“One man's post-modernism is another man's idiocy.”

“One man's post-modernism is another man's idiocy.”

What to think of this?

I used to be afraid of the term ‘postmodernism’. I made fun of it and brushed it off as foolishness. I believed I was right. I would get irritated when people brought it up and I’d argue against this postmodernism. One thing was missing…I never read anything about postmodernism, modernism, or liberalism. I was very ignorant of the issues. I relied solely on what I knew to be true, my upbringing within a social cultural context. What I was raised on, which by default in America is modernism.

So what was my fear of postmodernism? I labeled it as ‘liberal’ and that was pretty much it. It dismissed history of the Bible. It questioned issues I believed were foundational to Christianity. I used to get riled up! It is funny to look back upon.

So what is postmodernism? First we have to ask what is modernism.

As I understand it modernism is the product on the Enlightenment. Society believed that ‘these truths are self-evident’ because all humanity shares a common experience at a basic level. Well these truths are not self-evident. Modernism created the current state of western society and has left the Church in Europe dead and on life support in America. Modernity arrogantly thought we could see the world objectively. N.T Wright notes, “where modernism thought it could know things objectively about the world, postmodernism has reminded us that there is no such thing as neutral knowledge. On the notion of self modernism believed “the great lonely individual, the all-powerful “I,” symbolised perfectly in Descartes’s cogito ergo sum and in the proud claim, “I am the master of my fate. . . the captain of my soul” (also taken from Wright). Postmodernism rejects these claims. I reject these claims and I believe the Bible staunchly rejects the claims.

Postmodernism is the result of the failure of modernism. It is a reaction to the arrogance of western elitism. Postmodernism cannot be ignored so to hold on so tightly, ignorantly, to modernism is holding to a sinking ship. I love how Wright said in an interview that postmodernity was announcing the fall to arrogant modernity and what’s next is the announcement of redemption. What a beautiful outlook on the future!

So where do I fall? Liberal? Conservative? I reject the liberal view of scripture that we can take it and fit it into our world through extra-biblical resources. I reject the conservative view of scripture that is the quest that tried to find a natural objective truth through human reason. Scripture absorbs our world no matter what culture we find ourselves in. Our search for the meaning of Scripture in extra-biblical sources or human reason is not staying true to the biblical narrative. This story we find in the Bible is the only reality, not some historical truth it is the only truth. This is good.

Is postmodernity perfect? No. Is all of modernity evil? No? But should we ignore the current reality we live in? No. It is important to educate and read from the source and not what someone says about the source. The story of God is the river consuming the world’s streams. Know this to be true. Proclaim the Gospel in its uniqueness. While the world begins towards pluralism we can now show, through our word and action, why this one story is the story of the one true God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.