Transforming Church

As the scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries gave way to the industrial revolution of the eighteenth century the promise of science began to be fulfilled. Middleton and Walsh note that discovery in the Industrial Age took place in the form of machines, factories, and innovation. Thus the second floor, the floor of technology, rests firmly upon its foundation of science. With each passing generation, the products of technology become more advanced; steam engines, automobiles, jet airplanes and computers.

Each new development reiterates the promise that knowledge would subdue and control nature. Middleton and Walsh note that “Through our scientific understanding of nature and our insightful application of this understanding, we can control the very forces of nature. Through modern technology we can split the atom and store vast and complex information systems on microchips. If the first floor gave us insight and understanding, this second floor gives us power. It allows us mastery over our environment.” (Truth is Stranger than it Used to Be: Biblical Faith in a Postmodern Age, page 17.)

Upon the first floor foundation of science and the second floor of technology, the top floor of progress sits. With an ever-growing wealth of knowledge producing ever more complex technologies, progress was sure to follow. The modern world trusted that each new discovery and each new innovation would serve to improve the quality of life for all members of society. Advances in science, modernity held, would lead to greater economic stability, an increase in the quality of life, health, and happiness for all.

That was the promise of modernity. Science would support technology. Technology would support progress. The words of Francis Bacon would be realized, “Knowledge is power.” Hunger and poverty would be eliminated. Diseases would be wiped away. Wars would be only a memory. Humanity would be free and happy.

While modernity spoke of great promise and progress, postmoderns are not so easily convinced. The great faith in progress and the power of knowledge that characterized the modern world is quickly being replaced with what has been described as more of a “gnawing pessimism.” Modernity, postmoderns contend, has not lived up to its promise. While small pox and tuberculosis no longer threaten the large numbers of the past, cancers and AIDS continue. Terrorism and violence show no signs of lessening.

While technology has improved the standard of living for many, many others have not received the same benefits. While the last half of the twentieth century has produced advances unprecedented in human history, it would be difficult to prove that our time is one in which people are “genuinely happy” or “truly free.”

The trouble with modernity’s tower, of course, is its very foundation, for it is one of human logic, wisdom, and ingenuity. There is neither a place nor a need for God. The object of faith is changed, for faith need no longer be directed toward God. The modern world calls us to faith in ourselves. Postmodernity knows that such a faith is misplaced and misguided. Bacon’s “knowledge is power,” is being quickly replaced with a “gnawing pessimism.” It is a gnawing sense that things are not right and never will be right. It is a gnawing sense that understands Paul’s sentiments as he announces that try as he might, he simply can’t do the good he wishes to do.

All of this is good news to the preacher. It may be the best news the preacher has received since modernity’s birth some five centuries ago, for it opens the door to preaching that is meaningful, powerful and life changing.

As a Lutheran, I have been schooled in Law and Gospel thinking. I have been taught that the Law condemns and the Gospel saves. In a time of gnawing pessimism, the law (and therefore the announcement of the gospel) takes on new and added power. The idea of sin as an inescapable condition resonates with the postmodern mindset in ways that the modern mind could never fathom. As the tower of modernity collapses, the clear need for divine transcendence can arise. But let us not fool ourselves. The old ways will not automatically work in this new time. We need a model for law and gospel that will better reach the postmodern mind.

Generations ago, Martin Luther described the law as a “large and powerful hammer” that smashes any self-righteous inclinations forcing the sinner to God and God alone. The condemning power of the law is transcendent and universal. One is “struck” by the hammer of the law by not measuring up to the timeless, unchanging will of God as defined in the timeless and unchanging regulations of the Decalogue. A reliance on the timeless and the universal will not work as it once did. (For more on postmodernity’s dismissal of timeless truth see Part 2 in this series.)

Paul Tillich offers a different image of the law, one far better suited for a postmodern context. Whereas Luther begins with talk of guilt, falling short, and conviction, Tillich speaks in existentialist terms of alienation, meaninglessness, brokenness, finitude, anxiety, and despair. The individual, according to Tillich, does not need the law as hammer with its divine regulations to announce a word of condemnation. Instead, Tillich believes what is needed is a law that functions like a mirror, offering individuals the tools necessary to honestly examine their lives.

Law as mirror differs from law as hammer in two very important ways. First, Tillich begins in a very different place. Rather than relying on the vertical dimension, namely the individual’s relationship with God, Tillich begins with the horizontal, the individual’s relationship with others and with the world.

In such an approach, judgment is no longer a declaration from on high, which comes in response to the violation of law. Rather, judgment is experienced as an individual comes to terms with the condition and realities of daily life. Beginning with human experience enables Tillich’s understanding of law to affect individuals regardless of their theological positions. One need not accept the Decalogue, or any other manifestation of law, as normative. For law as mirror to be effective, all one needs is a willingness to look honestly at oneself.

Secondly, Tillich’s approach to law does not necessarily speak of guilt. Categories such as estrangement, meaninglessness, brokenness, anxiety are simply descriptive and do not speak of violation or of personal responsibility. The goal of law as mirror is simply to make clear the human situation and expose it for what it is by providing the necessary language and structures.

While this is a break from Luther’s understanding, it is certainly consistent with the Reformation’s second use of the law. Even though Tillich’s approach to the law begins with human experience, it does not end there. While one may understand the alienation, brokenness, or despair of human existence without any reference to the Decalogue, it becomes the theologian’s job to help frame those experiences in theological terms. In beginning with the experience of human need one can then begin to see God as the one who addresses and meets that need.

Consider the story of the Prodigal Son. The “hammer of God” approach might move the preacher to name the countless number of wrongs the son has committed noting that we too have committed many of the same offences. Such an approach would lead to the Good News that God, like the father in the story forgives and welcomes back. Such an approach can be effective as long as the “wrongs” are accepted as timeless and universal. If they can be dismissed or minimized the sermon loses its power.

More effective, at least to the postmodern mind, begins with the alienation, the hurt, and the suffering experienced by both the father and the son – something all of us have experienced in varying ways. As the text serves as a mirror to our experience, it cannot be dismissed or minimized. The text has served as mirror. God’s response of reconciliation and a new vision for human existence then come as powerful and relevant.

We do preach in a different time. Our understandings of truth, authority and the human condition are changing dramatically. But when we understand what is behind these shifts, we can develop a preaching ministry that deeply impacts the lives of those who hear.