Where Do We Go From Here?
Where Do We Go From Here?
A Look At The Effects And Implications Of Postmodernism In Contemporary Theology
The Dilemma
Whether or not one is a fan of postmodernism, there is no argument with the fact that it has caused a great upheaval in contemporary theology. James K.A. Smith in his book Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault To Church explains the current dilemma: “The notion of postmodernism is invoked as both poison and cure within the contemporary church. To some, postmodernity is the bane of Christian faith, the new enemy taking over the role of secular humanism as an object of fear and primary target of demonization. Others see postmodernism as a fresh wind of the Spirit sent to revitalize the dry bones of the church.”(1) Smith is writing from a Christian perspective and goes on to explain how postmodernism has shaped a Christian revitalization movement called The Emergent Church but the feeling that a breath of fresh air has been brought to the dry caves of modernist theology has been experienced by more than just contemporary Christians.
The effects of postmodernism may be threatening to some and uplifting for others but they have been anything but escapable. At some point, every church leader has to come to grips with them. Bryn MacPhail, pastor of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Kirk in Nassau, Bahamas is on the side of the naysayers but admits that postmodernism cannot be ignored. “Embracing postmodernity would be extremely dangerous, but at the same time, running and hiding is not an option for the Church either.” (2)
What, then, has postmodernism wrought upon the world of modernist theology, and what are the possibilities of its aftermath?
To attempt to answer these questions I will begin with three principles (among many) of postmodernism that have affected contemporary theology. They are “the rejection of an overarching, metaphysical or foundational schema… [and] a suspicion of fixed binary categories that describe rigorously separable regions.”(3) To these I have added the violence brought upon society as a result of hegemonic theological dominance.
The Rejection of an Overarching Schema
Jacques Derrida developed the idea of the deconstruction of text. “For Derrida...we never really get ‘behind’ or ‘past’ texts; we never get beyond the realm of interpretation to some kind of kingdom of pure reading.”(4) With this basic tool of deconstruction, postmodernism has chipped away at the long-standing authority of grand texts or “metanarratives.” Smith sums up the point when he says “Postmodernism, then, is the suspicion of and disbelief in ‘big stories.’” (5)
The concept of the metanarrative and the reasons one should be suspicious of them was introduced by Jean Francois Lyotard. His reasoning for such suspicions was “because of their scope, because they make grand, totalizing claims about reality and have universal pretensions.” (6) For Lyotard, deconstruction helped to point out the narrative framework of the big stories and exposed their claims to self-legitimation without any possible universal grounding. Through deconstruction and the scepticism of metanarratives, the “simple atheistic dissolution or dogmatic reduction of religion to one big idea… is sheer overreaching.” (7) Robert M. Price, an American New Testament scholar, further explains the dilemma. “With Lyotard, we recognize that the sovereignty of any traditional master narrative has broken down.” (8)
After the scythe of deconstruction had made its way through the pile of valued metanarratives–especially the most widely influential metanarrative of Western society, the Bible–there is nothing left to say except that there is no one single theological authority for all people at one time. The idea that only one text (or narrative) can be the singular exaltation of truth for every person regardless of human origin or condition is what Derrida calls logocentrism. Price claims that logocentrism has been a long standing practice in the Christian tradition. “Derrida points the finger at Plato as the father of the logocentric tradition in Western philosophy, but he makes Christianity the highest exaltation of logocentrism, logocentrism incarnate.” (9) To take it a step further, Price points out that Western logocentrism has been focused on the dominant role of the male calling Price to revise the term to “Phallogocentrism” which he defines as the “violent ideology of a divine despot who is the heavenly rubber-stamp of earthly monopolistic priestcraft.” (10) Price claims that Derrida was as aware of the tendency. “Derrida sees that phallocentrism and logocentrism are one, since the exaltation of reason (or potentially anything else) as the single center is a male tendency.”(11)
The Violence of Metanarratives
