Recently I had two spiritual conversations within the span of one hour.
The first conversation was with a thoughtful gentlemen from the World War 2 generation. He attends a United Methodist Church, well...religiously. After a short while it was clear that he was deeply disconcerted about how Paul and the apostles had portrayed Jesus after his death. He took particular exception to Paul's assertion that if Jesus Christ had not risen from the dead then our faith was futile. "St. Paul was wrong!" he argued vehemently. He had come to accept the resurrection story as a myth and was doing his best to still glean what was good from the Christian religion. Given his modernist presuppositional faith commitments, resurrection just couldn't have happened.
A short while later, I pursued a conversation with a thoughtful 20-something who is Jewish but has a deeply post-modern and pluralistic religious worldview. In her post-modern paradigm, the world is deeply spiritual and all of life is pregnant with spiritual experiences and possibilities. As I talked about the resurrection with her, it was no big deal that Jesus was raised from the dead. She could gladly believe that--maybe lots of people had been or would be raised from the dead. There's no limit to the amazing things that could happen in the deeply spiritual universe! And so the Christian story of Christ's resurrection wasn't particularly unique or troubling; nor was what happened particularly revolutionary or universally determining. She had prior faith commitments that would not allow her to consider the claims of Christ as unique.
Modernity put religion in a box. Post-modernity has smashed the box, lit it on fire, and has run screaming as far and as fast as possible in the other direction. For every action (modernity) there is an equal and opposite over-reaction (post-modernity).
But they both have one thing in common.
It's crucial to see that both of these folks, along with the rest of us, had ultimate faith commitments that then subjugated other faith commitments. My WW II friend's faith commitment to a modernist view of a rational universe subjugated the Christian story of Jesus' bodily resurrection. My Jewish friend's faith commitment to a pluralistic, universal experience of the same God(s) in various forms has subjugated her Jewish upbringing and how she understands Yahweh. My faith commitment to democracy and a free-market economy is subjugated by my faith commitment to following Christ. None of us is entirely consistent, but all of us have ultimate faith commitments, inlcuding the faith commitment to having no faith commitment at all.
Figuring out how to communicate (and more imporantly in a post-modern culture to embody and help others experience) the Christian faith in our new context is the kind of stuff that I like to think about at night when I should be counting sheep.
I know, I know, I probably need professional help.
2 comments:
But since you are a professional yourself, you don't have to go anywhere!
that post-modern school of thought was so ingrained in me growing up, it's interesting to see it described as smashing the box, lighting it on fire. Especially when I imagine either of the UU ministers I knew doing the smashing, lighting and running, though I think in my mind they'd be more likely to stand around, swaying and singing kumbaya and replacing "oh lord" with something different each time, so as not to step on anyone's toes!
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