Modernity's Legacy-A Two-Edged Sword

MODERNITY'S LEGACY-A TWO-EDGED SWORD

Karl Lusk

MODERNITY: HISTORY AND THEOLOGY

HSST 2198, Spring Semester 2006

May 19, 2006

Purpose of this paper:

This paper will examine some of the key marks of modern church history in terms of the opportunities and challenges it poses today. It will do this in light of the course readings and lectures, but also will examine other sources, particularly those expressed by Stanley Hauerwas, PhD, Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke University.

Preliminary Comments:

In the supplementary reading, "Why Modernity Matters," that began our work in this course, the question is asked, "what kind of account of Christian hope are we prepared to give," in light of a passage from the first letter of Peter: "Always be prepared to give an account of the hope that is in you." For Dr. Johnson and this writer, as well, Christian theology asks a simple, yet profound question: What is the hope of Christian people? Note that this is couched in terms of a group or community, not an individual. The church is the inheritor of modernity's legacy. What, indeed is that legacy?

Modernity's Legacy:

There are a number of items that could be listed as legacies of modernity. I would prefer, writing from a big-picture, wide-angle lens viewpoint, to express modernity's legacy to Christianity as one of offering hope and challenge. Modernity, whether in the thinkers coming from the Age of Enlightenment, the rise of the social gospel, liberation theology, or any of those topics, calls us to question our assumptions, and to not rely solely on dogma, doctrine, or tradition. Modernity called the church to probe, examine, and think about what it means to be Christian.

Some responses to that call has been the rise of fundamentalism, Biblical literalism, racism, classism, sexism, the loss of community, the rise of an ethic of "me, my, and I," to name a few. So, while modernity gave us a new sense of curiosity and challenge, it has also given us a reactionary response to many of its gifts. Part of modernity's legacy is the creation of defense mechanisms against it that exist to perpetuate the old system, in which the church has been politicized. The church, rather than being about the politic of Jesus and his kingdom, can, and in some instances, has become, a slave to worldly politics.

This has become an acute problem in this country. Conservative, evangelical, and fundamentalist Christians tend to believe they are to fulfill their calling through that particular arm of government called the Republican Party. The mainline church, mobilized by the call to "preach" the social gospel and embrace liberation theology, often has been allied with the Democratic Party. Stanley Hauerwas, writing in his essay, "The Servant Community," believes these are flawed responses that distort the church's mission to the world in this postmodern age. He writes, "...the first social ethical task of the church is to be the church-the servant community." He continues, "...the church does not have a social ethic; it is a social ethic."

He believes the church is called to be a community of peace and truth in a world of fear. His worldview, and, I think the worldview the church in the postmodern world must adopt, is one in which the world is God's world, God's good creation. If, indeed, Christians are to bring hope and to be hopeful themselves, they must be a people with a fervent hope that sustains the world and themselves.

Hauerwas believes that the first question we must ask is not "what should we do," as church in the postmodern world, but "what is going on"? As noted above, while the gospel is political, it is not allied with secular politics, often characterized by insufficient politics based upon coercion and falsehood. The politics of the kingdom, as it were, are based not upon power and control, but upon servanthood. This premise owes much to the legacy of modernity, coming from H. Richard Neibuhr, who was influenced by Frederich Schleiermacher and, to a lesser extent, Karl Barth.

If we ask the question Hauerwas poses, to determine how the church can overcome the problems of modernity, and reclaim something of the positive in its legacy, there are several observations. First, the sense of individual responsibility encouraged and sometimes taken to extremes via modernity needs to be rethought. The church is the community of faith; to be credible and useful in the postmodern period, it must understand that it is called to develop its gifts to serve the community of faith and be a beacon in the world. It must be counter cultural; it cannot be the culture simply mated with prayer and theological language. There must be a demonstrable difference, wherein we seek not so much to be effective or successful, but rather faithful. We are, then, called to be a people who "live out of control" in the sense that we must assume and allow God to use our faithfulness to make God's kingdom a reality in the world, in God's good time.

In the postmodern world, Mennonite theologian J. H. Yoder believes, we are called as church to renounce the illusion that we are here to make history come out right. I share that belief. This illusion is one of the problems arising from the response to the modern project. It is perhaps the premise that has given rise to a particularly Western idea that the United States and/or other first world countries are God's chosen people, tasked and called to write history as it should be.

How, then, might we take the lessons, both positive and negative, of the modern period, and begin to think about how the church can connect with the world in this period? One way to think about this is to see the church as a called, otherworldly community, restating Hauerwas' premise. In Paul's letter to the faith community at Ephesus, there are a number of references to such a church. We can also find similar references in the letter to the Galatians and the Johannine epistles. So, perhaps it would be well for the postmodern church to consider that this era is much like that of the