Two Worlds: Notes on the Death of Modernity in America & Russia

By Thomas C. Oden

Book Overview

Thomas Oden describes the cultural shifts occurring in both Russia and America, focusing on the two worlds of perishing modernity and emerging post-modernity, and discussing what these changes mean... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0830817638
• ISBN13: 9780830817634
• Release Date: January 1992
• Publisher: InterVarsity Press
• Length: 175 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Oden's Two Worlds

Tom Oden's Two Worlds: Notes on the Death of Modernity in America and Russia (Downer's Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, c. 1992), is more a report from a theologian-at-work than a theological work, but it's fascinating to those of us who have watched Oden's theological pilgrimage as well as any who are curious about religious life in Russia. Oden was invited, by the professors who formerly directed the Department of Atheism of Moscow State University, to give some lectures on American Evangelicalism in the winter of 1991. He found his hosts genuinely interested ("ravenously hungry" in fact) in his beliefs, his audiences warm to the Christian faith. Though TV pundits' reports accentuate shortages of food and consumer goods, Oden found Russians often far hungrier (and willing to sacrifice for) the bread of life. "Post-Soviet Christians told us it is incorrect to assume that they need material food more than spiritual food" (p. 160). Most of us . . . unless we've slept through some of the most remarkable events in all world history . . . have heard how religious aspirations have rebounded in Russia. Oden confirms this: "People are freely giving money to restore churches which had been stripped to the walls. They are seeking to support educational programs, rebuild hospitals, orphanages and charitable institutions outlawed for seven decades" (p. 159). When opened, churches quickly overflow. In St. Petersburg there are now 60 churches, full of young people, where there were only 10 a decade ago. Certain points of contact between Russian Orthodoxy and conservative Evangelicalism gave Oden some commonalities with which to dialogue. Like many of us in the West, religious thinkers in the East are going back to the sources of the Faith, the first five centuries, which are particularly rich in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. He also found, however, that "These two giant, quintessentially modern societies, Soviet and American, seemed to me surprisingly similar at one level, for they were both suffering from the rapidly deteriorating assumptions of modernity" (p. 12). Oden calls this "postmodernity. In both societies the remnants of Enlightenment optimism, scientism, and hedonism now rot and suffer. Despite enormous differences, both Soviet and American societies are grieving over the decomposing assumptions of modern nihilistic relativism" (p. 12). Readers of Oden's other works will find his anti-modernity musings much akin to that espoused over the past decade in other works. What's interesting is how his critique applies it to Russia and America, so often considered poles apart! This is a readable, fascinating report from the front lines! (Which is not where you usually find academic theologians!) But it's well worth the reading. # # #

Typical Oden- very worthwhile

Tom Oden has long been a brain crush of mine and here is a volume in which one can expect to find a practical academic synthesis of the breakdown of what is often called "Modernity" from an "East-West" meta-cultural perspective. The subtitle of the book is apt- "Notes on the Death of Modernity in American and Russia." Oden describes the unraveling of Modernity in the two centuries between the fall of the Bastille and the fall of the Berlin wall (general guidelines for the beginning and end of Modernity). In this description he summarizes the excesses of Modernity with exemplary names that articulated these intellectual movements so influential in both the East and West. Oden concludes with a section of evaluation and description of his Russian experience, and his sense of what these changes mean- or did mean as of 1992. Each section is narrated with an eye to his own Christian psycho-theological synthesis (Oden teaches in a PhD program at Drew University that unites the study of religion and psychology) and the narrative of his interaction with Russian students and university faculty. In terms of the worth of this book, I would say there are two strong reasons for the Christian to take and read. Oden is a strategic mind on this topic for two reasons and his synthesis of 20th century movements are important for young Christians trying to make sense of what is called "Postmodernism". First, Oden is of an age that allows him to remember major academic shifts from the 40's to the present. He is old enough to have been trained in the middle of the 20th century and was a faculty member throughout the radical 60's and after. Thus he as been around the intellectual block as much as anyone out there, and that allows him to hold a certain vantage point inaccessible to some younger Christians. Secondly has made his home on both sides of the academic aisle- having been a radical liberal-critical-modernist and has since come to see the "vitality of orthodox Christianity within postmodern consciousness..." (pg. 22). Therefore, though some might say his analysis of modernist excesses and schools of criticism are simplified a great deal, his assessments and analysis is certainly done be someone who was trained in and taught students in the fields in question and now critiques them from the outside. Third, Oden has a keen understanding of the movements of psychology over the last several decades, has a very firm grasp of Christian history- especially in the patristics (first five centuries), and therefore is the kind of generalist-specialist so hard to find in our day of information overload. Besides, he likes Kierkegaard, so how bad can he be. Lastly, the potential reader should know this is not a technical book on Modernity or Postmodernity. Not that Oden is unable to write such a book, but because authors need to make certain decisions. This book is one of "notes" and reads like a compilation of lectures and narratives woven together in pleasan