Modernism imagines the best place to be is in that “universal”, in that unbiased place of foundational truth. Cultural perspectives and biases must be removed and ignored. Justice must be “blind” to the particulars, in order to find the universal and build up from there. Modernism imagines we can get outside our cultural blinders and find some universal “true” place to stand.
But this has created some problems, even injustice.
Modernism created an America that demanded a “melting pot”, where all differences must be erased in order to supposedly form a “generic American”—an imagined person devoid of any blemishing differences, based on a universal national good. All those who are outsiders, all those different, all those “ethnic” and “foreign” must conform to the majority. What often goes unnoticed are the particular ways the majority is expressed, rather than truly being universal at all (white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, for instance). Subconsciously, those particulars end up being seen as “generic”, and closer to the universal good.
Modernism created Colonialism, which erases native culture in favor of a conquering empire that is seen as farther on the road to the universal good which underlies all reality. The hierarchy is obvious and logical within that system, because the colonizer is supposedly closer to the supposed universal good.
Modernism created an American Christianity that often establishes “western civilization” and “whiteness” as furthest along the road to the universal good. Unexamined Evangelism internalizes Colonialism, with a mission that shapes converts into a western and white worldview—a worldview that is taught as if it is “universally” Christianity.
Modern American Christianity is anything but universal, and in many ways would be unrecognizable to Peter and Priscilla and Paul.
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