What Time Is It?
Understanding the Religious
Spirits of Our Age
Postmodernity, Economic
Globalisation, and Consumerism
Michael Goheen
Vancouver, B.C.
Canada
Foundational Worldview
Questions
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Who are we?
Where are we?
What’s wrong?
What’s the solution?
What time is it?
Incomparably the most urgent
missionary task for the next few
decades is the mission to
‘modernity’... It calls for the use
of sharp intellectual tools, to
probe behind the unquestioned
assumptions of modernity and
uncover the hidden credo which
supports them . . .
- Lesslie Newbigin
Hidden Credo
• Humanism: “Must we not
become gods?”
Humanist Credo: “Must we not
ourselves become gods?”
• Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
• ‘The Madman’
• “We have killed God—you and I! We are all
his murderers! . . . How shall we comfort
ourselves, the murderer of all murderers?
Must we ourselves not become gods simply
to appear worthy of it?”
Nietzsche’s Parable
• We have killed God in Western culture
• We must become gods
– Creator
– Redeemer: Humanism “assigns to us nothing
less than the task of being our own savior
and redeemer.” (Corliss Lamont)
– Ruler of history
Hidden Credo
• Humanism: “Must we not become
gods?”
• Rationalistic humanism: “Scientia
potestas est [knowledge is power]”
– Control of non-human creation by
technology
– Organise society according to reason
Western Credo
I believe humanity is capable of
defining the nature of the world
and the meaning of human life
(Creator).
I believe humanity can solve the
problems of our world and bring
about a new world of freedom,
prosperity, justice, and truth with
scientific reason (Saviour).
Hidden Credo
• Humanism: “Must we not
become gods?”
• Rationalistic humanism:
“Scientia potestas est”
• Living off Christian capital
Conversion of West (18th c.)
European
European
Christendom
Rationalistic
humanism
Society
Society
Light of the world
• 18th century called
Enlightenment
• Scientific reason is the light
of the world
• Religious faith commitment
A New Faith . . .
The West had ‘lost its faith’—
and found a new one, in science
and in man.
- Richard Tarnas
Enlightenment humanist faith
• Faith in progress
• Progress achieved by reason and
science
• Scientific reason produced technology
• Scientific reason produced ‘rational’
societal organisation and structures
Progress comes ‘by the application of reason’ to both
‘technical and social’ issues (J. H. Plumb).
‘The ideas and values of the
modern age are not only
intellectualized but they are
embedded in powerful
institutions, arguably the most
powerful institutions that have
ever existed. . . .’ (John Davison
Hunter).
Age of Revolution (19th- early 20th c.)
• A worldview can never remain only as a vision
or set of beliefs: Will always begin to
reshape world
• Bringing society into conformity with
Enlightenment faith
• French Revolution, Industrial Revolution,
Democratic revolutions, American Revolution,
Marxist Revolution.
If the Enlightenment vision is true then “the
establishment of new social institutions is not a
tedious incidental task, but a dire necessity and a
highly ethical imperative. In that case, the narrow
way to the lost paradise can only be the way of social
revolution” (Goudzwaard).
Establishment of Enlightenment faith
meant a narrowing of gospel
“The early Christian belief that the
Fall and Redemption pertained not
just to man but to the entire
cosmos, a doctrine already fading
after the Reformation, now
disappeared altogether; the
process of salvation, if it had any
meaning at all, pertained solely to
the personal relation between God
and man” (Tarnas).
Economic form of modern
humanism
• Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations
1776)
– Goal: Material prosperity
– Means: Rational organisation of
production, technology, free market
• Industrial revolution
• 20th century: Western culture
shaped by economic idolatry
Capitalism “has reorganized the
social structure for the purposes of
manufacturing, production, and
consumption . . . It has changed the
shape of our world. . . . [And]
technology facilitates the
processes of capitalism, and
rationalizes all of life.” (David Wells)
Every style of culture is in turn
related to the religious
question of how people view the
ultimate meaning of their life
and society.
- Bob Goudzwaard
Ultimate meaning of postEnlightenment West
• End: Economic growth, material
prosperity, consumption of goods
and experiences
• Means: Market, economic
processes, technology
Economic organisation of society
• Illustration of queen bee in beehive
• Queen bee’s task to produce eggs
• Whole hive functionalised and
directed toward that task
20th Century Development and
Our Current Situation
• Postmodernity: Increasingly comprehensive
and widespread challenge to Enlightenment
faith (not working anymore!)
• Globalisation: Survival and global spread of
an economic form of the Enlightenment
faith (let’s take it to the rest of the
world!)
• Consumerism: Fruit of both developments
On the one hand . . .
failure and breakdown of modern
humanism . . .
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Environmental destruction
Growing poverty
Nuclear threat
Economic problems
Psychological, social disorders
. . . leads to postmodern
challenge.
The twentieth century—with its death camps and
death squads, its militarism and two world wars, its
threat of nuclear annihilation and its experience of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki—has certainly shattered
[the earlier] optimism [in progress]. Worse still,
suspicion lurks that the Enlightenment project was
doomed to turn against itself and transform the
quest for human emancipation into a system of
universal oppression in the name of human
liberation. . . . There are those—and this is the core
of postmodernist philosophical thought—who insist
that we should in the name of human emancipation,
abandon the Enlightenment project entirely.
- David Harvey
What is Postmodernism?