Perhaps the most tragic reality of the legacy of modernism has been the violence caused by the use of metanarratives to maintain the domination of masculinity and Western hegemony. Smith himself identifies the issue when he speaks of the rise of religious fundamentalism. “On the one hand, it rests on a mythical epistemology of immediate access and cognitive certainty; on the other hand, its fruit has included harm, violence, and suffering for communities, both to those within communities and to those regarded as ‘other’ by these religious communities.”(12)
The unfortunate history of modernist Western theology has been to use the force of the metanarrative to dominate other cultures and to subvert women and minorities. “The crisis the world has been experiencing in the last decades, especially the alarming tension between various sectarian groups, whereby one aims to impose one’s beliefs and opinions to the point of annihilating the dissenting other, [has lead] to problematic and, at times tragic consequences.” (13)
Oftentimes the violence caused has been visible and destructive but even more damage has been wrought, especially in the modernist idea that people are the masters of the environment, through a process that Rob Nixon has labeled “slow violence” in which degradation takes place gradually over time and is conspicuously left out of the view and consciousness of others. But, people do notice and some have cried out that “we should abandon the universalization and the overgeneralization of the masculine at the expense of the feminine.” (14) Substituting the word feminine with representative words for minorities, the environment, and other disaffected groups would work in that statement as well. It is these groups of people who have been blamed for the failings of metanarratives for “religion, and the scapegoat mechanism that functions within it, are the means that human beings have developed to deal with human violence, but as religions and cultures are formed and perpetuated, the violence is hidden.” (15)
The Death of God
Perhaps the greatest victim of the surgical method with which deconstruction has attacked metanarratives has been in the idea proposed by Nietzsche that God is dead. This pronouncement frightened the traditionalists thinking that with the proclamation of the death of the creator of the world we would all sink into a state of aimless relativism and moral decrepitude. “Postmodernism seems for all the world to religious believers as a continuation of Nietzsche by another means, the latest version of the idea that God is dead and everything is permitted. It has been vigorously attacked by the Christian right as a diabolical enemy of religion, a frivolous skepticism that undermines the possibility of any absolute–God, truth, or morality–and leaves us exposed to the wolves of relativism.”(16) Nietzsche was, of course, speaking metaphorically and hoped that in the elimination of a dominating skylord that people would come to embrace their own divinity. In pronouncing the death of God, Nietzsche and the postmodernists who would follow him worked to dismantle the dominant theologies of the past which they believed had taken away humanity’s inert capabilities for creation and the search for meaning. Many have asked “has God died, or has two thousand years of bridgeless monotheistic theology finally robbed us of all meaningful awareness of our Supreme Source and thereby robbed us of cultural creativity?” (17)
Opposing Binaries
Another result of modernist thinking that can be traced as far back as Aristotle is the idea of opposed binaries. In religious terms, these can include the supernatural and the natural, sacredness and secularity, and immanence and transcendence. In building these opposites the tendency was to proclaim that one was greater than another and lead to the same denigrations of such things as male over female, rich over poor, and white over non-white. Through deconstruction, this tendency and the damage it caused became exposed. “Deconstruction teaches that when Western thought constructs itself through pairs of binary opposites (i.e., nature/culture, man/woman, Christian/nonChristian) [it] centralizes or normalizes one half of the binary and marginalizes the other.” (18) The postmodernists separated these poles of understanding and asked us not to look at these peaks of separation. Instead, they asked us to view the valleys between and explore the possibilities not of this or that but of this and that. “Postmodernists identify the ways these opposites turn on a common structure and explore the possibility of a certain region or even an affirmation that is indifferent to the difference between the theistic and the atheistic, or the religious and the secular.” (19)
Perhaps the most significant (and threatening) polarity for modernist theologians has been the dissolution of the separation between the religious and the secular. Part of the effect of the creation of opposing binaries has been to draw a clear line between the secular and the religious life. “The death of God means, for the theology of Deconstruction, that the divine has been poured out into the human, the profane, the secular, which henceforth is seen to glow with a kind of "trace" or witch-fire radiance of the lost sense of holiness.”(20)
