1. “Cultural Trends” www.leadingtomorrow.org Matt & Jolene Erlacher

2. A little bit about our perspectives…

3. Overview of the History of Western Civilization
European Renaissance (1300s-1500s)
Protestant Reformation
(1500s)
Age of Enlightenment or Reason (1700s)
Industrial Revolution (1750-early 1800s)
Post-Modernism (1900s)
*Deconstruction, relativism, post-structuralism

4. Overview of the History of Western Civilization
European Renaissance (1300s-1500s)
Protestant Reformation
(1500s)
Age of Enlightenment or Reason (1700s)
Industrial Revolution (1750-early 1800s)
Post-Modernism (1900s)
*Deconstruction, relativism, post-structuralism

5. Overview of the History of Western Civilization
European Renaissance (1300s-1500s)
Protestant Reformation
(1500s)
Age of Enlightenment or Reason (1700s)
Industrial Revolution (1750-early 1800s)
Post-Modernism (1900s)
*Deconstruction, relativism, post-structuralism

6. Traits of Modernism and Postmodernism Affecting the [American] Culture
Communication driven by printing press
Communication driving by internet/media
Objectivity/Facts
Subjectivity/Story
Distance/Hierarchy
Participation/Engagement
Mechanical/Structured
Organic/Open
Efficiency
Adaptability
Determinacy
Indeterminacy
Creation
Deconstruction
Individualism (Local)
Community (Global)
Power and faith in human reasoning
Power and faith are in personal experience
Confidence in reason to discover truth
Acceptance of self-determined pluralistic views
Note: Adapted from Grenz, 1996; Harvey, 1990; Kimball, 2003; & McLaren, 2001

7. (Modern) Structure
vs.
(Postmodern)
Web

8. --General Stanley McChrystal
“The speed and interdependence of events had produced new dynamics that threatened to overwhelm the time-honored processes and culture we’d built.”
--General Stanley McChrystal

9. --General Stanley McChrystal
“…the familiar pursuit of efficiency must change course. Efficiency remains important, but the ability to adapt to complexity and continual change has become an imperative.”
--General Stanley McChrystal

10. “We seem to have arrived at an important juncture in our intellectual and cultural history, a moment of transition between two modes of thinking…calm, focused undistracted, the linear mind is being pushed aside by a new kind of mind that wants to take in and dole out information in short, disjointed and often overlapping bursts—the faster, the better.”
--Nicholas Carr

11. “For the last five centuries, ever since Gutenberg’s printing press made book reading a popular pursuit, the linear, literary mind has been at the center of art, science, and society. As supple as it is subtle, it’s been the imaginative mind of the Renaissance, the rational mind of the Enlightenment, the inventive mind of the Industrial Revolution, even the subversive mind of Modernism. It may soon be yesterday’s mind.”
--Nicholas Carr

12. Post-modernism and the church:
“I believe that we are witnessing a new reformation that is transforming the way Christianity will be experienced in the new millennium. This reformation, unlike the one led by Martin Luther, is challenging not doctrine, but the medium through which the message of Christianity is articulated…restructuring the organizational character of institutional religion, and democratizing access to the sacred by radicalizing the Protestant principle of the priesthood of all believers.”
--Donald Miller

13. Post-modernism and truth/facts:
“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”
--Friedrich Nietzsche

14. “[This postmodern view] is that every individual’s beliefs, values, lifestyle and perception of truth…
…claims are equal…there is no hierarchy of truth. Your beliefs and my beliefs are equal and all truth is relative.”
-Thomas A. Helmbock

15. “Logic is not worth nearly so much as the last five hundred years would have had us believe. It is, therefore not to be trusted as an absolute, nor are its conclusions to be taken as truth just because they depend from logical thinking…logic suffers from the fact that it is human, not divine.”
--Phyllis Tickle

16. --Pew Research Center (2015 Survey)
“Nearly two-thirds of U.S. adults (64%) say that whether something is right or wrong depends on the situation, while a third say there are clear and absolute standards for what is right or wrong. In 2007, a different question about moral absolutes found that 39% of Americans completely agreed with the statement ‘there are clear and absolute standards for what is right and wrong.’”
--Pew Research Center (2015 Survey)

17. Professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz
“Truth is produced, not found.”
-Hayden White
Professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz
“No right or wrong answer exists when values are at stake.”
Economics Today and Tomorrow
High School text book

18. “Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.”
--G. K. Chesterton
“Truth has ceased to be a relationship between a statement and reality and has become a judgment” –Josh McDowell

19. “Do not judge, or you too will be judged
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.“ Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?  How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
Matthew 7:1-5

20. --Barna Group (2009 survey)
“Only 9% of all American adults have a biblical worldview.”
“Among born again Christians, less than one out of every five (19%) possesses a biblical worldview.”
(Biblical worldview: believe in an absolute moral truth, Bible is accurate, salvation is by grace not works, Satan is real, Jesus lived sinless life, God is all-knowing creator and ruler of the universe)
--Barna Group (2009 survey)

21. --Barna Group (2009 survey)
“One-third of all adults (34%) believe that moral truth is absolute and unaffected by the circumstances. Slightly less than half of the born again adults (46%) believe in absolute moral truth…less than one-half of one percent of adults aged 18 to 23 have a biblical worldview, compared to about one out of every nine older adults.”
--Barna Group (2009 survey)

22. “Arguably, one of the most potentially destructive things that can happen to faith is for it to become the accepted and established religion of the political, cultural, and social unit in which its adherents live…”
--Phyllis Tickle

23. An Intolerant Gospel?
“I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
--Jesus in John 14:6 (ESV)
Barna: Making Space for Millennials Report

24. “At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.’ This phrase, ‘Yet once more,’ indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.”
--Hebrews 12:26-28

25. Questions/Comments