• Postmoderns don’t believe big stories of
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progress anymore
Postmoderns don’t trust reason to get truth
Postmoderns are suspicious of exclusive truth
claims
Postmoderns are suspicious of authority
Postmoderns tend toward pluralism—many
versions of the truth
Postmoderns are sensitive to the injustices of
humanist story
Postmoderns are appreciative of community
On the other hand . . .
the success of modern humanism . . .
• Growing wealth
• Degree of freedom, justice, and
stability
• Scientific and technological
development
. . . leads to globalising of modern
humanism.
“. . . it is to Adam Smith and his
immediate predecessors . . .
that we should look for the
inner meaning of progressive
ideology [today].” (Christopher
Lasch)
The concept of progress can be defended
against intelligent criticism only by
postulating an indefinite expansion of
desires, a steady rise in the general
standard of comfort, and the
incorporation of the masses into the
culture of abundance. It is only this form
that the idea of progress has survived
the rigors of the twentieth century.
More extravagant versions of the
progressive faith . . . collapsed a long
time ago; but the liberal version has
proven surprisingly resistant to the
shocks to easy optimism administered in
rapid succession by twentieth-century
events (Lasch).
Economic Globalization
• Economic modern worldview is primary
unifying power in global world
• Global economic system and market
• ‘Asymmetric globalisation’: Inequity and
injustice
• Increasing gap between rich and poor
• Created wealth to support consumer
society in West
• Unequal share in fruits: 1/5 population
accounts for ½ of consumption
Dominance of economic
globalization?
The reality of our world is not the end
of grand narratives, but the increasing
dominance of the narrative of
economic globalization. . . . This is the
new imperialism . . . (Richard Bauckham)
Globalization as an ideology has grown out of
the older idea of progress but differes in
that it reduces progress to economic growth .
. . Does it benefit the poorest people? Does it
destroy the environment? Does it destroy
other (traditional) values which are at least as
important as economic prosperity? Not only on
the first but also on the other two counts
economic globalization . . . is surely blatantly
guilty of impoverishing and vandalizing God’s
world. (Bauckham)
Consumer Society
• Combination of loss of meaning
(postmodernity): So we fill our lives
with experiences and goods
• Growing wealth and idolatry of
economic processes (economic
globalisation): So we have the
resources
• The most powerful idolatrous force
in West today?
Most powerful idolatrous force?
Consumerism appears to have become
part and parcel of the very fabric of
modern life. . . . And the parallel with
religion is not an accidental one.
Consumerism is . . . arguably the religion
of the late twentieth century (S. Miles).
Making of consumer society
• “. . . manufacturing, production, and
consumption . . .” (Wells)
• “So, how did this happen? Well, it
didn’t just happen. It was designed.”
(The Story of Stuff)
• Growing gap between production and
consumption
Consumption as Way of Life
Our enormously productive economy . . .
demands that we make consumption a way of
life, that we convert the buying and use of
goods in rituals, that we seek our spiritual
satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in
consumption. . . . We need things consumed,
burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded
at an ever increasing rate. We need to have
people eat, drink, dress, ride, live, with . . .
constantly more expensive consumption.
(Victor Lebow, economist, 1955)
Making Consumption a Way of
Life
• Planned obsolescence: Designing stuff
to break down or be unusable quickly
• Perceived obsolescence: Instilling in the
buyer the desire to own something a
little newer, a little better, a little
sooner than is necessary.
Advertising
• Average North American exposed to
3000 ads per day
• Creating new desires
• Creating dissatisfaction
• Selling the good life
Some Reflections on Consumer
Society in Light of Gospel
• It is a communal religious vision and way
of life that is idolatrous
Precisely because the culture of
economism is a quasi-religion, with a
pretence of encompassing the totality of
life and of bringing happiness and
fulfilment, we find ourselves obliged from
a Christian point of view to denounce it as
a dehumanizing idolatry . . . (Jane Collier)
Some Reflections on Consumer
Society in Light of Gospel
• Religious vision and way of life that is idolatrous
• Communal idolatry is destructive
– To the poor
– To the environment
– To the wealthy (e.g., chronic lack of time, increasing
cost for service sector, debt, anxiety, psychological
problems, distortion of education, family, sex, sports,
etc., toxic buildup in bodies/foods, etc.)
– To godly character (e.g., greedy, envious, selfish,
trivial and superficial, dissatisfied, ungrateful,
entitled, narcissistic, apathetic, addicted to mindless
distraction, concerned for image over character,
wasteful, self-indulgent, etc.)
Some Reflections on a Consumer
Society in Light of the Gospel
• Communal religious vision that is idolatrous
• Communal idolatry is destructive
• Formation system so powerful that it even
domesticates the church
The Consumer Society is a formation system: it
forms us and our behaviour. . . .
Christians are more committed in lived faith to
the gospels of nation and culture than to the
gospel of Jesus. . . . The impoverishment and
domestication of the Christian faith . . is the
central problem . . . (John Kavanaugh).
How should we then live?
• Good news for a generation that “can’t get no
satisfaction”
• Need an equally comprehensive and compelling
story of meaning of human life rooted in gospel
• Community that embodies that story!
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Know biblical story and power of gospel
Know our cultural story
Develop ‘redemptive tension’
Willingness to suffer
Train the next generation
Communal life (nourish, support, equip)
Deep spirituality