Haase_UZ_x007E_DTh (2).pdf - South African Theological Seminary

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postmoderns are not quick to embrace the God of the Bible, but they do recognize the
need for a ‘something-ness’ that exists beyond one’s “normal ego-consciousness”
(Benedikter, 2005). The thirty plus years of deconstruction has given rise to recognition
of the “primordial basis,” or in Ayn Rand’s words, “the fountainhead” (ibid.). The
“continuous presence of an origin out of itself” (Jean Gebser, in Benedikter, 2005), is
something rational and logically operational. Deconstruction thus led the postmoderns to
the “productive void,” where thought and substance could not be deconstructed, or
reduced further (ibid.), so they as so many others throughout history, have come to the
end of themselves, and are left wondering, is there nothing more
Neo-Paganism
Over the centuries, the church and the secular humanists failed to fully remove
animistic, superstitious, mythical tendencies and spiritual hunger in people. More often,
these drives and desires were suppressed, not removed, and movements like Paganism
simply went underground. In addition, the Church embraced the naturalist agenda of the
humanists. A spiritual vacuum still needed to be filled, and Paganism began to resurface.
Skepticism based on the assumed infallibility
and universal sovereignty of reason was the
constitutive character of modernity. It was
designed to eliminate faith and re-channel
man’s inherent compulsion to submit and
worship. New Gods and new traditions were
invented, new prophets were proclaimed and
new heavens were imagined. But religion
has not only survived the five hundred year
assault on God and his messages, but has
returned with an increased fervor that baffles
the postmodern being (Khan, 2000).
While postmodernity never really promotes a return to animistic tendencies, and/or
beliefs in the supernatural, it does little, or nothing to discourage it. In the process,
University of Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa