Exam answer

Hello from the world of study! I've taken up permanent residence in the Library. I thought I could blog and study at the same time! To that end, here is an answer I have prepared for my Youth Ministry exam tomorrow, written in one hour, without spell-check, under almost exam conditions.

Q. something like...
Outline the main features of postmodernism and describe the implications for those in Youth Ministry.
or maybe...
What is postmodernism? Describe its impact on young people and the implications for Youth Ministry.

A.
The hub of postmodernism is often summed up in Lyotard’s phrase "Incredultiy towards metanarratives", but academics must be careful not to simplify this as a rejection of ‘ultimate truth’. Chrisitan academics also tend to address this mainly as an assault on any religious or philosophical belief. Lyotard himself qualifies his most quoted phrase in ‘The Postmodern explained to children". "These narratives aren’t myths… (not even the Christian narrative). Instead, it refers to any universal Idea which proports to "Guide every human reality." (Lyotard) Life has no one controlling philosophy. No single set of principles of moral framework applies for all times and places. Beliefs, behaviours, even modes of thought are fragmented. Every situation develops its own model and its own set of rules. Those in Youth Ministry should be aware that ‘Incredulity towards metanarratives has consequences much further reaching than the idea of ‘ultimate truth’. For Lyotard, it covers anything from eclecticism in art or fashion, to the failure of modernist categories.

There is a link then, between postmodern fragmentation of ideas, and the phenomenon of ‘Layers’ identified by Chap Clark in "Hurt". Young people struggle to "integrate the many layers of their lives" (Clark) so that a principle or emotion does not nessecarily dictate behaviour in another layer. The challenge for those involved in Youth Ministry is to provide tools that connect the layers, whether that be encouraging self-awareness and self-analysis or stretching minds to develop abstract thought.

This discontinuity is also particularly significant of the spiritual. I have obseverved a marked increase in the compartmentalisation of the ‘religious’ in the thought of early-mid adolescents. A conversation that seems significant can quickly become ineffectual when it is pigeon-holed as a ‘religious’ experience or thought. Thus, many young people have been rendered ineffectual as convictions are never operationalised. Francis’s 1998 study confirms this trend, with an increase in belief in God, but a marked increase in acceptability of drunkenness, premarital sex, etc. To discourage this ‘faith without works’, Youth Ministers should help young people connect their ‘religious’ experiences with their daily lives. Programmes of education can be structured so as to begin in response to the everyday and end in action. Operationalisation of convictions is also inherent in biblical teaching.

One positive of this fragmentalisation of ideas is that postmodern young people experience an unprecedented freedom in expressing their faith. If modernism privatised faith, postmodernism explodes it. While it was always true that there are as many expressions of Christianity as there are individual Christians, postmodernity sees this actualised. Millions of individual experiences give rise to millions of unique expressions of faith, ‘not in principle bound by preestablished rules.’ (Lyotard)

Lyotard states that postmodernity ‘refuses the consolation of correct forms’. There is no search for a normative ‘reality’, and this presumably extends to the ‘reality’ of God. In practice, however, individual concepts of God are not naturally hostile to the concept of a platonic ‘form’ of God. Certainly, the search for the ‘reality’ of God has become less urgent. No normative concept of God is available for comparison- a postmodern expression of the ineffability of God. But the fragments are not isolated, and they do not remain stagnant. Rather, each individual’s God-concept grows and mutates with every experience of the divine, and every encounter with the God-concept of another. Youth Ministers should encourage interaction and cross-pollination between young people’s different experiences of God. In this we find Lyotard’s differend- the mind straining at the edge of conceptuality.

As stated above, Lyotard observes the end of grand narratives in social and artistic eclectisism. "Eclectisism is the degree zero of our contemporary culture."(Lyotard) Through what cuisine we eat, what genre of films we watch, through what clothes we wear, we "indulge one another in the Anything Goes", and the Anything Goes, Lyotard continues disdainfully, "is the realism of money." Eclectic culture is indicative of the fragmented, pluralistic, experiential, amoral world of the postmodern, and it is born of, and founded upon, consumer society. The urge to consume is driven by what Lyotard calls "common nostalgia for the impossible", and what Cray calls "a culture of dissatisfaction."

Sociologists observe how consumerism is linked to identity. Wear you shop, as well as what lables you buy, mark you out as part of a particular group, or can act as a flag of individuality. The positive is that young people can create their own identity by selecting pieces from different cultural fragments. Apart from those who cannot afford the idenitity tags they desire, identity is no longer tied to ‘work or employment.’ (Lyon) Those in Youth Ministry should celebrate this newfound freedom. There are opportunities to teach about responsible comsumerism, whilst still upholding that each individual’s most important form of identity is to be found in God.

In a consumer society, even God is a product. Postmodernism spells the end of the ‘occulocentric’ world of ‘seeing is believing’. Those in Youth Ministry have the responsibility of responding to a renewed interest in ‘those once-tabooed aspects’(Berry) if the spiritual. However, a generation that "thinks with its felings" (Zacharias), asks not "Is Christianity true?"; rather "Has Christianity been a good experience?" This gives rise to the comforting wish-fulfilment religion that Smith and Denton identify as "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism". In the face of this attractive soft option, how can Youth Ministers market a authentic self-sacrificing religion, and a wild and intimate God?

Perhaps a more daunting question is, how can Church become relevant for this generation? With its prescriptive dogmas and restricting forms, is the Church a premodern institution in a postmodern age? Sweet states: The church is now on the wrong side of history." He gives three possible responses the Church can make to postmodernism: Denial; Withdrawl; Embrace. Niebuhr presents an interesting picture of a Jesus who "confronted Jewish culture with a hard challenge." "Though Jesus was a product of that culture… he endangered it." Can the Church be both cultural and counter-cultural? Is it ‘In the world, not of the world?’

In practice, many of the fears the Church held about postmodernism have proved unfounded. The different fragmentary experiences of God and expressions of faith are generally enriching rather than conflicting. With encouragement, young people operationalise their faith within all layers of their lives. (This does not go against the ‘grand narratives’ principle. Different fragments of teaching apply to different situations, such as preferring one verse to another in an ethical scenario.) Pluralism has already been weathered and survived by the Early Church in ‘tolerant’ Rome. Perhaps the biggest fear of all is that fragmentalism would spell the end of any concensus of belief or centralised teaching, but, unpredictably, the concept of creeds seems to be surviving. ‘The Vision’ of the 24-7 Prayer movement has been adopted by young people across the globe.
The Church can learn from postmodern youth. Vibrant new expressions show were the Church has been "captive to modernity"(Harris). Bill and Yvonne Taylor compare postmodern youth to the Celtic Christians, who ‘saved Western culture’. Their ‘distrust of institutions’ (Cray) is not destructive. In fact, Savage et al. affirm that relatioship-based morality is, over and above a hierarchical model, "More conducive to the relationship dynamics Jesus engendered amongst the disciples and intended for the Church."

As young people lead the Church into its future, those in youth ministry are interpreters, both missionaries to, and advocates of, a postmodern world. Leonard Sweet offers these words: "God is birthing the greates spiritual awakening in the history of the church. God wants you to midwife that birth."