How the World Lost Its Story

By Robert W. Jenson – Critique by Rogelio Bueno

I know what you're thinking, Joan is feeding me great essays again, but no, as much as I would like to credit her for this one I can't. I and my fellow postulants for the ordained Diaconate were asked to read, "How the World Lost Its Story" and be ready to discuss our thoughts on it in our next class. 

These are my impressions of Robert W. Jenson’s well-stated premise that western post-modernism is caving in upon its empty core, and what role the Church has in the post-modern world.

First of all, Mr. Jenson makes good points with his understanding of our post-modern society. Keeping in mind that his essay was originally written in October of 1993, it is especially insightful and even more relevant today as the signs of his observations of over 20 years ago are all around us.

The un-narrative narrative of today is evident everywhere. The post-modern mind only wants to shun its past, destroy the foundations it stands upon and demand more and more illogical and morally baseless “rights” for itself, all the while having absolutely no idea of what should replace what they rail against. The post-modern mind is one of self-delusional anarchy.

 Mr. Jenson’s answer to this dilemma is for the Church to remember her traditional roots and historical narrative encouraging a Eucharist-centric foundational narrative to display to a world in chaos. He is obviously writing from a very Roman Catholic viewpoint and, though I do not totally agree with his assumptions about how the Protestant Church has contributed to the post-modern issues we are dealing with, I think he is spot-on about the error of churches chasing “social relevancy” as a way to attract and keep members.

“The modern world, the world that instrumental and critical reason built, is falling about us. Modernity, it now becomes evident, has been all along eroding its own foundations; its projects and comforts have depended on an inheritance to which it has itself been inimical.”

I am growing more persuaded that he and others are right about our being in a post-modern society. I also tend to believe that we are worshiping in a post-Constantine church; a church that has, for the most part, lost the position of respect and authority given to her by Rome. That position has been both a blessing and a curse for the Church. When Rome collapsed in on itself, as Western culture is doing today, the Church held a position of stability and moral authority that she used, for the most part, very well and was able to preserve and eventually revive civilization. It is important to remember that, by and large, it was not the politicians and publicans of the Church that did the heavy lifting but the monastics. It was the monastics who, disgusted with the political intrigue, greed and decadence that came into the Church with Constantine’s protection and generosity, separated themselves from society and began to build Christ centered communities that taught the peasants how to follow God, cultivate crops and organize themselves.

“As the church once lived and conducted her mission in the precisely post-Hellenistic and post-Roman-imperial world, remembering what had vanished but not knowing what if anything could come next, so the church must now live and conduct her mission in the precisely “post”-modern world.”

I do not advocate the creation of monasteries or of Christians heading to the desert to escape the decadence of our society, though I couldn’t blame anyone if they did. I do think, though, it’s time that the Church remembered who she is. It is a sin for Christians to see themselves as another political action group, voting block or social activist organization. It is a sin for Christians to identify themselves as conservative, liberal, Protestant, Catholic, or any other identity, including sexual identity. We are Christians. Our identity is Christ in you. Within that identity we may find ourselves with conservative or liberal, etc. leanings but those tags are not who we are. They are only our opinions, choices, sins and efforts to work out our salvation.  

” The entire project of the Enlightenment was to maintain realist faith while declaring disallegiance from the God who was that faith’s object. The story the Bible tells is asserted to be the story of God with His creatures; that is, it is both assumed and explicitly asserted that there is a true story about the universe because there is a universal novelist/historian. Modernity was defined by the attempt to live in a universal story without a universal storyteller.”

Christ is the foundation stone of the Church and the Church is the foundation stone of society, nothing less. Society does not need a Church that is following it around begging for crumbs of popularity and influence. Society needs a strong and confident foundation upon which to build and live and thrive. Time and again throughout history you find examples of people who chose to live by Judeo/Christian ethics of God first, your neighbor second and yourself third. And, time and again you will find that those cultures have prospered, grown - and suffered persecution.

“. . . if the church does not find her hearers antecedently inhabiting a narratable world, then the church must herself be that world.”

” In the postmodern world, if a congregation or churchly agency wants to be “relevant,” here is the first step: It must recover the classic liturgy of the church, in all its dramatic density, sensual actuality, and brutal realism, and make this the one exclusive center of its life. In the postmodern world, all else must at best be decoration and more likely distraction.”

It is important for Christians to remember; the Church was here long before the current crop of social experimenters came along, and She will be here long after they have become a minor byline of history. Along the way, our job is to confidently live out the Gospel before a dying culture, providing loving truth and a solid foundation for people and society to build upon. Our job is to work with Christ as He seeks and saves the lost and dying.