How Should We Respond to Adbusters #84: Nihilism & Revolition
I received this email from one of my favorite Indy magazines, Adbusters. Check it out:
Nihilism has long been an abstraction: the dark muse of poetry, philosophy and art. But now we are confronted with the moment when this experiment of ours on Planet Earth meets its spectacular and terrifying end, when civilization reaches its summit and begins to tumble into permanent decline. This global meltdown has wrought a new breed of nihilism – eco-nihilism, psycho-nihilism, apocalypto-nihilism – for which no philosophy has ever been written, no remedy ever prescribed … Adbusters #84, Nihilism & Revolution, hits newsstands this week.
We are living in some crazy, contradictory times – every aspect of our lives is in upheaval. Our neoclassical economic model has proven a giant failure, so we’re devoting Adbusters #85 to exploring humanistic, ecological and no-growth alternatives. It’s going to be a big, fat 144 page issue. We want your stories … all the triumphs and disasters that come with living in (and breaking free of) the apocalyptic framework of megacorporate capitalism. Send your tales, epiphanies and laments to editor@adbusters.org.
One of the reasons I appreciate Adbusters is because they are a no bullshit organization/magazine that senses things are seriously screwed-up with the world, especially the Western world. But as a follower of Christ, I believe God provided rescue for all of humanity in Christ through the event of the Cross, and will re-create and restore the world back to the way He originally created it.
So how might we respond to Adbusters and the plenty of others who share the same hopeless, dystopic, nihilistic view of our contemporary world?
Popularity: 7% [?]
This is one area where I think the emergent church will have an advantage.
Today’s culture bristles at the very thought of some legalistic morality that is imposed by the more traditional conservative churches out there. As a result, they miss the good message, the Truth, that is often hidden under much of that legalism.
But the emergent church seems to be more concerned with loving relationships and acts of service as an expression of their faith.
In order to give someone hope, you must show them love. Once a person has hope, faith is sure to follow.
wingnut
Maybe I’m not reading Adbusters correctly, but I didn’t take the nihilism issue as an endorsement of nihilism. I would assume some of the content would embrace that view, but I’d expect other articles to talk about what philosophies might be a prescription for nihilism.
Emergent church or not, the Gospel is the answer. Whether or not we accommodate postmodern sensibilities is irrelevant to Jeremy’s point: “As a follower of Christ, I believe God provided rescue for all of humanity in Christ through the event of the Cross, and will re-create and restore the world back to the way He originally created it.”