Ministry in a Postmodern World

1. Ministry in a Postmodern World Brad Cecil1999

2. Manuscript/Oral Communication • 312 Constantine unites Rome & converts to Christianity • 325 Nicene Creed • 400 St. Augustine • 800’s John the Scot • 1033 St. Anselm Prosologian • 1256 St. Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica Medieval Period 2000 1000 Mystical

3. God is the Author

4. 1452 Gutenberg Print Press • 1492 Columbus • 1517 Luther • German Bible • 1543 Copernicus Helio Centric • 1564 Galileo • 1588 Spanish Armada • 1611 KJV • 1644 Descartes Principles -Cogito ergo Sum Modern Period 2000 1000 Empirical

5. Man is the Author

6. Late Modernity • 1872 Darwin – man attempts to explain his origin • 1842-1910 James – The Science of Religion • 1859-1952 Dewey – Humanist Manifesto • 1856-1939 Freud – “man creates God” • 1882 Nietzsche – The Gay Science “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.” • 1908-1970 Maslow – Hierarchy of Needsman attempts to explain his behavior and human motivation • Radical Individualism • Consumerism 2000 1000

7. Postmodern Turn • HyperText/Internet – transforms communication • Foucault – The Discourse on Language • Derrida – Deconstruction • Rorty – Objectivity, Relativism and Truth • Popular Culture - Contact, The Sixth Sense, Dogma, Touched by An Angel, Mysterious Ways, Conversations with God, The Celestine Prophecy, Oprah, Garth Brooks as Chris Gains, etc 2000 1000 Enlightened Mysticism

8. Modern Foundational Epistemology Enlightenment Project Objective Truth Scientific Dualistic (Secular/Sacred) Empirical Postmodern Post-foundational epistemology – Web of Belief Deconstruction Project Subjective Truth and/or no truth Mystical Holistic Experiential

9. Postmodernity • Not a life stage • Not a generational issue exclusive to Gen X and Gen Y • Primarily a shift in epistemology – the way people process information and view the world • Not only is this not a life stage or generational issue but it soon will become the dominant epistemology!

10. Modern Primarily through Teaching Reduction of the Arts (distract from teaching) Reduction of Mystical & Symbolic Elements Individualistic Postmodern Primarily Experiential Participatory Integration of the Arts Integration of Mystical & Symbolic Elements Communitarian Spiritual Formation

11. Modern Truth Ideas Information Postmodern Experience Relationships Transformational

12. The New Self “From a self thought of as an object built up through cumulative effort to a present oriented self, realized, discovered, and actualized in a continual process.” The New Community The new concept does not allow the individual to exist prior to a community. Individuals can only be who they are by virtue of the role they fill and the ongoing tradition of those roles. Community is not collection of similar individuals; it is rather, individuals who participate in complementary interaction. It is the individuals differences rather than their similarities that enable them to contribute.

13. Faith is Back!! “The most explosive power in many forms of postmodern thought is the return of the Ultimate repressed by the Enlightenment – the return of religion as a phenomenon demanding new attention, new description, and, of course, new critique.” David Tracy Fragments, God the Gift and Postmodernism “That postmodern turn toward the mystics has yielded one of the most surprising developments in contemporary philosophical and theological thought: the amazing return of religion as the most feared other of Enlightenment modernity.”

14. Missional Context We must think like missionaries again! Learning a new language, in a new culture, with new ways of thinking and understanding. For a while ministry may be “bi-lingual” but it will soon require a mastery of the language, culture, and thinking.