Issues Facing Missions Today: 49. The New Tribalism of post-Postmodernity and Christian Mission to the West
Issues Facing Missions Today: 49. The New Tribalism of post-Postmodernity and Christian Mission to the West
Introduction
Christian mission to the
West is facing a new challenge that requires moving beyond the categories of
‘Modernity’ and ‘Post-Modernity’ for the worldview of the larger society.
We are witnessing a fundamental change in the western worldview, a new outlook
that might be called ‘Tribalism.’ The
Church is caught in the challenge of how to position itself in this new reality,
which involves persecution from the Tribe.
Yet is also able to offer a profound witness at this time if it is
willing to ‘become the Gospel’ in communities with far more depth than they
have had in recent decades.
Enlightenment Modernity
Modernity was characterized by the encyclopedic, progressive
accumulation of knowledge, the authoritative lecturer in the classroom, the
scientific method and the reign of science over other disciplines in the
university, and the relegation of faith to the private and individual sphere of
life. Modernity championed scientific
and logical rationality and the ‘system’ (political, social,
logical—whatever). In this world, the
body is understood for what it is—how it was made. It is not a canvas to be tattooed with
personal expressions of art. Modernity
is a world open to ideologies as diverse as democracy, fascism, and communism,
but it is a world that can be characterized by ideology and the wars that were
waged to establish them.
Postmodernity
Postmodernity was characterized by its objection to a
metanarrative to explain life, a deconstruction of rational foundations and the philosophical, moral, and scientific edifices
built thereupon, the role of students to explore meaning through discourse
(rather than the lecturer), the triumph of language and literature over science
in the university, and a new permission to hear the mutterings of faith—and
everything else--in public places.
Postmodernity championed narrative rationality, diversity, and
self-expression. In this world, the body
is understood not as something given but as something to be personalised. It was a canvas to be tattooed with personal
art: there was no natural order. Freedom
of choice was the ruling ethic, over against the order of nature or some common
understanding of justice. It was a
period in which to apologize for the past abuses of power and to bring out of
the shadows groups that were marginalized.
Its deconstruction of ideologies and powerful authorities brought a
certain easing of tension, but also a relaxing of moral argument and an
uncertainty about what limits there are, if any, in the pursuit of life, liberty,
and happiness.
The New Tribalism
Unquestionably, the page has now been turned in the
West. A new, totalizing discourse has
and is emerging. If Modernity ruled from
the science department of the university, or from the history department
operating as a science (a closed system of cause and effect that was swinging
dialectically but positively towards some goal), Postmodernity ruled from the
literature department. Whatever
post-Postmodernity is, the sociology department is gaining control of the
university. And so it is that perhaps
the best term for this development is not ‘post-Postmodernity’ but Tribalism—an
appropriately sociological term.
The tribe champions not the individual but the group, even
though it recognizes that there are other tribes out there that must be kept in
their places. It is not apologetic for
its own abuse of power but attacks the use of power by others as abuse. It controls the speech, laws, and public
square with its own, immense power.
Freedom is no longer based on conscience but is determined by the
powerful majority and defined as the support of privileged groups. All others must be silenced, made to conform
in the marketplace, on the job, and in public discourse. The identity marks of political correctness are no longer the individual tattoos (self-expressions) of
Postmodernity but the gang uniforms and tribal tattoos. If
Postmodernity argued in favour of sexual diversity
it did so as a matter of the freedom to act as one wished (and for this we can go all the way back to 1960s). Tribalism, however, argues for sexual identities and also insists that gender
is not, as Modernity would have claimed, a biological matter but an innate
orientation despite biology. The tribal
mentality shuts down free speech in the university and public square—it
forcefully defines the new, totalizing ideology not by arguing from science
(including politics, history, and economics interpreted as sciences) but by
arguing sociologically.
If Postmodernity opened up some space to explore religions
as legitimate expressions of faith that were, at times, oppressively shut down
by the championing of science in the period of Modernity, the new Tribalism is
decidedly opposed to faith, particularly Christian faith. It often affirms Islam not as a faith but as
a minority group (think ‘Sociology’) that needs to come under the Tribe’s
protection because the Tribe wants to support minority groups. It defines Transgender persons as a minority
that is determined by its gender orientations over against its biology.
This argument is only compelling because the Tribal mentality assumes
the dominance of the sociology department in the university and the agenda of
supporting marginalized groups as groups, with no academic enquiry into their
legitimacy apart from their social status.
The Church in the Age of Tribalism
Christians need to realize that the apologetic landscape has
changed. Mission in this context is no
longer that of evidentialist argumentation ala the scientific paradigms of
Modernity. Nor is Christian mission
going to succeed merely by means of a compelling narrative amidst other narratives. In the Tribalist world in which the Church
now finds itself in the West, a sociological argument will be the most
compelling.
Ecclesiology is now the most
important theological question. However,
the sociological argument comes with persecution and martyrdom for the
Christian faith as the pattern of life for Christians is increasingly at odds
with the Tribe in which we find ourselves.
What is needed, though, is a compelling witness of Christian community
living against the grain of Western society both ethically and socially. This community—the Church—cannot argue much
from common understandings of nature or from appeals to the legitimacy of diversity
in a complex world. It will have to 'argue' by means of its winsome life together that provides alternatives to other communities formed around other identities.
The Christian response to Tribalism cannot come in the form
of mega-churches desperately trying to get a robust cell group or home
fellowship programme going despite its mass gatherings. This witness if far too weak. It cannot come in the form of calls for
individual conversion alone; rather, the focus must become baptism of converts into
a new community, the one body of Christ, the church. It cannot come in the form of polished
speakers offering a message, no matter how well crafted. It has to come in the form of the compelling
life together of a Christian community that is either attractive or worth
persecuting for its stark challenge to the controlling Tribe. Mainline denominations have so identified with
the Tribe that they have lost any reason to exist. On the other hand, truly Christian mission to
the West must come in the form of faithfully orthodox communities of Christ that
have so deeply participated in the life-transforming good news of Jesus Christ and
the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit that they have ‘become’ the Gospel
message in community together.[1] These communities must be related to one another, not independent, for the sake of their witness, ministry, and mission. They must answer basic questions beyond the 'church service', such as family life, neighbourliness, education, and care of the elderly.
The bad news is that the Church faces persecution in tribalist societies. The good news is that Tribalism strips away the unfaithful and compromised so that the Church offers a purer witness, and it forces the 'church' to be a real church--a family whose life together shines forth the Gospel.
[1] See Michael Gorman’s Becoming the Gospel: Paul, Participation,
and Mission (Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 2015).