Proposed Solutions
The spotlight on these problems has caused many to ask my original question: where do we go from here? There have been many solutions offered and they run the gamut between revisioning theistic epistemologies to devising atheistic spiritualities. Some have tried to bridge the binary view of theism and atheism while still others have sought to examine the wisdom of ancient cultures for answers. Through all of these attempts the postmodern (or maybe post-postmodern?) theologians have worked on the principle that there is no one single truth for all of humanity. The rock of ages has been chipped away until there is nothing more than rubble. "The incoherence of the classical conception of God has been so amply documented in the modern period that its persistence in an age of science seems as much a matter for psychoanalytic study as for philosophical comment." (21) That reality, however, does not mean that religious people need to be left floating in a dark space of relativistic confusion. “In traditional/modern/postmodern terms, the sociality of being human gives none of us prior access to the one and only truth. This move, I suggest, can be made without resorting to empty relativism.” (22)
Postmodern Theism
Some contemporary religious thinkers have been unwilling to let go of the Christian tradition even in the midst of the postmodern storm. Instead, theologians like the author of our textbook, James Smith, have maintained that the Christian metanarrative is still true but believe that postmodern Christians can embrace people of other faiths as their prophet Jesus has taught them to do. For him, worship “needs to be characterized by hospitality; it needs to be inviting.” (23) Smith claims to find cause for hope rather than disillusionment through the works of postmodern writers such as Lyotard. As he sees it, Lyotard does not dismantle the metanarrative of Christianity. For him faith trumps the need for legitimation because “ the biblical narrative and Christian faith claim to be legitimated not by an appeal to a universal, autonomous reason but rather by an appeal to faith.” (24)
The Emergent Church
Smith puts forth the Christian movement known as “The Emergent Church” as an example of how Christianity can be fostered in a postmodern environment. Brian Mclaren, one of the founders and pioneers of the movement explains that the Emerging Church is not so much a spiritual practice as it is a way of approaching traditional Christianity. To him, it’s “more a matter of conversation; it's a group of people talking together and asking questions together about what it means to practice our faith in this new context.” (25) What Christians like Mclaren emphasize is that postmodernity does not require them to give up their faith but what does need to be rejected is the idea that there is only one true religion for all. They suggest “a reflexive understanding by people of faith that the originating traditional belief about ‘the way’ (singular) needs to be held in self-conscious and public contradiction with the view that there is no one true way.” (26)
Weak Thought and Kenosis
The traditional dominant emphasis of modern theology is what philosopher Gianni Vattimo labels “strong thought.” He is acutely aware of the violence brought upon humanity by this hegemonic tradition and advocates the Christian practice of kenosis or self-emptying. Vattimo interprets the death of Jesus as the emptying of God into the world and that the predominant message of Jesus is for us to do the same. “Vattimo posits that the deflation of the absolute through kenosis, carrying with it Jesus’ message of caritas, love, and amity as the solution to enmity and violence, is the Christian equivalent of Heidegger’s reduction of the claims of objectivity and Nietzsche’s postulation of “the death of God, ‘the death of all transcendental values and totalism.’” (27)
Vattimo calls this emphasis on kenosis “weak thought” and like Mclaren, advocates simply listening rather than proselytizing. The postmodern lesson to Vattimo is that God (Being) is greater than any one religion and cannot be fully grasped by mere individuals (Beings). This is not a nihilistic philosophy as much as it is an embracing one. Vattimo’s “Weak Thought thinks [about] the ontological difference not in the way of negative theology–the Being is not beings, it exists somewhere, but we cannot grasp it.” (28) Weak Thought is more of a way of acting as a postmodern Christian through the practice of kenosis and a practice of contributing positively in a culture full of economic and ecological problems through “self-restraint, giving space to others, pulling back, saying enough, [and] recognizing the interdependence of all life forms.” (29)
Process Theology
