24AR29-28

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AR 29:28 - Embarrassment for us, but spiritual poison for continents

In this issue:

POSTMODERNISM - moving "away from an outmoded postmodern apologetic"

WORD-FAITH MOVEMENT - playing "a small ... role in American Christianity"

Apologia Report 29:28 (1,669)
July 26, 2024

POSTMODERNISM

"The more you attribute your sense of self to your past negative experiences, the less possible it will seem to hope for meaningful change in the future. Perhaps this sense of fatalistic determinism helps explain why the rate of suicide has tripled for adolescents and risen nearly 80 percent for high schoolers in the last decade."

   So opines Benjamin Vincent as he approaches the last few paragraphs of "Goodbye Postmodernism, Hello Metamodernism: Our apologetics must evolve to engage with the new cultural mood of the next generations" (Christianity Today, May 6 '24). 

   We most recently mentioned the suicide of the young in AR 29:24. <www.tinyurl.com/24AR29-24> Yet, Vincent's idea for PoMo damage control makes sense. We too at first concluded that there was a PoMo root cause behind our culture's latest descent. Vincent, on the other hand, suggests an alternate view.

   He begins: "For years now, scholars have announced the death of postmodernism. After decades of dominance as a cultural mood, the famously cynical and relativistic intellectual stance is finally out. In its place, another ideological outlook is taking hold.... 

   "One term that scholars have used to identify the new cultural mood is metamodernism. First used in 1975 to describe a literary shift, the concept became more prominent in the early 2000s thanks to the work of cultural analysts Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker. In their 2010 article, 'Notes on Metamodernism,' <www.tinyurl.com/4j567zwm> they made a convincing case for the new zeitgeist and provided a cultural analysis of its characteristics.

   "Metamodernism, according to Vermeulen and Van Den Akker, is a 'structure of feeling' marked by '(often guarded) hopefulness and (at times feigned) sincerity'....

   "Apocalyptic hope (or what Vermeulen and Van Den Akker call 'guarded hopefulness') arises from and stands in contrast to the staid pessimism of postmodernism."

   Vincent explains that "the metamodernist generation first seeks to be grounded in certain essential ethical principles and then selects the best ideological framework to match those ethics. It's a 'cart before the horse' generation, in the sense that we often base our religious or philosophical positions on prior ethical assumptions rather than the other way around. ...

   "According to this new ethical absolutism, some discard and denounce any religious outlook that seems to produce unpopular ethical conclusions. ...

   "From an apologetic standpoint, this shift in popular ideology also demands a shift in evangelistic approach. Rather than teaching young Christians to merely defend the existence of truth, we should be teaching them to better understand and articulate the grounds and benefits of biblical ethics. In communicating with the metamodernist generation, it is vital to defend a thoroughly scriptural view of Christian ethics.

   "As Rebecca McLaughlin points out in her book The Secular Creed, <www.tinyurl.com/3y9zxm4p> secularists and those who have moved on from a Christian worldview based on ethical outcomes often still cling to other ethical principles (like the weak holding the strong accountable), thinking such principles are 'basic moral common sense' instead of realizing that many of 'these truths have come to us from Christianity.'

   "Much of pop-culture ethic today can be reduced to the 'harm principle,' an essential component of modern liberalism articulated by philosopher John Stuart Mill. Christian philosopher Charles Taylor describes the harm principle as the notion 'that no one has a right to interfere with me for my own good, but only to prevent harm to others.' Some further conflate the harm principle with the biblical ethic.... When filtered through the metamodernist mood, this can lead to a forceful condemnation of Christians who teach that there is more to morality. ...

   "One of the biggest practical differences between the younger generations (from millennials to Gen Alpha) and their predecessors is the level of comfort and familiarity with topics of mental health and psychological development. According to the American Psychological Association, members of Gen Z are 'significantly more likely (27 percent) ... to report their mental health as fair or poor' and are 'also more likely (37 percent) … to report that they have received treatment or therapy from a mental health professional.' ...

   "Like other metamodernist tendencies, this movement brings with it both positive and negative cultural shifts that Christians must meaningfully engage with."

   Vincent concludes: "Your identity today is not an inescapable trap. This does not need to minimize real pathologies and their treatment - it simply reminds us that we are more than the stories we tell about ourselves.

   "There is certainly more to be said about metamodernism today, but my hope is to help shift the conversation at the popular level away from an outmoded postmodern apologetic." <www.tinyurl.com/yc46873s>

   Aren’t we overlooking something ... like, perhaps the hidden agenda behind wokeism?

 ---

WORD-FAITH MOVEMENT

With "Who Believes in the Prosperity Gospel?" Ryan Burge (Graphs about Religion, Apr 18 '24) does what he can with minimal 2012 data. 

