Friedrich Nietzsche’s superMan, Zarathoustra, led the way into the 20th century declaring, “God is dead!” Religion, though not expunged, had been pushed out of the public arena relegated to the private sphere. (Religion was culpable from the Crusades and the Inquisition, thus synonymous with hypocrisy, torture and bloodshed — see January 2006 blogs.)
Reason, rather than religion, would lead the way into the future. The modernist motto was, “There will be war no more!” Man would no longer be exploited by other men. The modernist promise was that ideology-embodying institutions would create a utopia-on-earth on behalf of the autonomous individual.
Does not the posture of the men in this poster reveal that man was serving Progress and not vice versa?
What happened? Under the reign of Human Reason, the world experienced the greatest collective bloodbath in the history of mankind, leaving 113 million dead (not counting Stalin's massacres because that toll is unknown).
A great disillusionment was ushered in because modern Man with his noble ideology, technology, transportation, medicine, and a progressive understanding of history… created highly efficient means of killing men before they could die from the diseases that modern medicine could not heal.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn summed up the 20th century by saying, “the most optimistic century ended as the most cannibalistic.” Instead of ushering in utopia-on-earth, Modernism's Intellect/reason developed ideology-embodying institutions that created hell-on-earth for the autonomous individual. Modernist fruit thus revealed itself to be rotten to the core:
- Man’s intelligence proved impotent in the face of famine and AIDS.
- Reason devised Auschwitz and other ideology-embodying death camps ("the death industry" as Zygmunt Bauman put it).
- Individualism led to isolation.
For a glimpse into the postmodern dark mood toward modernism's promises about the fruit of man's intellect / reason, ideology-embodying institutions and the true value of the autonomous individual in society, decode the symbols in Pink Floyd's video clip "Just Another Brick in the Wall" — train, teacher, school, facelessness, meat grinder:
Next up: SO WHAT? Did the twentieth century evangelical church espouse modernism thus becoming a reason-led, individualistic, ideology-embodying institution?
2 comments:
This sounds like a great series! Don't keep us waiting too long!
Hey Gary,
Thanks for your enthusiasm (and I will indeed try to stay on top of the blog!) One of the inspirations for this series was an obvious, yet revelatory breakthrough that came through reflection on Ephesians 5, the bride and groom metaphor / reality.
The Bride is still preparing and being prepared for Her wedding day. If, whether wittingly or not, the local church does not change, is it not a tacit claim to having already attained perfection? No one would say that. But lack of change, due to fear of the future, fear of slipping from a Scriptural foundation, fear of… relegates the local church to an imperfect status quo that is contrary to Jesus desire for His bride. Thus, the local church must morph in faith, willingly participating in the Spirit’s work of collective sanctification.
Thanks so much for the encouragement. I too am looking forward to this series! Looking up, paul
Post a Comment