Other religious thinkers have worked to build theologies that retain a sense of God but redefine divinity in a more postmodern understanding. One such method has been called “Process Theology” whereby God is more of a sacred process interacting with the world rather than a separate being. Inspired by modern science and the discoveries of quantum physics, process theology “sought to resolve the tension between the Being of God and the changing forces of nature as described by science by making God not a Being but a becoming–part and parcel of the creative processes that characterizes all.” (30) Credit is often given to Alfred North Whitehead for introducing Process Theology to the world but here I want to examine the ideas of Charles Hartshorne who applies the idea of viewing the valley between two opposing cliffs when he calls God “a modulation between two poles or fundamental aspects: an eternal pole of potentiality and a temporal pole of actuality or manifestation. These two poles are the primordial divine nature and the consequent divine nature. The latter actualizes in the world the divine possibilities of the former.” (31)
Postmodern Atheism
The swath of deconstruction that was wielded from the swords of the postmodernists caused some to cry out that God was indeed dead. No amount of surgery or desperate embraces of the past were going to recuperate the patient. Thus emerged the postmodern atheist. Atheists pointed to the outworn model of binary opposites and the abuse justified by them by pointing out that God and not-God were yet another example of modernist dichotomy. In such a separation, God was high and mighty while creation was low and desperate. “The doubt thrown by postmodernists upon binary pairs, which affects theological oppositions like God/world, soul/body, or eternity/time, has no less an erosive effect upon any clean distinction between theism and atheism or the religious and the secular. (32)
Some, like Emmanuel Levinas, were inclined to say that only ethics were left to be collected from the rubble. He sought out the best in humanity in a figure he called “the neighbor.” For Levinas, “religion is ethics and the rest is superstition. God is nothing more than the very order that orders us to the neighbor.” (33) Levinas saw God as the ultimate form of moral law and justice. For “to turn to God is to be returned to the neighbor. God is the law, the moral order of things, a kind of ordo ordinans, but not a being outside time and space, lest God be “contaminated” by being. (34)
A/Theism
Perhaps a theological compromise between theism and atheism has been offered by postmodern religious thinkers such as Charles Taylor who coined the term A/theism. In his book In Erring: An A/theology, Taylor describes deconstruction as “the nuanced undecidability of the “a/theological,” in which the clean distinction between the theological and the atheistic is disrupted.” (35) Taylor claims that science in the postmodern world has robbed us of our need for meaning and our hopes for a better world when he says, “Natural science is based on factoring out all the human meanings to describe the world just in objective terms, but we don’t live our life in objective terms, we live our lives in terms of meanings, in terms of morality, in terms of aspiration, and it’s very often in that we come to see the place of God.” (36) In much the same manner as the Emergent Church, Taylor advocates for an openness to the religious sensibilities of others. “We have the ability to open ourselves and to try to understand and feel in a sympathetic way why people hold to a different position, whether it be Protestant or something outside of Christianity like Buddhist, Hindu, or Muslim.” (37)
Something Between: Pantheologies
For me, perhaps, one of the most interesting postmodern theologies is what Mary-Jane Rubenstein calls pantheologies–a term derived by combining pantheism and panentheism. Both can be derived from ancient sources but have meaning in the post-postmodern world. She points to Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) as one of the first pantheists. His was a theistic view but parted from the acceptable theology of the time–so much so that he was murdered because of his views. “Bruno realized that this infinite universe with its infinite worlds was the source of all things, the life in all things, and the end of all things, or in other words, God.” (38)
Rubenstein draws a connecting line from Bruno to Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) who saw God as nature. “Spinoza argued that if God is infinite and self-subsistent, then everything in existence must be an expression of God. Spinoza’s God is nature itself: all-pervasive, impersonal, and unmiraculous.” (39) Bruno and Spinoza led future theologists into a world where God was not separate from all things. Such a god was not an individual being that could be given a gendered or cultural identity. For these thinkers “God is a meaningless abstraction unless he is the Whole, the one universal Life acting in all particularities yet transcending them, the One who is also Many, the Being who is also Becoming. Such a God is nameless, genderless, formless, a universal and all-merciful divinity beyond race or creed.” (40)
