Post-post Modernism — What in the word is happening?

[Recommend reading Part 1 first]

I found this an interesting concept. What should we expect next, what will the philosophy of man come up with in the not to distant future?

I have been reading my old philosophy books, I have dusted them off and pulled them from the shelves of my bookcase. Rattled my brain over pages of material in the search for some sense. One point made in a book that I have is this – 'Philosophy is not what you know, but how you think. The point of philosophy is to frame the right questions, not to find the right answers'.

I chuckled to myself, thinking McLaren has been reading this book!!! It seems to me that McLaren and others like him treat the Word of God as a philosophical book rather than a book that has all the answers for mankind to be redeemed. Once you denigrate the Book of God to a book of men writing about God you will never find the answers, you will only have more questions. One thing that I have learnt, and the one thing that I tell my son who is a recent believer is this: The Bible is Gods Word to man, not man's word about God. It is absolutely imperative to get that straight otherwise you will come away with more questions than you do answers and the reason being is that you have taken away all authority of God Breathed scripture and made it fallible mans opinion (see here here and here)

While searching the net, I have found that people are becoming increasingly agitated because post-modernism has been found and left wanting. This is being seen within the emergent movement. Words words words and more words — but action — None! …Oh….What to do?

I have posted on this subject before here, and I am continuing the journey that I have set upon in trying to see what will the world look like next? What will be the next big thing?
Post-modernism left off where modernism ended. Modernism used Rational to explain away everything. There were no miracles, rationality could explain them away, and in a sense rationality's main attack against the Christian was an attack against a Creator God and modernism laughed at anyone who believed in the Supernatural God. The split between the pre-modern man who believed in the Supernatural and the modern man came because it was not rational to believe in anything super-natural or unseen. Darwinism took hold and science was the all important thing and everything else was purely regarded as being superstitious.Now let's go forward to where post-modernism comes in to play. Because of this split between the Supernatural and rationality, faith in the Supernatural then became spiritualized, mystical , subjective and esoteric. I have taken a quote from a new site that I have been reading called Herescope.

[...]20th century man has divorced spirituality from rationality. His "upper story" shows how man has spiritualized faith to become mystical and non-rational. Therefore faith has become esoteric, unmeasurable, irrational, and subject to mystical experiences[...]

This is being seen in many ecumenical evangelical movements across the globe, it can be read in blogs everywhere. It is designed to meet individualistic needs of our changing world and promote the spiritual self (ego/id) in all its subjective understanding of its own world. I have posted before on McLaren and how he has recommended the author/philosopher Ken Wilber's book 'The theory of Everything', you can find that post here, I recommend you read it so you can gain a better understanding about the times in which we live. McLaren's book 'A Generous Orthodoxy' quotes Ken Wilber's book 'The Great Chain of Being' when he talks about the emergent kingdom being a lager reality where all things are nested together!

Consider the possibility that all things are nested in a larger reality. In A Generous Orthodoxy, Brain McLaren notes "The Great Chain of Being" articulated by philosopher Ken Wilber:

• 1.Space and Time: the primal creation in which everything emerges.
• 2.Inanimate Matter: the domain of physics and chemistry in space and time.
• 3.Microbiotic and Plant Life: the domain of microbiology and botany, which embraces domains 1 and 2 and adds life.
• 4.Animal Life: the domains of zoology, which comprises domains 1 through 3 and adds increasing levels of sentience and intelligence.
• 5.Human Life: the domain of anthropology and psychology and art and ethics, which comprises domains 1 through 4 and adds increasing levels of consciousness and culture.
• 6.Spiritual Life: the domain of awareness of God, accessed through theology and spirituality and mysticism, which encompasses domains 1 through 5, and adds the experience of the sacred and conscious relationship with God.

Coupled with the Ken Wilber's understanding of integral contemplative christianity (a must see to beleive link) and what to expect from Wilber's idealistic future of Religion, the above begins to look very scary. The trouble with Ken Wilber's 'Theory of Everything' is this, to understand integral spirituality, you have to not just understand but you have to Know …and understand Nothing. Confused… yep me too. I will quote Wilber:

…unless you have that emptiness as your fundamental background, then you're basically just talking about the manifest world itself and playing in finite forms. Then your idea of spirituality is merely saving that finite form: "We don't want the earth to croak." Well, that's fine. But who were you before the earth was born? Who were you before the big bang? What is this emptiness that never enters the stream of time? Spirituality, integral spirituality, certainly has to include a profound realization of the unborn, the unmanifest, the timeless, the spaceless, combined with a reverence for the world of form—all of it, ecological, personal, global, and so on. My experience is that people tend to err on one side or the other. Either they get into this transcendental purity that doesn't care about the earth and Gaia, or they merely identify with Gaia and they forget the unborn. What we want to try to do, of course, is include both. So that's my overview on some of the essentials that we would want to include in an integral approach to the topic.

uh…Yeah… and McLaren likes this guy! The Theory of Everything turns out to be a whole load of Nothing!!!

Stay tuned folks… we're in for one hell of a ride!

Important integral quotes:

Karl Rahner, the noted Christian theologian, once remarked that “the Christian of tomorrow will be a mystic, or not a Christian at all.” Integral Contemplative Christianity unites the transcendent beauty and wisdom of the Christian contemplative tradition with AQAL (All Quadrants, All Lines), the leading-edge map of human consciousness and development. Co-presented by Fr. Thomas Keating and teachers from Integral Institute, the seminar will explore St. Paul’s statement, “Let the same consciousness that was in Christ Jesus be within you as well.” Christians today are at an historic crossroads. The mystical tradition of the Church, neglected to some extent over the past centuries, has begun to be rediscovered. At the same time, the insights of modern and postmodern psychology and philosophy have presented both an enormous challenge and a remarkable opportunity to Christians. @Integral Training – Integral Contemplative Christianity

Ken Wilber's web-site: Ken Wilber: Welcome

Ken Wilber's Shambhala – (Shambhala is a mystical kingdom thought to be between the east and western thought) this site has many articles to download.

Ken Wilber's Personal Integral Life Program (Take note of the shadow – I will have more to post on that at some later date)

For more related posts see Emerging Church Category

Part 2

Filed under: Christianity, Emerging Church, History, Philosophy & Religion, Theology