Meltdown: Making sense of a culture in crisis
By Marcus Honeysett
Foreword by D. A. Carson
This book stands out for three reasons:
First, while it betrays the author's knowledge of theory, it is far more accessible than most volumes dealing with this subject.
Second, the text is studded with examples from and allusions to the icons of contemporary culture. Not every work informed by theory can drop in references to the Simpsons, films, plays books; not every work of this sort provides useful case studies that make Derrida and Foucault come to life.
Above all, Marcus Honeysett understands what goes into making a Christian worldview, and presents his case with straightforward resolve and plain speech.
- From the foreword by D. A. Carson, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
Highly recommended
This book is a game of two very different halves. The first
half 'Specific Challenges, Specific Theories' looks at five
'case studies'
(imaginary, but closely modeled on real life). Each takes the
example of a particular person facing a specific challenge to
their faith from some aspect of postmodern theory:
- The Disappearance of Authority: Mike is a television producer who has to struggle with the practical implications of the theories of Michel Foucault.
- Absolute Truth and Revelation are Unacceptable: Diane is a Christian Union leader at a university. As a classics student, she is grappling with Jacques Derrida's deconstructionism.
- How Do We Know What Is Important? Frank is a sculptor and a follower of Christ, who is trying to work out whether there is such a thing as high art and low art, and how we can find criteria for value - a question analyzed signficantly by Walter Benjamin
- What Does It Mean to Be a Person? Sophie is a trainee nurse whose training rapidly becomes objectionable from the point of view of a follower of Christ, when she is confronted by the practical implications of identity and sexuality issues as defined by the Feminist theorist Judith Butler
- How Can We Know What Is Real? Joy is a Geography student who is being taught that there is no such thing as an objective reality. She may not know it, but the ideas behind what she is being taught comes from the theory of Jean Baudrillard.
The second half of the book, 'Challenging a Changing Culture' looks more generally at how followers of Christ should respond to postmodern culture:
- The Changing Culture and the Postmodern University
- Postmodern Christian Living 1: Postmodern Bible Reading?
- Postmodern Christian Living 2: The Postmodern Church?
- The Immorality of Postmodernism
- TV and Moral Collapse
- Conclusion: Proclaiming the Authentic Jesus
Appendix 1 is a glossary of postmodern culture, and appendix 2 is a suggested reading list, graded according to difficulty.
Each chapter ends with some questions which will help readers to think through the implications for followers of Christ, and which could be used as the basis for a group discussion event.
The first half of this book is particularly important if you are a student (or about to become a student) - especially any kind of humanities student, or if you have offspring who are students, or if you are concerned in any way with outreach to students. Students will be confronted with these contemporary theories, whether or not they are aware of them.
The second half of the book will probably appeal more widely to followers of Jesus Christ who do not consider themselves 'academic.' Having said that, any follower of Christ who is concerned with 'making sense of a culture in crisis' and understanding the theory behind contemporary postmodern culture will benefit hugely from reading this book.
Order
from the UK
(not yet available in USA)
Marcus Honeysett is a UCCF Team Leader in the London area. He has studied English and Theater, Postmodern Culture and Contemporary Theory, and his interests include skiing, music, reading and computer games. His own web site is also a highly recommended resource.
