at mission 21 graham cray pronounced postmodernism as over (or words to that effect) and suggested that the new cultural landscape had arrived. it was part of quite a provocative address all round which i quite liked – always good to get everyone going. anyhow i keep thinking about it and i have decided i simply don’t agree… i kind of understand what graham is getting at – we can’t just remain post for ever not knowing what the new cultural landsacpe looks like, but on the other hand we can’t be too hasty if indeed it is still taking shape. other large cultural turns took a long time after all.
anyway all this is by way of a preamble to a book review. doug gay, whose opinion i always respect and listen to carefully e-mailed me and rang me to enthuse about jamie smith’s book whose afraid of postmodernism. he said something like this is the book that captures the moment. in fact let me dig out his e-mail –
just needed a moment to rave to some interested bods about Jamie Smith’s new book Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? Taking Derrida, Lyotard and Foucault to Church – Baker Academic.
I have to say that in one slim volume this seems to have caught what a lot us are groping after more directly than anything else I have yet read. Personally I would sell your shirts and get it (you’ll read it in an evening) And he’s a Brethren boy like me! Risking the derision of his Rad-Orth buddies he also makes a fascinating attempt to connect his thinking to the legacy of Schaeffer and Doyeweerd.
high praise eh? (most of you may not have heard of dooyeweerd – but he was a genius philosopher…)
anyway i have got hold of the book and it is excellent. there’s a chapter engaging with each of foucault, derrida, and lyotard, using a film to get into the issues. he takes a pretty positive engagement with the philosophers – refreshing for christian authors, but also not afraid to offer his own critique. i’m reminded of a little booklet i read many years ago called ‘ideas have legs‘ by al wolters which basically showed the importance of philosophy because it shapes the way people live – delighted to say i found it online – he says for example –
Ideas have legs in the sense that they are not the disembodied
abstractions of some ivory-tower academic, but are real spiritual forces
that go somewhere, that are on the march in somebody’s army, and that
have a widespread effect on our practical, everyday lives.
while for many, engaging these postmodern thinkers may seem an academic irrelevance, this book shows how true it is that ideas do have legs and the postmodern landscape we are living in is far from over, dare i say contrary to what bishop cray’s current take is…
on another note if you are visiting the blog from the durham summer school – hi! good to be with you yesterday. i enjoyed the sessions and the worship – hope it provokes some good stuff…
It was good to join your multi media worship at the Durham Summer School last night. You have inspired all sorts of ideas, as the other fresh expressions people have. I like the bit about ideas having legs, mine seem to be on a marathon run right now. Some of the ideas will burn out but I can see a lot of the ideas for new ways of worship really taking off in North East and elsewhere I am sure. And of course sharing ideas and the practicalities is fantastic.
I have gone to the durham summer school straight from work and I should be shattered really but the Christian sharing of worship, resources and study, have energised me creating thanksgiving for today and excitement for tomorrow. God’s blessings. Lesley
Interesting – he’s also got a heavier weight tome which Tim Hull in the recent Anvil journal reckons is the only readable thing about Rad Orth published! So I got a copy – must get hold of this one too. Then find time to read them.
I like the analogy of a nuclear reactor – pythagorean geometry stills holds for its design, as does newtonian mechanics as it has to sit on the ground – but it would’nt work w/o einsteinian physics – so that all the paradigms have some input even though some have been surpassed….
Does Graham Cray give a name to his post-post-modernism? Or is it more endgaming?
I’m with you Jonny, everything still feels very pomo to me. I find it more liberating than anything else, maybe life has always been post-modern, we just didn’t know it.
Postmodernism is not dead, it just smells funny (apolgies to Frank Zappa).
I don’t think we are past p-m, but it is good to explore other ways to name and describe our moment, especially in a global sense. I’d like to check out this book. I read the first wave of RO stuff (reviewed Cities of God) and although there is a lot of good to wade through, I was on the whole unconvinced. the method of the book looks “remarkably” similar to my old book proposal, which is interesting, to say the least. Hopefully you’ll review it for us in due course.
Marc Auge uses ‘supermodernity’ and Aurther Kroker ‘Hypermodernity’. Is this just a version of an old game? Academics recycling other peoples ideas and renaming them in order to sell their latest book.
What’s Graham Cray’s latest book called?
Metamodernity.
I’m not sure if postmodernism is “over” but I do think the church needs to think “beyond” or “ahead of” where we currently are as a culture…esp. the american church which is notoriously behind. Much of the church is stuck in the 50s modernism and postmodernism in the church sense is actually what was postmodern in culture in the 70s – in other words, the church needs to be more futuristic in its thinking, planning and touching of the culture at large.
I’m sure you’re right that philosophy is important because it shapes the way people live; but I think this perspective is equally valid: the way people live is important because that demonstrates applied philosophy. I’ve little time any more for people chasing the latest trends in academic cultural theory. To gain a true understanding of our culture, interacting with the teens and pensioners at the bus stop seems far more revealing than watching films with 70s-80s French philosophers.
Just a thought or two:
In know they are not the ultimate marker of where culture is at, but U2 in the nineties were totally postmodern and if (as some have suggested) the post-postmodern period is about simplicity and straight-talking, then the U2 of 2000 onwards is post-postmodern.
In the movie world the latest Pirates of the C is said to be post-modern (plyful but lacking a plot) but the more “serious” movies (Wenders et al) have become more simple story and plot.
So could Graham be right?
Last year at Greenbelt I heard someone use the phrase ‘chastened modernity’. I enjoyed that.
Agree with John. Was listening to Miroslav Volf yesterday and he seemed to me to make this point very strongly “theology (and at its heart, “spirituality”) encompasses all of our life LIVED before God.” It’s concerned with our living; about shaping and forming us for life and action. I too am interested in the application.
On the basis of my interactions with people I detect change, a kind of softening or assimilating of postmodern ideas, but I agree it may be a bit early to call time on postmodernity. However, I think we’ve reached a stage where many of the indicators of postmodernity have in themselves become the norm, without necessarily being a reaction to modernity. One interesting outworking of this change which I detect in young people is an openness to a genuine interest in Christianity which isn’t as hindered as it used to be by a reaction against ‘The Church’. The church is perceived as either benign or basically irrelevant, but Christianity still provokes honest and personal questions.
Hey Jonny,
Wanted to add my thanks for what you did at the summer school. It seemed that your sessions marked a turning point in the summer school. After your session people really started to talk about how they could practically engage with emerging church culture. earlier in the week questions seemed to have revolved more around ‘do we really need to be talking about this?’
Thanks again
Gr@eme
Well that settles it, I’ve sold my shirt and am getting the book.
thanks all for your thoughts… i’ll try and get round to a more extensive review though no promises. i think graham cray’s thoughts are expanded in two chapters at the end of the generation y research project i blogged about a while back. i have leant my copy to someone though so can’t check!
glad durham sesion seemed to spark some stuff