This week a friend asked me to define modernism and postmodernism.
She didn’t want the sort of definition scholars use, she wanted a general sense
of what they are, the sort of explanation someone might find helpful who wants
to be faithful as a Christian. She raised her question in light of a discussion
she and friends were having about what Christian
witness should look like today. I said I’d try.
Modernism developed in the West at the end of the medieval
period (also called the Middle Ages), which lasted (more or less) from the 5th
to the 15th century. The 16th century began a period of
great change. Martin Luther posted his revolutionary 95 Thesis (1517), launching the Protestant Reformation. In 1543 the
astronomer Copernicus published his finding that the earth revolved around the
sun. Galileo’s (1564-1642) technical improvement of the telescope launched
modern astronomy, while Kepler’s (1571-1630) study of planetary motion helped
give birth to modern physics. And the fact that Gutenberg had already developed
the printing press (1441) meant that these new ideas could spread more rapidly
than ever.
Science took off with a seemingly endless series of amazing
discoveries and a clear method by which to test its theories. Technology
followed close behind, transforming daily life. Medicine began to identify the
causes of disease, developing new techniques to diagnose and push back
illnesses that had long plagued humankind. Since germs (not humors) were now known
to cause illness, public health measures could eradicate vermin, provide clean
water, and dispose of waste. Life in the West was increasingly defined by
science and technology, and thinking was increasingly defined by reason and
scientific method.
It was a time of great optimism. Thinkers were increasingly
convinced that by carefully using reason, they could take any problem, reduce
it to its essentials, and figure out a solution. That is what was happening in
physics, astronomy, and medicine, and the progress was extraordinary. In fact,
the progress was so astounding that people began thinking of the previous
medieval period as the “Dark Ages.”
Progress continued. Isaac Newton (1643-1727) shaped physics
by introducing the three laws of motion, and helped to develop calculus. James
Watt (1763-1775) improved an earlier design and invented the first viable steam
engine. The textile industry was revolutionized, factories took work outside
the home and the Industrial Revolution took off. For the first time in history
human beings could travel faster than a horse could run. Time was thought of
differently when clocks and watches allowed trains and work to be
scheduled—before that people had lived according to the rising and setting of
the sun and the passing of the seasons. In 1837 Samuel Morse patented the
telegraph and communications were revolutionized. The rest, as they say, is
history.
I can imagine someone interrupting here. “But wait a minute.
You are supposed to be talking about modernism—and
doesn’t the ism at the end of a word mean that it is a philosophy or world
view or way of thinking?” Absolutely correct—I was just getting to that.
At the heart of all this was a simple yet powerful
conviction I have already mentioned: with reason, we can tackle any problem or
challenge or question, dissect it into its basic parts, and given time solve
the problem. And we can apply this approach to every aspect of life and
reality.
The early scientists were people of faith, and their belief
that nature was created and maintained by a personal God gave them confidence
in the scientific method. Slowly though, as thinkers and scientists took this
reliance on reason and applied it to more and more of life, the belief in
reason seemed to make revelation unnecessary. Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
published The Origin of the Species,
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) developed psychoanalysis, and Auguste Comte
(1798–1857), the father of sociology, applied the scientific method to society
as a whole.
This confidence about reason could also be found in the
church. Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), for example, adopted the new
approach to theology with what came to be known as “the higher critical study
of the Bible,” resulting in a liberalism that rejected much of what had been
accepted as historic orthodox doctrine. And during the Second Great Awakening, evangelical
leaders like Charles Finney (1792-1875) reduced the message Christian
evangelists needed to preach to help people make a decision for Christ, and
introduced the “anxious seat,” a place non-Christians could come for prayer.
This revivalism shaped modern evangelicalism and there was optimism that if
enough Christians witnessed about their faith, the world would be won for
Christ.
Then the 20th century dawned, and with it doubts
about the proud optimism of modernism. Science and technology advance, true,
but they also produce weapons of unbelievable savagery and pollution that can
no longer be ignored. A world war is fought—the “war to end all wars” if you
can believe that—followed a few years later by a second, far more destructive
world war. Racism, the breakdown of the family, the loss of meaning, bloody
regional conflicts, brutal dictatorships, grinding poverty—all this and so much
more seems intractable. Modernism had promised that with reason, problems like
this could be diagnosed and solved, but it was increasingly clear the promise
had not been fulfilled, nor could it. And modernism’s efforts to explain the
bigger questions, about life after death, or God, or meaning had come to
nothing. No matter how awesome the Milky Way is, if there is nothing and no one
out there and if we are nothing more than molecules interacting by chance in an
impersonal universe, then the feeling of awe is merely the some sort of
neurological spasm that has no ultimate significance.
As part of modernism, some thinkers worked to address issues
like finding meaning in a cosmos where everything is left to natural selection.
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), for example, argued that we live existentially in
that our choices have consequences and so we gain significance in the very act
of choosing. Existentialism was very popular for a while, expressed for example
in the films of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007). Others began to
look to the East, to Hinduism and Buddhism, with pop versions of these ancient
worldviews being introduced into the West, as in the case of Transcendental
Meditation by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1917-2008) under the influence of the
Beetles. By the time of the Sixties, the ferment below the surface of society
from the broken promise of modernism burst into the open.
It was really quite simple: the modernist experiment had
failed. Modernism, with all its vaunted promise, was a bust. Not the
technology, or medical progress—though even here it became clear each advance
came with blessing and with curse. But the promise of modernism, the promise
that reason and the scientific method would solve all problems and answer all
questions—that was harder and harder, if not impossible, to believe. The
modernist experiment had failed.
Images (in order): Copernicus,
Isaac Newton, Charles Finney and Ingmar Bergman.
…to be continued.
This entry was posted
at Monday, September 27, 2010
and is filed under
Christian faith,
Modernism,
Postmodernism,
Science,
Truth
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