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Final Analysis Scott BouldreyFinal Paper CL590
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There is an undeniable cultural shift going on in Western epistemology andontology. Though arguments continue over when the shift began, who started it, andwhether or not it is “safe” or “valid,” its effects on the Church are evident. People of theMillennial and X generations are not regular attendees of weekly worship services (38.8%of those above age 65 attend weekly, or more often, as compared to 17.8% of those aged18 – 30 years old). And yet, the majority of the American population (80 – 85%depending on the poll) still considers itself Christian (data from the Association of Religion Data Archives). There are three main reasons for this response to “religion”(which I define as the way in which a group of people understand, envision, communicate,and embody their faith). First is the general tendency of younger generations to distrustinstitutions (and their use of power) of any kind. Second is the philosophy that arose inresponse to and fed that distrust. The most common term for this shift is“postmodernism.” And third is the broad range of effect that multinational capitalism andthe consumerism it encourages on the younger generations.The Church’s response to this cultural shift has been slow. Much of postmodern philosophy and institutional apathy developed in the late-1960s to mid-1970s. As weeklyworship attendance began to plummet, the Church took to a marketing model of evangelism and many local congregations developed both contemporary and “seeker-sensitive” worship services that attracted many people of the Baby Boomer generation.The resulting increase in attendance, and the concurrent rise of the Mega-Church, wasenough to placate the Church’s fear. However, Generation X and the Millennials wereleaving church, and staying away. As a result of the disillusionment of these generations,in the late-1990s (ca. 1998) America, what has been named the emerging church started asa conversation between concerned and disillusioned evangelical pastors and youthministers. Over the last decade, their voice has grown through publications, web logs(a.k.a. “blogs”), television and radio appearances, and occasional gatherings. As a result,the emerging church has grown significant enough to merit “a seat at the table” of numerous ecumenical bodies, including the World Council of Churches.The emerging church has caught the attention of many people in the younger generations (and those in other generations that consider themselves “postmodern”). But ittoo has both its pluses and minuses. As most of the mainline denominations struggle withdeclining attendance, the emerging church, in an attempt to reverse the cycle and relyingheavily on the language, philosophy, and “edginess” of postmodernism and the classicforms and methods of the early and medieval Church is looking very closely atecclesiology and growth (even though church attendance nationwide still dwindles). For all their strengths, neither the modern nor the emerging churches are addressing thespiritual issues of the people in their communities. The future form of the church mayindeed arise out of the emergent church, but not without first taking a closer look attraditional theology, church organization, and the needs of the people. If the Church is tosurvive the transition from modernity through postmodernity, it needs to divest itself fromthe negative modern influences of organizational structure, educational philosophy, andideological violence that comes from utopian models driven by systems while overcomingits fear of death so that it may meet the spiritual needs of the people.
The Ontological/Epistemological Shift
Before beginning the argument of this section, I find it necessary to present acaveat or two. First, some statements are likely to come across as broad generalizations,
 
Final Analysis Scott BouldreyFinal Paper CL590
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especially when referring to generations and generational cohorts. My use of these termsin broad strokes is solely for the purpose of conserving language. Thus, if I were to say,“the members of Generation X reacted thusly,” it should be translated as “there weresignificant enough numbers of individuals within Generation X who reacted in such a waythat it became culturally consequential.” Second, the history presented below is filled withholes and, with due respects to Jean-François Lyotard, comes from my own culturallyconstrained view. However, space is limited, so what I offer is restricted and intended to be only the beginning of a deeper dialogue around the subject.The most common complaint against postmodernism and its philosophy regards itstendency to be indefinable. Most critics choose either to take stands against particular  philosophers (like Jacques Derrida, Jean-François Lyotard, or Michel Foucault) or against particular points of their philosophy (like deconstruction, relativism, or historicism).However, the most valid and thought provoking criticism of postmodernism comes fromits various assertions against modernity and its refusal to offer anything to replacemodernism. Postmodernism may look forward to freedom from the constraints of modernism, but it won’t create a single vision of what that would be or how to get to it. Asright as postmodernism may be about the effects of our contexts and power structures, itstops short of giving its proponents anything to hold on to.Perhaps the answer to that criticism could be found not in the critiques of theauthors or their texts, but rather (to put their own philosophy into use) in the context inwhich these writers found themselves and from which they felt compelled to create thesesame theories.Before