I think globalization is the driving force behind postmodernism. Globalization is powered by the media which is both driven by and catered to a new urban world. This new “global village” that we live in means that ironically people living in Minneapolis have more in common with people living around the world in Tokyo than with people living a few hours away in Cushing. Globalization and urbanization bring seemingly disparate cultures together in a way that makes it more cross-cultural to go across the state than it is to go across the world. I have lived among people of many different cultures in urban centers and living in Cushing has truly been the most cross-cultural experience I have had. The cultural divide is not one of race or economics, but of how one views the world, their place in it, and God’s relationship with it.
However, the fact that we now live in a “global village” means that urbanization now reaches into even the most remote areas of the world so that you can find pockets of postmodern thought sprinkled throughout America’s farmland, Africa’s savannahs, and South America’s jungles. Such “sprinkling” heightens the tensions between generations. Now, not only are the generations separated by age, technological advances and cultural shifts, but by a completely different way of looking at and understanding the world around them.
Of course many people in America’s small towns and country have never even heard the word “postmodern” – let alone, understand what it means – and they certainly would not consider themselves to be “postmodern.” Nevertheless, little by little as more and more people move from the cities out to the rural areas, and more and more “country kids” attend universities, and the rural areas become more and more connected to the global village, postmodern thought seeps into our rural schools, churches and families, which creates a philosophical/theological bifurcation of seismic proportions.
Imagine a church that has people who look at the world in two completely different ways (this is more like a continuum than an either/or):
Modern Post-modern
Autonomy/individuality Community
Reason Experience
Religion Spirituality
Dualistic (mind & body separate) Holistic (mind, soul & body together)
Absolute truth Relative truths
Take for instance the classic divisive issue in rural churches – music. Now this is a multi-faceted issue that stirs many emotions in people, but for the sake of this discussion I’d like to transcend the usual topics of style and generational preferences to cast the issue in the light of a post/modern ethos.
To the modern thinker, church music is a means of engaging the individual mind in a way that reasonably validates the absolute truth of their religion. But for the postmodern thinker, church music is a means of expressing with the whole self the spiritual experiences of the community which becomes another communal experience in and of itself. I would argue that these two very different understandings – not just of music, but of the world – are at the root of many of the tensions and divisions that we are seeing in today’s rural church communities.
Of course, there is a spiritual dynamic and many tensions may be the result of just good old fashioned sin. But how do we get people who serve the same God, love the same God and love each other, but just plain view the world through a different set of glasses to understand each other and share a common vision for reaching a world that the other doesn’t see?
You wrote, “But how do we get people who serve the same God, love the same God and love each other, but just plain view the world through a different set of glasses to understand each other and share a common vision for reaching a world that the other doesn’t see?”
My experience is that people within a shared culture in their community will not recognize a different way of viewing the world. They will not understand that the stranger thinks differently and so should be tolerated beyond what you would tolerate in a brief visit. They will only see that the stranger does everything wrong. When such a person looks the same and seems the same, but lives among them and does things so differently people feel that he/she must be doing so on purpose just to annoy everyone with his/her rudeness and uppitiness. They cannot know it is just a different way of having been brought up and educated, a different culture.
In Kenya I was a white visitor and obviously from another place so was treated kindly, but offended many people because I didn’t conform to their expectations. Because it is a multi-cultural society even in the rural areas most people understand differences better than people in USA small communities may. Still, the recent bloodshed in Kenya was partially from built up resentment for one people over another, one world view against another, pastoralists against farmers for example.
I really don’t think the gap between generations and cultures can be completely bridged because people’s brains are literally wired differently and it takes a great deal of grace, knowledge, humility, and love for adventure and novelty for people to even be willing to do it “wrong.” I guess that’s why the BGC is usually so careful to help people find the right “fit.” The fit means the same culture, the same way of viewing the world. I thought your family would be just the person they wanted because there was such a contingent of younger attendees. I think you definitely did appeal to them. Even though you didn’t fit in, you clearly were trying to understand their ways and they seemed to appreciate it.
The older folks, particularly those who developed before rock and roll, long for the old hymns because they are “so beautiful and meaningful.” Also they remind us of our home and family as we were growing up and developing. Also loud music distorts in our ears as the hearing mechanism deteriorates. We may say and feel like it’s too loud, but it’s our own ears that are not functioning as well as they used to. So, why do we have the TV up so loud the neighbors can hear it?! Same reason, different motivations.
No, I doubt you will ever get the generations to agree with one another on worship music, but it’s more likely as time progresses, as you intimated. But then Satan will find something else for us to harass each other with.
I sure enjoyed talking with you and am sorry you were sick. You didn’t seem to be. I had a flu shot so I doubt I will catch it, but if I do, I will enjoy having a great excuse to lay around and read.
I’ll just quote Anne Lamott, cause I’m lazy.
“You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”
PS. I love that you used bifurcate in a sentence. Awesome!