Two different types of pantheologies emerged from this philosophical tradition. Pantheology is the term for the belief that all of nature is itself God while panentheism defined those who believed that God was an emergent quality of the cosmos. The panentheistic view of God was everything while also more than everything. “Panentheism should not be confused with pantheism. In pantheism the distinction between God and nature is collapsed: God is a divine creative force immanent in all phenomena whatsoever. This is a monopolar vision of divinity just as monotheism is, but one that renders all the changes and contingencies of nature illusory. For where everything is divine, nothing is genuinely other… Panentheism, on the other hand, is the concept of deity as both immanent in nature and existing beyond nature, both creative demiurge and [an] all-surpassing Godhead dipolar unity.” (41)
Unitarian-Universalism
The postmodern UU church may be the one current religious institution where the massive changes brought on by postmodernism may be embraced and utilized. For many years, the UU church has been in the forefront of theological change and revolution. As Price puts it, Unitarian-Universalism has been “the cow-catcher on the front of the theological locomotive.” (42) The UU church stands on the edge of a postmodern theological precipice. It has long sought to embrace people of all religions and has worked to embrace different theological perspectives but its history is deeply entrenched in the modernist view that holds reason in the highest regard. UU theologian Susan Ritchie defines the problem.“In so far as we Unitarian Universalists are thoroughly grounded in Enlightenment thought and have based our own identity on differentiating decisions which both quietly accepted and not so quietly rejected those of mainstream Protestant thought, it is hardly a surprise that our own movement finds itself most flummoxed with regards to an adequate theology of self-differentiation.” (43)
If Unitarian-Universalism is going to survive and become a leading force in contemporary religion, it must continue and expand its support of plurality. The UU movement, “which prides itself on its openness to the best forms of contemporary thinking, has yet to fully extract itself from the modernist paradigm of its 19th and early 20th century articulations.” (44) The best way for the UU church to emerge into this post-postmodern world is to fully welcome all theologies and spiritual experiences in the same way that the Emergent Church and Taylor advocate. Instead of focusing on the “uni” part of Unitarian-Universalism where all are gathered together as one so depicted in the worn-out analogy of the melting pot, the church needs to become a collective of others where differences are brought together rather than subverted. Price contends that this can happen when Christian and non-Christian influences are brought together and honored. "Uni-versalism" must give way to multi-versalism or pluri-versalism. And that, I contend, is precisely what is happening with the emergence of New Age, Christian, Pagan, Jewish, and Buddhist factions within Unitarian Universalism” (45)
Conclusion
I have asked the question: “where do we go from here?” and have offered some of the solutions brought about by postmodern theologists. Whatever one may choose as an answer I think that post-postmodern theologies must contend with the three principles of postmodernism I outlined at the beginning of this paper: the rejection of an overarching theological framework, a disruption of opposing hierarchical binaries, and resistance against violence caused by insisting upon one belief over others. To do these things, it must embrace the principles of plurality, open theology (this and that), and the plight of the suffering.
Embracing plurality means to work not to see eye-to-eye but to be open to any and all understandings of God or not-God for, as postmodernism has taught us, every person lives within their own framework of interpretation. “We all–whether naturalists, atheists, Buddhists or Christians–see the world through the grid of an interpretive framework–and ultimately this interpretive framework is religious in nature, even if not allied with a particular institutional religion.” (46) Instead of seeking a singular truth that all are expected to follow, the future church can look instead toward becoming a conglomeration of shared values. “Ideas do not have ‘truth’ but ‘value,’ that is, an effectiveness that is measured by their capacity to enhance life.” [Caputo 6]