delving into history myself, there are a couple of insights offered by Walter Brueggemann and Brian McLaren that bear closer examination and will also come into play at the end of this argument. First, Brueggemann does not take the time to search for  postmodernity’s origins. He is more interested in the results:“…the practice of modernity, of which we are all children, since theseventeenth century has given us a world imagined through the privilege of white,male, Western, colonial hegemony, with all its pluses and minuses…The simpletruth is that this construed world can no longer be sustained, is no longer persuasiveor viable, and we are able to discern no large image in its place” (Brueggemann pg.18).Brueggemann offers no reason for modernity’s demise only recognition of the fact (or, inhis words, “substantive claim”) that its primary form is the end or deep suspicion of thecolonial power structure of the late 20
th
century. He argues that the imagination of modernity has failed “in both its moral-theological and economic-political aspects.” Thechaos that has arisen, then, comes from the deep affection for both the old world and oldway of knowing that comes against the shock and fear of the realization we now have noclear way on how to order ourselves differently or better (pg. 19).Though Brueggemann does not admit to knowing a time or place, Brian McLarenargues that postmodernism started with an intellectual reflection on the Holocaust andcolonialism.“I see the postmodern conversation as a profoundly moral project inintention at least, a kind of corporate repentance among European intellectuals inthe decades after the Holocaust. Coincidentally (or maybe not), at that very postwar moment, one colonized nation after another sought an end to colonial
 
Final Analysis Scott BouldreyFinal Paper CL590
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occupation and exploitation. Each colonial nation had to decide how brutal itwould become in seeking to maintain its control…” (Paggitt and Jones pg. 144).In effect, McLaren argues that the desire to be free of colonizing nations combined withthe colonial nations’ one-two punch of excessive confidence in their civilization and thecertainty of the superiority of their culture, caused violence that had either been overlooked by the colonial nations or dismissed as historical oddities that had nothing to do withanything “inherent in their own cultures, corporate character, or beliefs” (pg. 145). The“moral project” mentioned above was thus the European intellectuals and their attempt toabate this Western overconfidence and violence first with pluralism and later withrelativism.My interest in each of these points stems from the recognition of colonialism andthe violence and hegemony that came from it. These play important roles in currentattitudes of the emerging churches that will be discussed later. But I think that McLaren istoo generous to the “European intellectuals.” After all, the names associated with postmodernism, though French for the most part, also didn’t formulate their mostinfluential thoughts until the 1970s. Also, McLaren failed to consider the minimal effectof those philosophers on Western culture, especially on an American academy that hadseen the decline of philosophy departments dating back to Nietzsche’s declaration of God’sdemise. A closer look at American post-WWII culture proves to be more revealing.Prior to the war, in the depths of the Great Depression, “unity” and its close cousin“conformity” were still well esteemed qualities in American culture. However, in thedepths of WWII, a great number of American GIs saw in Nazi Germany and its deathcamps the dark side of conformity and nationalism. Many returned home with the strictintention of raising their children to be immune to this blind conformity.
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In other words,they would raise non-conformists, and they did so in the largest generation of children theU.S. had known for some time. The Baby Boom Generation and their non-conformitywould manifest itself first in icons like James Dean and sub-cultures of Beatniks, but mostmemorably in the hippies of Haight-Ashbury, Kent State, and Woodstock.It is important to the discussion that follows to remember the dominance of thisatmosphere of non-conformity as we deal with the moral fall of every institution. Prior tothe birth of the Baby Boomers, the culture was one of unity and conformity that may haveyielded different results. But, around 1961, the generally agreed on year that startedGeneration X, unity and conformity had been flipped and institutions (and those who wereconsidered blind supporters of institutions), often referred to as “the man,” were the targetsof rebellion. Nonconformity, even outright rebellion against authority, made an individual“one gone cat.” Can you dig it?Returning now to post-WWII America, the return of civic and economic prosperitycoupled with the rise of the Cold War would have blinded the nation to the irategrumblings of a few European intellectuals. The U.S. found itself tied up in a kind of nationalistic fervor with the McCarthy trials and the Cuban Missile Crisis. But, on November 22, 1963 John F. Kennedy was assassinated. His death started a string of conspiracy theories that continue to this day. The seeds of distrust in the government were
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This very interesting point was given to me by Wendy Lybarger, who, during a conversation revealed thatthis idea was expressed by a WWII veteran during a meeting, and supported by others around theconversation table. Recognizing that one voice and one group does not speak for a whole generation; I stillfound it to be an intriguing piece of the puzzle.
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