In the comments of the last post, someone brought up the question of whether or not a good way to describe modernity is as a “Christian heresy.” I don’t think this is a good way to describe modernity. The notion of modernity as heresy is just too easy. It places “Christianity” safely insulated from the horrors of modernity under critique, even as it give a nod to modernity’s roots in Christianity. By rendering modernity as a Christian heresy we acknowledge the (undeniable) historical link between Christianity and modernity while simultaneously saying that true, orthodox Christianity (i.e. those who think and act like us) really had nothing to do with it. Like saying, “Well yes, the Crusades sure were awful, but after all none of those participating in it were real Christians.”

The problem is not that modernity is a Christian heresy, it is rather that it is precisely the outworking of Christian orthodoxy. This is an important point. Modernity does not stem from an aberration within orthodox Christianity, but from the triumph of Christian orthodoxy itself (i.e. Christendom).

The problem with labeling a modernity a heresy is that it renders Christianity entirely innocent by defining Christianity in an ahistorical and ideological way. “True Christian orthodoxy” is just never to blame for anything and anything that is bad in the world has to be some deviation from this pristine (Platonic?) Christian ideal. If we take the history of Christianity seriously, however, we have to say that modernity does not arise from the denial or mutilation of Christianity, but rather from orthodox Christianity itself. This is why the more fruitful way to critique the ideologies of modernity is not to strive to go back to some premodern past when things were allegedly still orthodox wonderful. Rather it is to look back to the very particular reality of Jesus of Nazareth, whose life, death, and resurrection stands in perpetual judgment of all ideologies. And all orthodoxies.

I’m completely and utterly tired of massive Christian critiques of “modernity.” Its not that I don’t think there something useful to learn from many of these, its just that they tend to go way off the rails. We often hear statements like “modernity is a dead end and the only way forward is the recovery of classical, Christian orthodoxy.”

I don’t really think I even understand what this is really supposed to mean. What on earth do we mean by “way forward”? What does it mean to say that “orthodoxy” is going to move us beyond modernity to wherever we’re supposed to be? I assume that “we” are the world system as it once was at some point and we really, really want it to be that way again. This seems to me to be a boiled-down statement of John Milbank’s nostalgia for a sort of neo-fascist premodernity.

Now, I’m all for decrying “individualism” and all the other woes that stem from the Enlightenment. But come on. First of all, the idea that Christianity and modernity are two arch-rivals locked in a titanic battle for the future of the world is just nonsense. Modernity is completely unintelligible apart from its rootage in Christianity and Christendom. This isn’t to say that there shouldn’t or can’t be theological critiques of the modern world, only that attempting to get critical leverage on modernity by positing Christianity—as this “other” force that used to order the world for wonderfullness and could again if we just got rid of modernity—is just historically naive.

And secondly, modernity is just not all that bad. This is, in some ways a personal point for me. I was born with a congenital heart problem that was corrected by surgery, and a very new form of surgery at the time. It’s healthy as a horse now and I’ll probably live as long as anyone with a normal heart. If I were born in the premodern paradise of blessed Christendom I’d already be dead, if I even survived childbirth. So would my best friend Steve, the diabetic.

Of course, most of the yearners for the glorious premodern will insist that it was actually Christianity, not modernity that invented everything good and helpful in the world. This however just proves the point I made above. Christianity and modernity cannot be disentangled as though one could be used to give critical leverage against the other.

Sure, there are a hell of a lot of things wrong with modernity and the world we live in—and, umm with Christianity. No one denies that. But the way to address this theologically is not to start freaking out and trying to figure out how to recreate some sort of pan-Christian social fascism. What we need is to not look back to premodern Christendom or the social Constantinianism of nineteenth and twentieth century America. This is precisely the wrong approach. What we need to do is return again to the very particular history of Jesus of Nazareth who alone frees us from the rule of powers and ideologies. This, of course is a far more risky endevor as we don’t have the sort of security provided by the mere reassertion of a given social order from the past. Rather we are thrown back upon the interruptive and destabilizing reality of Jesus and his call to discipleship.