{"id":27489,"date":"2021-04-26T10:30:10","date_gmt":"2021-04-26T17:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=27489"},"modified":"2021-04-26T08:16:36","modified_gmt":"2021-04-26T15:16:36","slug":"awakening-to-a-new-old-way-of-being-woke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/awakening-to-a-new-old-way-of-being-woke\/","title":{"rendered":"Awakening to a New (Old) Way of Being Woke"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Explaining Postmodernism” is written by a professor of philosophy and seeks to make sense of why today\u2019s society finds it difficult, if not impossible, to handle complex questions and function in ambiguity using methods like logic, reason, and rules for debate instead of resorting to extremist activism and identity politics. Stephen Hicks argues that the failure of socialism is the root cause and lays the blame squarely at the feet of those on the left.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

Hicks postulates that when socialist movements failed to gain traction, the Left- the side historically associated with reason, logic, and science- abandoned facts for feelings. Postmodernists believe that facts and reason are no longer as reliable guides as feelings and passion. These feelings often manifest itself in rage, power, guilt, lust, and dread. But it is important to distinguish that it is not independent individuals who determine which feelings are most necessary, but identities develop in group membership- racial, sexual, economic, and ethic.<\/p>\n

There is much about postmodernism to be suspicious and concerned about. First and foremost, the abandonment of reason. My friend Dylan Branson once said that cancel culture was essentially \u201cintellectual genocide,\u201d[2]<\/a> as we learn to dismiss and deny any argument, position, or behavior we do not like, rather than engage, interrogate, and debate for the purpose of greater understanding, both of the issue and of the other person. But Hicks\u2019 argument comes up short for me when he wants pin the whole problem on one particular ideological side.<\/p>\n

It is not as if the Right has demonstrated any greater capacity for rational, reasonable, logical conversation that is rooted in a sincere desire to discover truth and a respect for the perspective and life experience of others in the conversation. Conservatives and Progressives alike have shown their willingness to trade facts for emotions when it comes to their tactics for winning the hearts and minds of the masses. Each side is perfectly capable of ignoring inconvenient truths, forgetting the inconsistencies in their own actions and behaviors, demonizing anyone who might think differently, and doing their best to fan the flames of outrage, conspiracies, and suspicion.<\/p>\n

I would love to simply say, \u201ca pox on both their houses\u201d and be done with it. But it is not that simple. The genie is out of the bottle. Pandora\u2019s box has been opened. I see this playing out within my family- among aging parents and college-aged children. The struggle is real within my church as people wrestle not only with how to be good Christians and good members of their political parties, but also good United Methodist Christians whose theology and faith practice does not always align with those of other Christian traditions.<\/p>\n

But one of the greatest challenges for the preacher in the postmodern era comes from the \u201ctyranny of the urgent\u201d and expectations that weekly Sunday sermons must always respond to whatever social crisis may have occurred during the week. This is not to say that weekly sermons should not be relevant. Evangelist Billy Graham would proudly declare that he would preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.<\/p>\n

But today\u2019s trend in the aftermath of a social crisis is for an activist-minded person to take to social media and essentially demand and prescribe the topic for preachers, without any regard for context or circumstance. Most of the time it sounds like this: \u201cIf your pastor doesn\u2019t talk about ____ this Sunday, it\u2019s time to find a new church.\u201d Thus the pressure increases for a reactionary sermon that may or may not be the word of the Lord a given congregation needs on a particular Sunday. Even the most undefended, differentiated pastors cannot help but grow weary.<\/p>\n

Again, it is not always that an issue should not be addressed. There are certainly appropriate times for a preacher to rewrite a sermon to confront a crisis or community challenge. And there are often other ways for a congregation to acknowledge something important outside of proclamation. The challenge in this postmodern era is how quickly an individual\u2019s issue can take over the narrative and the attempts at shaming anyone who either has a different perspective or a different agenda.<\/p>\n

The driving question for me as a pastor in the church is, what is our witness? Ultimately, our work is to invite people into a relationship with Jesus and point people to his truth, even when truth is seen as relative. We invite people to wrestle with the deep questions of life and faith and to stand on the \u201csolid rock\u201d of Christ. It would be nice to be trusted to faithfully live into my calling and giftedness to do that in ways that fit my context without the judgment. Personally, I am tired of the gamesmanship of who can be the most woke. I would rather us all wake up to the reality that we will never grow together if our only options in a disagreement are to walk away or yell louder or demand lock-step compliance.<\/p>\n

The way I remember the gospels is that Jesus came to be an embodiment of God\u2019s love for the world. The whole world. And somewhere in there, he invited his followers to do the same.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Stephen R. C. Hicks, \u201cExplaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foccault,\u201d (Ockham\u2019s Razor Publishing, 2011.)<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Dylan threw this out in one of our doctoral cohort Zoom chats (Portland Seminary, DMIN Leadership and Global Perspectives) in March 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Explaining Postmodernism” is written by a professor of philosophy and seeks to make sense of why today\u2019s society finds it difficult, if not impossible, to handle complex questions and function in ambiguity using methods like logic, reason, and rules for debate instead of resorting to extremist activism and identity politics. Stephen Hicks argues that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1766],"class_list":["post-27489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-stephen-hicks","cohort-lgp10"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/133"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27489"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27501,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27489\/revisions\/27501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}