{"id":285,"date":"2014-02-02T22:18:16","date_gmt":"2014-02-02T21:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/?p=285"},"modified":"2014-02-02T22:18:16","modified_gmt":"2014-02-02T21:18:16","slug":"post-modernism-and-post-christendom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/?p=285","title":{"rendered":"Post-Modernism and Post-Christendom"},"content":{"rendered":"

To be effective in our mission, the church needs to understand the changing world around us. This study describes the ways the world is changing and poses some questions for the future of the church.<\/p>\n

“Church is what you did on Sundays before they invented garden centres.” (Victoria Wood)<\/p>\n

That simple statement is a brilliantly perceptive analysis of how many people nowadays regard church. Church is something you do, an activity. It is something restricted to one particular day of the week. It is something that has been superseded by garden centres, or car boot sales, or shopping malls or, take your pick really, because that is what people have done in our pick-and-mix, consumerist society. Church is now an option \u2013 just one choice among very many.<\/p>\n

Post-Modernism and Post-Christendom<\/p>\n

The world we live in is changing ever more rapidly. Family used to mean a collection of individuals linked by biology. It became a collection of individuals gathered around a TV set. It developed into a set of bedrooms arranged around a refrigerator. Now family has become a network of computers which share a broadband connection (wirelessly). People are much more mobile \u2013 they may move homes and cities many times. Employees of the computer giant IBM call the company \u201cI\u2019ve Been Moved.\u201d Patterns of employment have changed. Women are no longer stay-at-home wives and mothers. Few people expect a job for life. Increasing divorce rates and single parenting by choice are changing family life. Television has transformed leisure time. In the last ten years the internet, text messaging, instant messaging and webcams have transformed communications. As a result of all these twentieth century \u201cadvances\u201d society is much more fragmented. Community based on geography is vanishing. People\u2019s lives are becoming increasingly insular, self-centred and individualistic.
\nWe live in a culture dominated by consumerism, where people expect the right to choose and satisfaction guaranteed every time. These expectations extend beyond shopping to morality, relationships and even religion. I\u2019ll explain more about this in a moment.
\n \u201cModern\u201d understandings rooted in the Enlightenment are increasingly rejected and a \u201cPost-Modern\u201d culture is emerging. There is a distrust of authority and \u201cthe establishment\u201d in education, politics and law and order. Certainty is replaced by questioning \u2013 the only thing post-modernists are certain of is that you can\u2019t be certain about anything any more. Many people reject any idea of absolute or objective truth \u2013 everything is relative. Everybody is entitled to their own truth. There is no over-arching \u201cgrand story\u201d or big picture. Everybody has their own story and their own little picture which are considered equally valid.
\nChristendom, a culture where everybody shared a common Christian faith and values, is being replaced by a multicultural, multi-faith society where Christianity is only one option amongst many (although of course that is exactly how it was in the beginning of the Early Church). The culture everybody once shared is being replaced by multitudes of diverging emerging cultures. <\/p>\n

Nationwide challenges to the gospel<\/p>\n

Britain is no longer a Christian country! But so often churches and Christians try to live as if it was! We live in a rapidly changing world. God calls His church to be \u201cthe people of the future\u201d but too often we live as \u201cpeople of the past\u201d. The last 30 or 40 years have seen enormous changes in the world around. Sociologists describe these changes in three major areas.<\/p>\n

SECULARISATION \u2013 the declining influence of Christianity and Christian values, decreasing importance of the church in the lives and thinking of ordinary people. We live in a \u201cdisenchanted\u201d world, where worship of God has been replaced by science and technology. Now if people are looking for spiritual experiences, they no longer look to the church but rather to the occult and the New Age.<\/p>\n

PLURALISATION \u2013 Christianity is no longer the only, or even the dominant faith. It is now seen only as
\none option amongst many on offer in the supermarket of beliefs. Political correctness now forbids Christians from claiming that Christ is the only way to God. Some local authorities are now removing Bibles and Christian symbols like the cross from places like hospitals and schools and prisons, ostensibly for fear of upsetting the other religions. <\/p>\n

