In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • The Resurgence of Religion in the Advent of Postmodernity
  • J. Ranilo B. Hermida (bio)

Introduction

Zygmunt Bauman forewarns that the postmodern mind is "less excited than its modern adversary by the prospect to enclose the world into a grid of neat categories and clear-cut divisions."1 Taking that caveat in mind, we begin, nonetheless, with this straightforward definition of the postmodern offered by Jean-François Lyo-tard: "Incredulity toward metanarratives."2

This is not an indication, simply, of what James Smith calls our "modern filiation and Enlightenment genealogy."3 We actually have two main reasons for this approach. The first is that in the following article we are taking another look at that definition; after all, as Mark Taylor puts it, "From a postmodern perspective nothing is simply itself and no thing is one thing."4 The second and more important reason is that we would like to examine whether there is any place for Christian faith in God in the postmodern milieu and to describe the apt contour of such faith in this contemporary setting. The interest that animates this interrogation springs from the startling observation that, contrary to expectations, postmodernity has in fact engendered "a discourse which is more congenial to religion."5 [End Page 94]

Modernity and Religion

The postmodern is inseparably bound to the modern such that, even if there exists a general feeling that modernity is over, there cannot be a proper appreciation of the postmodern without a prior understanding of the modern.6

The march toward modernity started with the radical changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution in the seventeenth century. Some of these include the mechanization of the production process, the exodus of population from rural to urban centers, the accompanying changes in economic and social life, and the expansion of opportunities for education and interaction among peoples. Modernity begot progress and success, and the revelry generated by these achievements boosted also the belief in the rectilinear advance and finality of history. This pushed people to work for the steady growth of human development.

The intellectual basis that fueled the revolution was the conviction that reason is the utmost criterion and measure of everything. This found concrete expression in what John Reader calls the "emphasis upon the primacy of reason."7 He elaborates,

Reason now becomes the sole reliable means of access to the world. It is through the power of clear and logical thought and the human capacity to observe, analyze and then construct hypotheses and theories that greater control is assumed over the external environment. . . . Every aspect of reality is deemed to be susceptible to this reasoning process to the point where experiences that cannot be fitted into this framework are treated with suspicion or incredulity. . . . Truth is no longer the prerogative of existing traditions and institutions but rather that which is to be shaped from the cauldron of philosophical and scientific exploration.8

All traditions became the objects of suspicion, not the least among them the Christian religion. Reader gives an account of how religion became a casualty of the modernist assault: [End Page 95]

As people began to exercise their own judgement so the authority of religious traditions began to decline. Science and reason replaced religion as the way of understanding and interpreting both the natural world and human existence. The development of capitalism and the move towards more democratic political structures also challenged the social position of the religious hierarchies. The sacred is pushed back into the farthest recesses of human life and increasingly equated with myth and superstition while the non-religious or secular spreads across politics, the economy, intellectual and artistic pursuits and even the sphere of morality . . . Religious views have less purchase upon reality . . . relegated to a previous stage of human development when people still believed in some form of magic."9

The exaltation of reason to a premier position in modernity not only deflated all traditions but also resulted in the insistence that everything measure up to its account of reality.10 David Tracy explains this:

So strong, so new, so powerful was the modern logos—that horizon of intelligibility capsulized in the modern scientific revolution and the modern turn to...

pdf

Share