Page 8 - THE CHURCH BEFORE THE MOCKING WORLD

The Shift from Singular to Multiple Sources of Authority
As our urban centres have pluralised over the last 50 years, cultures have moved away from having very limited, narrow, and often singular sources of authority. Let us put this into a religious context. In my part of South London there were only Protestant Churches with a very small handful of Roman Catholic Churches. This meant that the spiritual sources of authority were very narrow and limited.
Today, in that same region, there are now Synagogues, Mosques, Hindu Temples, Buddhist Temples, Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, and a plethora of quazi-cultic-semi-Protestant groups.
A young person growing up may ask the question; who is God and what is he/she like? When I was a boy the answer to that question would have been quite clearly stated, albeit in a simplified style. One thing for sure, and it was absolutely sure, God was not the god of the Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, or even Roma Catholics.
Today, that same question is answered with all kinds of things in mind: race relations, multiculturalism, pluralistic realities, and most of all a cross-pollination of different perceptions and perspectives.
The fact is we now live in a world of multiple sources of authority and our questions and answers end up being a reflection of this diversity.
The End of Certainty
This index of sources of authority has removed all the familiar referent points of belief or ?conviction markers?from the culture. This in turn has created a context of what Anthony Giddens calls Radical Doubt. Radical Doubt is quite different from historic doubt. Doubt, as we previously understood it, was the movement of heart and mind up and down a line between belief and disbelief.
Radical doubt is where there are no answers. There is no truth with a capital ?T?. One cannot be certain of anything because there are so many legitimate alternative perspectives.
The end result is that it is far better to say there are no real answers than to say this or that truth claim is authentic and others are not. In short, ideas have devalued and have become consumer choices.
The words you will hear more than any other in daily discussions are; ?Well, for me it is like this.......?The ?for me?factor is the new conviction or the new bedrock of belief.
It is what I call ?Subjective Fundamentalism?.
Grounding is not to be found in the ?idea?but my interpretation of the idea.