PRIVATISATION \u2013 our lives are becoming more and more isolated, local community and even family life are being replaced by the anonymity of \u201csociety\u201d and the individualism which encourages us to communicate with strangers across the globe by phone and text and email, when we don\u2019t even know the names of the people who live across the street. Faith is squeezed into our private lives \u2013 as the media portray Christianity as outdated and irrelevant.
\nAgainst these international giants of Secularisation and Pluralisation and Privatisation (and also Consumerism) it is very easy for Christians to be discouraged! Against such giants, God calls us to stand up for the historical truths of our faith and to give the world an example of true community, to believe what we preach and preach what we believe! We have GOOD NEWS \u2013 how can we keep it to ourselves?<\/p>\n

Local Challenges to the gospel in North Springfield<\/p>\n

MATERIALISM \u2013 very many people in North Springfield have plenty. They don\u2019t just have enough to survive. They don\u2019t just have enough to be content. Most people in North Springfield have more than enough and plenty to spare. Of cash. Of possessions. Of money in the bank to guard them for a rainy day. Very many people never consider whether they need treasures in heaven because they have plenty of treasures on earth. They are not necessarily trapped by greed, which is idolatry. They are simply deceived all the earthly goods they possess into thinking that there isn\u2019t anything more to search for. Instead of possessing their goods, their goods possess them! The God-shaped-gap in their hearts is buried under career and hobbies and holidays and entertainments and \u201cthings\u201d.<\/p>\n

BUSYNESS \u2013 even if people in North Springfield do start thinking about the ultimate questions of life and eternity, those questions get squeezed out by sheer busyness. Commuting. Hobbies. The demands of family life rushing to get the children to three places as once. The pace of life here means that nobody has time to reflect on spiritual things.
\n\t\u201cWhat is this life, so full of care? We have no time to stop and stare!\u201d<\/p>\n

COMPLACENCY \u2013 the people around us, our neighbours and friends, are not usually people who are struggling to cope with life. They are not usually burdened with guilt looking for somebody to forgive them, because most haven\u2019t ever done anything particularly bad. They are not ground down with poverty. Most aren\u2019t trapped in alcoholism or drug abuse. Most people in Brentwood are living satisfying, contented lives. They don\u2019t worry about what will happen when they die, because life here and now has been generally good to them. Most people are happy non-believers. They never ever ask the really important questions of life \u2013 where did I come from, why am I here, who created me, does God really exist? They never see the need to think about questions like that. They are not trapped by obvious sin, but simply by complacency.
\nAgainst the giants of materialism and busyness and complacency the church must be BOLD to proclaim the gospel. God is God Almighty, Creator and Sustainer of the universe! God deserves to be worshipped! Jesus Christ is risen from the dead and exalted at God\u2019s right hand! The gospel is not an offer which people can choose to accept or reject. The gospel is an announcement which demands our obedience. Jesus is Lord! And EVERY knee must bow!<\/p>\n

I have attempted to summarise the major changes in the Western world over the last 25 to 50 years. This changing culture raises all kinds of questions for churches. The world is changing \u2013 how should the church be changing too? The church cannot continue just as it was in the 20th Century if it wants to be effective in mission in the 21st Century. What was entirely right and still worked 50 or even 20 years ago may not work any more because the world has changed. <\/p>\n

Here are some of the challenges.
\n\u2022\tHow do we \u201cpreach\u201d to people who have rejected ideas of objective truth or authority?
\n\u2022\tHow can people worship together when their preferences in music have no overlap?
\n\u2022\tWhat kind of worship and learning will be meaningful to people who have replaced reading with visual images and multimedia?
\n\u2022\tHow can we reach out to people when their network of relationships has nothing at all to do with geography? In such a world \u201cWho is my neighbour?\u201d
\n\u2022\tHow can we talk about God as Father and the church as Family when very many people have very different and sometimes very negative experiences of these things?
\n\u2022\tIn this \u201centertainment age\u201d only \u201cmega-churches\u201d can compete with the professionals in music and multimedia. Is there any hope for small churches like NSBC?
\n\u2022\tIn this success-oriented world of \u201cinstant everything\u201d how can we share the gospel of a suffering dying Saviour whose triumph only came through failure?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To be effective in our mission, the church needs to understand the changing world around us. This study describes the ways the world is…<\/span><\/p>\n

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