Perhaps the contemporary church can become what Claude Levi-Strauss called a “bricolage” (a term Derrida used as well) or a construction made out of diverse things. Again, Price says it best when he writes that we should “treat the world as making no one single definitive sense apart from the many different viewpoints from which we and others may view it.” (47) Instead, the UU church can work toward what Emil Halloun (in his review of the work of Vattimo) more or less describes as a principle of radical accommodation, which works to find agreement about what is said. (48)
The push to embrace plurality has long been underway in the UU movement but not without stiff challenges from the traditionalists, but postmodernism calls on the church to move forward and not back. No doubt, efforts by historically oppressed groups of people to be heard have made an impact on the movement. “It is hard not to notice the new weight given to personal experience as a source of religious truth within our lived faith, a postmodern development that sociologists of religion associate with the baby boomer generation, but which also no doubt also owes a debt to contemporary feminisms.” (49)
The need to resist violence through uniformity is, perhaps, the most crucial goal for the postmodern Unitarian-Universalist movement and may be the most challenging. As many have pointed out, this kind of violence may be overt but, more often than not, is implicit in our relations with each other. “If we could only learn, though, to refuse to enforce peace through an insistence upon agreement as to the nature and existence of ontological truth we could use postmodernism to its best and most liberatory theological ends, and in the process we could recapture the skepticism and tolerance of modernity's first inheritance, thus asserting what it was our liberal religious ancestors intended all along.” (50) A new attitude of enrichment through multiplicitous viewpoints will be difficult to attain but is ultimately important. It will demand a “revolution in practice that seeks to draw out the strengths of each of the valences of the human condition into a syncretic ethics of care.” (51) Without the threat of actual or implied violence, people will be free to explore and share their own experiences while building a relationship together. To put it another way, “when logocentrism reigns no more, one can feel free to explore spiritual experiences without having to explain them and to account for them first.” (52)
In all, I believe the Unitarian-Universalist church can be a place where common human values can become the structure into which postmodern theologies develop and flourish within a nurturing community. Perhaps Smith, in his fight to maintain a Christian tradition in the midst of the postmodern maelstrom, best identified the goal of the postmodern church when he points out that “the postmodernist advocates a ‘religion without religion’ that is not linked to any particular creed or denomination–a more transcendent, less determinate (or even indeterminant) commitment to justice or love. (53)
Postscript: A Prayer for Unity
“That Is Religion” by Kenneth P. Langer
One can pray alone.
But together,
People can lift their hopes
Toward a greater call.
One can sing alone.
But together,
Many voices can
Fill the skies.
One can worship alone.
But together,
Many can be united
Together in community.
One can cry alone.
But together,
Many can turn grief
Into a mighty call
For justice.
One can dream alone.
But together,
Many can bring forth
A hope and vision for the future.
One can work alone.
But together,
Many can bring forth
A manifestation of
The common vision
Toward a time of peace.
One can worship alone.
But together,
Many can weave
A tapestry of understanding.
All separate voices
Working toward the common good
In a community of compassion–
That is religion.
Notes
Smith, James K. A, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault To Church, (Grand Rapids Michigan: Baker Academic, 2006), 17, Kindle.
MacPhail, Bryn, In Search Of The Truth: A Christian Response To Postmodernity, 1.
Caputo, John D, “Atheism, A/theology and the Postmodern Condition.” Cambridge University Press, (January 2007), 2.
Smith, 37.
Smith, 63.
Smith, 64.
Caputo, 4.
Price, Robert M, “Postmodern Unitarian Universalism,” RMP: Theological Publications, 2004.
Price, “Postmodern Unitarian Universalism.”
Price, Robert M, “What Is Postmodern Theology?” RMP: Theological Publications, (2004).
Price, “Postmodern Unitarian Universalism.”
Smith, 118.
Halloun, Emil, “Conflict Resolved: the Amity between Postmodern Philosophy and Theology in Gianni Vattimo’s Weak Thought,” Open Theology, (September 18, 2019).
Gebara, Ivone, Longing For Running Water, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999), 22.
Halloun, “Conflict Resolved: the Amity between Postmodern Philosophy and Theology in Gianni Vattimo’s Weak Thought.”
Caputo, 1.
LePage, Victoria, “The God Debate: Monotheism vs. Panentheism In Postmodern Society,” Quest Magazine.
Ritchie, Susan, The Promise of Postmodernism for Unitarian Universalist Theology, (Chicago: Meadville-Lombard Files,) 5.
Caputo, 18.
Price, “What Is Postmodern Theology?”
LePage, “The God Debate: Monotheism vs. Panentheism In Postmodern Society.”
