The Regeneration of Ecological, Societal, and Spiritual Life

Abstract

This paper proposes that the Electronic Revolution has triggered the emergence of a fourth era in human cultural-technological evolution, namely a (multicultural) postmodern planetary civilization. This new era builds on the prior eras: (1) the primal-tribal era of speech; (2) the classical-imperial-city-state era of writing; and (3) the modern nation-state era of mechanical printing. In this new global era, human society is seen as called to ground its cultural-spiritual structures in the “creative communion of life,” its political-governmental structures in “local-global networks,” and its techno-economic structures in micro-technologies, micro-finance, and micro-enterprises, all of which would be ecological in character. Within this new historical context, professionals in religion and social work are called to form fresh generations of young leaders through an alternative educational system that would point toward a postmodern movement of ecological, social, and spiritual regeneration linked to new monastic-like centers of the fresh vision.