  Valid perceptions, but it’s more complex DESCRIBING POST-MODERNISM

Today’s “modern” mind is actually post-modern. It’s where historic post-modern paths led.  Thrown off old religious ideas  Good thing if they were wrong  Embracing evolution in some form  Still a heated debate; good if ideas are true  Embracing post-Newtonian science  Good if it’s true (consensus) DESCRIBING POST-MODERNISM

 The “new reaction” in 20 th / 21 st centuries  extreme skepticism about whether there is any truth at all.  This is current “post-modernism” in the university classroom DESCRIBING POST-MODERNISM

 Science isn’t truth; it discovers reality and adds to our knowledge  (Many): “Truth = only what is discoverable”  If it’s not discoverable, how can we know it? You can’t call something truth that you can’t discover.  Therefore, science = best option for knowing what is real. CONTEMPORARY

 Religion / Faith can offer no certain / permanent truth claims  makes claims undiscoverable via science  With respect to the Bible …  Goes beyond rejecting “Bible science”  Rejecting Judeo-Christian ethics  Rejecting Judeo-Christian dominance in social/political/cultural spheres CONTEMPORARY

 Forces a decision for the “modern post- modern” … CONTEMPORARY  Is there a reality beyond science?  No  Yes  This reality isn’t in a book or authority figure

Search for “Spirituality”  Focus instead on relative truth within each person’s culture and own experience  Find your own truth inside you  Everyone is right – and wrong  Not universal Question: … CONTEMPORARY

Why reject “book” religion? (Bible)  Biblical theology = truth propositions  These propositions are subject to interpretation  All communication is inherently uncertain  If certainty in interpretation is impossible, then:  No universal truth  Truth propositions have no authority Therefore …. CONTEMPORARY

Truth is individual / internal  Appeal to experience, intuition  embrace mystery vs. dogma  Reject authority (expertise or institutional) Truth and morality are relative  Honor everyone’s idea / belief / experience / intuitions / traditions / equally = pluralism CONTEMPORARY

Wider Western Culture  Post-Christian era  Doctrine-less religion  Eastern religions  “New Age”  Paganism (divinize nature) Christianity? RELIGIOUS RESPONSES

Christianity  Resist current modernity (where postmodernism has led)  Fundamentalism  Challenge the current modernity  Re-articulate but maintain orthodoxy  Acquiescence  Post-Christian Christianity RELIGIOUS RESPONSES

Both Responses use term “emergent”  Problematic = Adaptation / Acquiescence  Bad > core elements made unintelligible, defined out of existence  Post-Christian Christianity  Evangelical paganism  Internal, focused on this world  Social causes, environment  Resembles old variant of Christianity … RELIGIOUS RESPONSES

Logical Flaws; Unlivable  Denial of certainty is self-defeating  Successful communication does not require perfection  Imperfect interpretation is livable; requiring omniscience (total certainty) is not CHALLENGING POSTMODERNISM

 The either-or fallacy on steroids  “Without omniscience we can’t know anything”  Just because we don’t know everything doesn’t mean we don’t know anything CHALLENGING POSTMODERNISM

 Religious claims and their alternatives can be tested for coherence (perfect understanding not required)  Theism and specific ideas that extend from it that define Christianity  All uncertainties are not equally coherent CHALLENGING POSTMODERNISM