EMBRACING THE COLLAGE: PASTORAL THEOLOGY IN AN ERA OF ‘POST-PHENOMENA’

Abstract

One of the remarkable aspects of the current world situation is that our age is spoken of as one to be understood in terms of transcending or going beyond. We live in the 'after time,' the 'beyond' time the time following, contingent upon, critical of and reflective on realities which are no longer as clear and true as they were before. We live in post-modern, post-colonial post-Christian, post-human and perhaps also 'post-pastoral' times. For many people I have met here in the United States, the 'structure of feeling' (Harvey, 1992, p. 300) at this time is a diffuse sense of being 'unhinged.' Every taken for granted thing seems to have come unstuck Moving from Britain to the United States following the events of September 11 2001 has made this very poignant for me. My entry at this time in history has meant that the expected culture shocks of migration have been compounded by the trauma, pain and heart-searching as well as anger, vengefulness and outrage of a violated people. We all now live in the uncertainties and realities of post-September 11 time. To be sure, the global situation seems to be marked more than ever these days, among others, by: rapid transformation and uncertain flux in the social, economic, cultural, religious, political and personal spheres; crisis and chaos; violence and terror; endless cycles of revenge; personal martyrdom and communal murder; confusion, uncertainty, diffusion; plurality, multiplicity, fragmentation; provisionality of knowledge; fragility; vulnerability; and ephemerality. The prefix 'post-' has been used to point to conditions that have been variously understood and there is much debate and difference of opinion as to what they might refer to. Let me say at once that my usage of the prefix is not restricted merely to a way of talking about 'what comes after,' or of 'that which follows' (in a temporal sense) that which it qualifies. The term 'postmodern' does not simply refer to that which comes after or replaces modernity. Instead it is a way of speaking about the condition of being in critical vein or in questioning mode concerning it. Post-modernity as such, is the situation in which modernity is called to account, questioned and critically appraised. Where the assumptions and assertions of modernity are challenged and critiqued. Post-colonialism, similarly, is a critical re-appraisal of the colonial project and its effects, coupled with a creative engagement to transcend colonialism and re-configure the current reality.

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