TRANSFORMING Practice :PASTORAL THEOLOGY IN AN AGE OF UNCERTAINTY

Abstract

We live in an age of uncertainty. Contemporary Western society has been characterized as one in which there is no longer a consensus of values. The assumptions and criteria by which Western science, politics and philosophy have been guided for the past two hundred years, associated with the ideals of progress, humanism and reason have been discredited by critical voices which emphasize fragmentation, pluralism and scepticism. Some have diagnosed this as typical of the postmodern condition, which may be seen as destabilizing many of the nostrums of the Enlight- enment by challenging prevailing concepts of truth, human nature, knowledge, power, selfhood and language that have informed Western thought for two hundred years.