Birthing and Struggling to Birth Post-Modern Values

We are discussing the birthing of light and values in a time of solstice.

We often hear talk of how we are living between two worlds, the modern and the post-modern (Carl Jung talked about our leaving the Piscean era and entering the Age of Aquarius.) 

As in all birth, there are plenty of struggles and labor pains involved in this transition. 

It is manifesting itself in the pain of the political systems we constructed in the modern era that are now failing to fully respond to today’s needs. 

It also manifests in religious upheavals today where some respond to changes by wanting to build thicker walls, deeper moats, and the more rarified orthodoxies we call fundamentalism. 

It is everywhere.

It may be useful to look at some of the “values” that distinguish post-modern from modern thinking to understand better where we find ourselves today. 

Often I have suggested in these meditations that a post-modern consciousness has more in common with a pre-modern consciousness than with a modern consciousness. 

Especially when it comes to values—good examples would be the themes of Beauty; and Community; and the Whole that we have discussed in our two most recent essays.  These values are important to pre-modern peoples.  Much less so in the modern era.

When I pounded 95 theses on the church door in Wittenberg at Pentecost time in 2005 to protest the election of Cardinal Ratzinger to be Pope Benedict, I was re-enacting an act by Martin Luther in the sixteenth century in protesting Vatican corruption in his day.  I end my short book on that event with a list of the new 95 theses but also a chapter listing the contrasts between modern and post-modern values. 

I reproduce some of those contrasts here and in tomorrow’s meditation for I believe they are important as we let go of some values and seek for new ones in this post-modern time. 

Here I will abbreviate Modern Consciousness as M, and Postmodern Consciousness as P.

M: Began with the invention of the printing press. 
P: Began with the invention of electronic media.

M: Emphasizes text therefore. 
P: Emphasizes context.  (Thus cosmology and ecology become especially important values to seek out.)

M: Emphasizes words. 
P: Emphasizes images.

M: Throws out the past (assaulted indigenous peoples and their cultures around the world, for example). 
P: Conserves some aspects of the past and lets go of others.  For example, it recognizes wisdom in pre-modern peoples including medieval thinkers who, like indigenous people everywhere, begin with the cosmos and not with the human.

If Incarnation means becoming part of today’s history—which it does—then much needs to be reinterpreted in light of today’s history.  We will continue this meditation on birthing pains in tomorrow’s essay.

See Matthew Fox, A New Reformation: Creation Spirituality and the Transformation of Christianity, p. 112.

Banner Image: Moving from the Piscean to the Aquarian Age: woodcut illustrations of the zodiac signs Pisces and Aquarius, by Alexander and Samuel Weissenhorn of Ingolstadt. From a 16th-century manuscript in the Penn Library, call #GC55 N1700 566p, uploaded to Flickr by the Provenance Online Project.

Queries for Contemplation

There are many contrasts in values named here.  Which ones speak most deeply to the way you have struggled to understand the world?  Which ones come to you most organically?  How do you see them reflected in your children or grandchildren?  In the news? In the evolution of church or synagogue or mosque?

Recommended Reading

A New Reformation: Creation Spirituality & The Transformation of Christianity

A modern-day theologian’s call for the radical transformation of Christianity that will allow us to move once again from the hollow trappings of organized religion to genuine spirituality. A New Reformation echoes the Reformation initiated by Martin Luther in 1517 and offers a new vision of Christianity that values the Earth, honors the feminine, and respects science and deep ecumenism.

Learn More