   His more current introduction notes that last March, Joel Osteen said <www.tinyurl.com/ye2ymhd4> he was "not a poverty minister." Burge also finds that Tara Isabella Burton "does a nice job of explaining the contours of prosperity theology and some of its most high profile proponents" in her 2017 essay <www.tinyurl.com/mwkrwdmz> "The Prosperity Gospel, Explained."

   In response, Burge wonders "how pervasive is this understanding of the Gospel among average Americans?

   "Back in 2012, the General Social Survey included a special module of questions that is housed by the Association of Religion Data Archives that specifically focused on issues related to views of the Bible and theology. There are two questions that tap into some of the basic tenets of prosperity theology.

   "1) To what extent did you read the Bible to learn about attaining wealth or prosperity?

   "2) To what extent did you read the Bible to learn about attaining health or healing?"

   Here are his observations:

   "It's fairly evident from this data that prosperity theology is not pervasive across the American public. In fact, 45% of respondents say that they never read the Bible to learn about attaining health or healing and 63% have never looked to the scriptures to learn about how to obtain wealth or prosperity. In contrast, just 15% of folks said that they often looked to the Bible for guidance on healing and 11% sought out biblical texts to learn about gaining wealth.

   "However, there are niches inside American Christianity in which the prosperity gospel seems to be more pervasive than others. For instance, I can think of no high profile mainline Protestant pastor who is an advocate of prosperity theology. And, in many corners of American evangelicalism there is a tremendous amount of disdain for this type of theology. I am thinking specifically about denominations and traditions that tend to be more reformed in their theological outlook.

   "If I were asked to pinpoint the types of churches that tend to be more apt to embrace a version of the prosperity gospel, I would point to traditions that are closer to the charismatic or Pentecostal movement. Pastors like Jesse Duplantis, Kenneth Copeland, and Creflo Dollar are ones that come to mind when I think of prosperity theology. ...

   "And, the data here is as clear as it could be. Non-white respondents are more likely to embrace certain aspects of the prosperity gospel - as measured by these two questions in the General Social Survey - compared to white Christians. While over half of white Christians say that they never consult the Bible for information about healing/health and 72% never read the scriptures for help in obtaining wealth, those shares were just 24% and 40% of non-white Christians respectively.

   "Just six percent of white Christians chose one of the top two options when it comes to learning about prosperity from the Bible, it was 24% of non-white Christians. There's just no escaping this conclusion - reading the Bible to learn about attaining health, healing, wealth, or prosperity is more pervasive among American Christians of color. It could be that the different historical experiences of non-white American Christians has encouraged them to come to the Bible with different questions and expectations around health, healing, wealth, and prosperity compared to white American Christians.

   "Unfortunately, the sample is not large enough to dig into specific racial groups (Black, Hispanic, Asian, etc.). There is ample evidence in the scholarly literature that the Black Church has a much stronger strain of prosperity theology than white Christian traditions - Kate Bowler's book Blessed <www.tinyurl.com/35wc6rwm> is an accessible entry point to this larger literature. ...

   "Americans at the lower end of the income distribution are much more likely to look toward the scriptures as a way to find a pathway toward prosperity."

   He finds that "those making between $30K and $40K per year. Among white respondents, the average score was 1.7 - for non-white respondents it was double that rate (3.5). This gap stays large through the income spectrum. In fact, in many income brackets the non-white mean score is triple that of white respondents who make the same level of income.

   "The other thing I want to point out is that there's an unmistakable trend line for white respondents - as income increases, the mean prosperity gospel score goes down. For those white respondents making between $10K and $40K, the mean hovers around 1.75. But it's about half that rate when you look at those making $75K or more. Among non-white respondents, there's really no drop off between the lowest income bracket and those making $100K per year. ...

   "We have a total of one variable that predicts a higher likelihood of embracing the prosperity gospel and that's church attendance. All else equal, someone who attends church with a higher frequency reports a higher PG score. ...

   "There doesn't seem to be any indication that prosperity theology will recede in the future. In fact, it may have gotten a significant boost in the last several years with the presidency of Donald Trump. Trump was a member of Norman Vincent Peale's church in New York City. Peale is most famous for his book The Power of Positive Thinking, which is often seen as one of earliest modern articulations of the prosperity gospel. Trump also surrounded himself with a number of ministers who have strong ties to the prosperity gospel movement like Paula White."

   In closing, Burge says that "Even when this political moment passes, there's no reason to believe that prosperity theology will fade in any way. Russ Douthat once said, "The prosperity gospel, in its various forms, has always been with us and always will." <www.tinyurl.com/4usmvszu> It clearly plays a small but influential role in American Christianity in the 21st century." <www.tinyurl.com/4dauaryn>

   Alas the contrast for entire continents, like Africa, convulsing in response to the "PG" in spiritual tragedy - as has been the global result of so much American-born false teaching and immoral influence: all so innocuous, just blips on our screen it so often seems.

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