James, Paul, “On Being Religious: Towards an Alternative Theory of Religion and Secularity,” The Occasional Papers, Institute for Culture and Society, (September 2017).
Smith, 78.
Smith, 68.
Mclaren, Brian, “Beyond Business-as-Usual Christianity: Brian Mclaren Talks About Hell, The Emerging Church, And Seeker Christians Who Are Fed Up With Traditional Christianity,” Beliefnet, May 2005.
James, “On Being Religious: Towards an Alternative Theory of Religion and Secularity.”
Halloun, “Conflict Resolved: the Amity between Postmodern Philosophy and Theology in Gianni Vattimo’s Weak Thought.”
Gallo, Claudio. “Gianni Vattimo Interview.” Public Seminar, (July 11, 2016).
McFague, Sallie, Climate Change and the Practice of Restraint. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press), 2013, 18.
Ritchie, The Promise of Postmodernism for Unitarian Universalist Theology, 7.
LePage, “The God Debate: Monotheism vs. Panentheism In Postmodern Society.”
Caputo, 4.
Caputo, 10.
Caputo, 10.
Caputo, 14.
Taylor, Charles, “There Is No Single Religion Or Ideology Which Covers Everybody, An Interview by Andriy Soletskyy,” Religious Digest, (July 9, 2012).
Taylor, Charles, “Religious Belonging In An "Age Of Authenticity: A Conversation With Charles Taylor: An interview by Ron Kuipers,” The Other Journal: An Intersection of Theology and Culture, (June 23, 2008).
Rubinstein, Mary-Jane, “Cosmic Pantheism,” Nautilus, (August 28, 2017).
Rubinstein, “Cosmic Pantheism.”
LePage, “The God Debate: Monotheism vs. Panentheism In Postmodern Society.”
LePage, “The God Debate: Monotheism vs. Panentheism In Postmodern Society.”
Price, “Postmodern Unitarian Universalism.”
Ritchie The Promise of Postmodernism for Unitarian Universalist Theology, 4.
Ritchie, The Promise of Postmodernism for Unitarian Universalist Theology, 4.
Price, “Postmodern Unitarian Universalism.”
Smith, 54.
Price, “Postmodern Unitarian Universalism.”
Halloun, “Conflict Resolved: the Amity between Postmodern Philosophy and Theology in Gianni Vattimo’s Weak Thought.”
Ritchie, The Promise of Postmodernism for Unitarian Universalist Theology, 4.
Ritchie, The Promise of Postmodernism for Unitarian Universalist Theology, 13.
James, “On Being Religious: Towards an Alternative Theory of Religion and Secularity.”
Price, “Postmodern Unitarian Universalism.”
Smith, 119.
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Gebara, Ivone. Longing For Running Water. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999.
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https://www.degruyter.com/vJamesiew/journals/opth/5/1/article-p309.xml
James, Paul. “On Being Religious: Towards an Alternative Theory of Religion and Secularity.” The Occasional Papers, Institute for Culture and Society, September 2017.http://doi.org/10.4225/35/59b9c5d4e6f85
https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/1294826/Topics_vol_8_no_2.pdf
LePage, Victoria. “The God Debate: Monotheism vs. Panentheism In Postmodern Society.” Quest Magazine.
https://www.theosophical.org/publications/quest-magazine/1572-sp-514974763
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McFague, Sallie. Climate Change and the Practice of Restraint. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013.
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https://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/christianity/2005/05/beyond-business-as-usual-christianity.aspx
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http://nautil.us/blog/the-case-for-cosmic-pantheism
Smith, James K. A. Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault To Church. Grand Rapids Michigan: Baker Academic, 2006. Kindle.
Taylor, Charles. “There Is No Single Religion Or Ideology Which Covers Everybody, An Interview by Andriy Soletskyy.” Religious Digest, July 9, 2012.
https://risu.org.ua/en/index/monitoring/religious_digest/48748/
Taylor, Charles. “Religious Belonging In An "Age Of Authenticity: A Conversation With Charles Taylor: An interview by Ron Kuipers.” The Other Journal: An Intersection of Theology and Culture, June 23, 2008.