Evangelical Review of Theology (2013) 37:2, 153‐165
The Bible and our Postmodern World Billy Kristanto
Keywords: contextualization, contemporary theology, plurality, aesthetics, Postliberal, marginal, foundationalism, metanarrative
Making the Bible relevant to the contemporary audience is not a new problem but it has been the lasting struggle of Christian theologians. In every age however, two alternatives can always be found with regard to this issue: the more negative responses and the more positive responses to contemporary thought. Such alternatives are unavoidable since from the Christian perspective there are the influences of both divine common grace and sin in every contemporary (secular) thought. Therefore, the right response to postmodernism should be arguably both of fascination and aversion.1 Before moving to evaluate the opportunity and reduction of postmodernism, we should sketch roughly the main arguments of postmodernism against modernism or in other words, the paradigm shift from modernity to postmodernity.
I Change of Paradigm from Modernity to Postmodernity 1. Epistemological Foundationalism First is the shift from the epistemological foundationalism. The belief that true knowledge should be based on the 1
Compare Fatio’s designation of term applied on the relationship between Lambert Daneau and medieval scholasticism in Olivier Fatio, Méthode et théologie: Lambert Daneau et les débuts de la scolastique réformée (=Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance, vol. 147), (Geneva: Droz, 1976), 118; quoted from Christoph Strohm, ‘Methodology in Discussion of “Calvin and Calvinism”,’ in: H. J. Selderhuis (ed.), Calvinus Præceptor Ecclesiæ: Papers of the International Congress on Calvin Research. Princeton, August 20-24, 2002 (=Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance, vol. 388), (Geneva: Droz, 2004), 83.
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