Have you noticed the shifts happening all around us in our culture? Skepticism of traditional institutions from the government to the media to churches is at an all time high, while increasingly we’re told to discover our authentic self and live it out courageously. Universal truth claims sound like power grabs while individual personal truths are celebrated no matter how patently false they seem. Corrosive deconstructionism has decimated traditional virtues, traditional ethics, and traditional ways of making sense of the world. The only hero that remains is the triumphant victim who boldly stands against the majority, shouting “This is who I am, you must accept me or we will take you down.”
Ok, so I hammed it up a little there. Not all expressions of postmodernism are so strident. Even so, what is going on?
Pastor Jacob Ballard from Timberland Bible Church in Indiana will help us understand and engage with this incredible worldview shift that has occurred over the last few decades. Over the next four weeks, Ballard is going to share key insights from a class taught at the Atlanta Bible College designed to help students understand and minister to our changing society.
—— Links ——
- Find out more about Jacob Ballard at the Timberland Bible Church website
- Check out Dan Kimball’s They Like Jesus but Not the Church
- If you’d like to support Restitutio, you can donate here.
- Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments
- Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library
We praise God Who has helped Jacob during his trials in loosing his parents, and grandmother in childhood, and Who has led him into Christian Pastoral ministry.
My following comments however, are meant as constructive criticism:
This lecture on Postmodernism was a huge disappointment. It was an over-verbose, meandering discourse on the patently obvious – that is that all people are raised in a particular cultural or sub-cultural environment which initially shapes their values, attitudes and ‘world view’. [End of lecture]. I hope that Jacob’s future lectures can considerably pick up the pace, and begin providing far more factual and practical material on the subject matter of Postmodernism.
@john Bradley,
To be fair, the topic is crazy divisive, and kid gloves is the only approach when speaking to a mass internet audience. I applaud those looking for solutions, but I haven’t seen any that work.
Imho, the ultimate issue for Christianity is that the what is written in the New Testament is at odds with 21st century Americanism (a mishmash of postmodernism, liberalism, scientism, and various flavours of critical theory). Nothing short of Unitarian Universalism type religion will be sellable to those raised by government institutions (day care through university).
But I am a pessimist by nature, so don’t listen to me. :p
Hi, Harlan K,;
God bless you.
To quote the Christian Ian Hislop – who is the British Editor of the satirical and current news magazine ‘Private Eye’ :
“I tried atheism once, but it didn’t work – I kept on having doubts”.
The basic facts of the New Testament are still more than comprehensible in the twenty-first century (indeed a lot of scientists are Christians !). I believe that the mishmash of Post modernism, cultural marxism, and extreme liberalism, et al, that you allude to, is yet another manifestation of fallen Mankind’s alienation from the personal Creator God – Who both exists, and Who resurrected Jesus to a new mode of human existence after His crucifixion. This is the ‘Good News’ that banishes all my pessimism.
Don’t give up or despair. Keep going – God loves you !.
🙂 Thanks JB.
Thanks, Harlan. Keep making comments (as, and when) to podcasts at ‘Restitutio.org’. We value your input.
Take care, and God bless you.