Postmodern Times Study Guide

Question 0

What has been the result of irrelevance and syncretism?

Answer 0

Irrelevance-church has no enduring influence

Syncretism-blending of the values of culture and church

Question 1

What two extremes have always faced the church regarding her relationship with culture?

Answer 1

Irrelevance and syncretism

Question 2

What unbiblical tenet of modernism is rejected by postmodernism?

Answer 2

The exalting of human reason

Question 3

What is the main teaching of postmodern?

Answer 3

The denial of absolute truth

Question 4

What eighteenth century philosophical movement spawned the modernist mindset?
What are a few of the primary views of modernism?

Answer 4

Enlightenment

Human reason, self reliance, and independence

Question 5

How does the postmodernist understand our ability to do history?

Answer 5

They dont have absolute truth

Question 6

How did the environment come to be such an important issue to postmodernists?

Answer 6

Man was de-volved so much that the environment was exalted

Question 7

How do the following groups arrive at truth: Modernists, Postmodernist, Reformers of the sixteenth century?

Answer 7

Modernist-human reason
Postmodernist-no absolute truth
Reformers-Bible

Question 8

How can the church respond to postmodernism’ counter-cultural approach by being “counter-cultural”?

Answer 8

Returning to liturgical worship and proclaim the gospel

Question 9

According to the poll referenced by veith, of those who call themselves evangelical christians, what percentage say they do not believe there are absolutes?

Answer 9

53%

Question 10

What beliefs does Veith mention this same group holds?

Answer 10

Belief in the authority of the Bible and knows Christ as their savior, nevertheless agrees, “there is no such thing as absolute truth.”

Question 11

In the study Veith discusses in chapter one, how does the number of fundamentalist who engage in sex outside of marriage compare to the number of liberals who do the same? What does this imply?

Answer 11

56-57%

Question 12

According to the study, almost half of both Catholics and Protestants believe in abortion and what other form of murder are acceptable?

Answer 12

Euthanasia

Question 13

According to a poll Veith cites, what percentage of Americans believes there are no such things as absolute truth? According to the same poll, what percentages of those who call themselves evangelical christians believe there are no absolutes?

Answer 13

54%, 72%

Question 14

According to Thomas Oden what are the dates for the “modern age”?

Answer 14

fall of bastille 1789-Fall of berlin wall 1989

Question 15

What historical movement rediscovered and reasserted the greeks?

Answer 15

Renaissance

Question 16

what historical movement rediscovered and reasserted the bible?

Answer 16

reformation

Question 17

w=to what historical movement is the turning away from biblical supernaturalism traced?

Answer 17

renaissance

Question 18

what “religion” did enlightenment thinkers devise?

Answer 18

deism

Question 19

what nineteenth century movement cultivated subjectivity, person experience, irrationalism, intense emotion, and encouraged introspection?

Answer 19

romanticism

Question 20

what worldview dominated the twentieth century?

Answer 20

existentialism

Question 21

what is the name of the postmodern view that all meaning is socially constructed?

Answer 21

deconstruction

Question 22

what german existentialist contributed significantly to this new way of thinking?

Answer 22

martin heidegger

Question 23

According to Veith, what does art do?

Answer 23

art communicated worldview through to the culture

Question 24

if art expresses a worldview, how do postmodernists express themselves artistically?

Answer 24

breaking out of the “high culture” of the art world and into the “popular culture” of the mass mind