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Postmodernism in the 21st Century

The 21st Century brings with it a whole new set of difficulties, a world view different from any before. The Enlightenment gave us a view of the universe beyond simple supernatural causality. The Modernist period gave us the ability to see science as revelation of God's creation. The current, Postmodernist era rejects the mega-narratives, the broader cultural constructs such as religion, government, individual freedom, etc., and manifests itself in two dynamics: relativism and secularism. The challenge to Dominicans is to understand and engage this era, bringing hope and energizing it with its preaching. The promise of Christ is the only hope for humankind against the seering indifference of postmodernism.

CPP - The Center for Preaching Poetry
CPLDP - The Center for Lay Dominican Preaching
CDSJR - The Center for Dominican Social Justice Research

This site responds to the Third and Fourth Priorities of the Order:

Third Priority -

Justice and Peace: critical analysis of the origins, forms and structures of injustice in contemporary societies; evangelical praxis for the liberation and promotion of the whole person. Actions for Justice and Peace, that they may be prophetic signs in the world, need to be integrated into projects of local, provincial or regional communities; they must be based in social analysis and biblical and theological sources; they must support the brothers and sisters who participate at the risk of their lives in associations and movements in favor of human dignity.

-General Chapter of Quezon City, 1977

Fourth Priority -

Human communication through mass media: in the preaching of the Word of God. The media has very evidently shown us "the drama of our times": the fracture between human culture and the evangelical message, between the human word and the word of faith (Evangelii Nuntiandi 20); the media today constitutes a privileged instrument to provide a culturally intelligible and effective word to the efficacious proclamation of the whole Gospel. Immersed in a world in which the whole person is communicative of life or death. This occurs in a process in which there are no spectators; all are actors; the vocation of the Order calls us, then, to be preachers, that is, communicators with these characteristics: conviction, new vision, liberty.

--General Chapter of Quezon City, 1977