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The word postmodern doesn’t mean anything—yet. It’s a battlefield word, a word that many people with many different viewpoints and agendas are trying to claim as their own. So far, no single meaning has won out. In the meantime, confusion and misunderstanding reigns. I’ve decided not to use the word myself, at least until the smoke clears.
The form of the word invites this treatment. Whatever you think postmodernism means, by default you must agree it suggests simply “what comes after modernism.” Anyone with an interest in seeing the future improve upon the past tends to throw their hopes and fears upon this word. All the discussion about postmodernism is really a discussion about what was wrong with modernism and how to improve upon it.
In recent years there has been an explosion of backlash against modernism. The newer generations are looking at the worldview of their fathers and seeing plenty to improve upon. There is a great deal of talk about how modernism was inadequate and what parts of it should be left behind. But there are as many opinions about what was wrong with modernism as there are people stating opinions. Postmodernism means different things depending on who you talk to and what they believe about the failings of the past and the hopes of the future.
In the church there are those who speak of postmodernism with anticipation and those who speak of it with dread. Postmodernism is often associated with relativism—the idea that each person’s beliefs are “true for them” and no greater truth can or should be imposed. Christians who view postmodernism as a form of relativism quite rightly react against it. On the other hand, postmodernism isn’t necessarily associated with relativism per se. Many Christians use the term postmodernism to celebrate the value of story in communicating truth—a principle embodied in the Bible itself as well as in most peoples’ experiences.
Modernity was weak in this area. Science and intellectual rationalism tended to value abstraction and reductionism, distilling complex experiences into simple descriptions and rules that sometimes lost the essence of the thing being distilled. In light of this, Christians sometimes use the term postmodern to describe a form of community and worship that returns to a more Biblical and Bible-like appreciation for story, profundity, and complexity—for things too deep to be fully understood at first glance or too subtle to be expressed in abbreviated form. These Christians see postmodernism as something refreshing and exciting, not threatening or destructive.
The problem, of course, is that it is seldom clear what meaning of postmodern a writer or speaker has in mind. A speaker intending to excite his audience about new forms of postmodern worship may instead terrify or offend them because they imagine he’s talking about relativistic truth. A speaker advocating the validity of all religions may be accepted by conservatives who imagine he’s talking about new modes of worship. Unfortunately, postmodern is a word that looks like it should be exciting and useful, but it isn’t. Too much resentment about the past and too many hopes for the future have been invested in it without any real consensus on what it should actually mean. It is a word overloaded with both too much emotion and semantics. My suspicion is that it will eventually fall by the wayside, and more useful and specialized terms will take its place.
I take caution when reading about or discussing postmodernism and related ideas such as “emerging church,” “New Reformation,” etc. This is a time when many wolves are in sheep’s clothing and many sheep are in wolves’ clothing. The cross-dressing is usually unintentional, I think. We’re simply living in a time when new species are being bred, and whether an animal is sheep or wolf is not as obvious—to itself or others—as it once was.
Comments
In terms of its application to the Bible - as you're probably aware I'm not a Christian per se (although my conduct is almost entirely determined by Christian - and Catholic - values), but I believe that post-modernism as you describe it here is probably a good thing: establishing the Bible as a piece of art, stuffed with allegory and rich with metaphor and symbolism, lends it a power which, as a fairly strict set of rules, it has otherwise been denied. Myth is bigger than history, as our culture now makes clear, and re-positioning the Bible as a potent, lively children's story, full of life and colour, gives it more power, not less.
Sorry if I've missed the point here. Like I say, neither a Christian nor a theologian am I - but I am fascinated by post-modernism and its effects.
Anyway, sorry to bang on (this is my way, as you may remember). Look forward to reading (and being daunted by!) your response.
Cheers!
Dan McDaid, February 26, 2006 6:54 PM The argument against this would be that some aspects of reality--e.g. God, what happens after death--are unknowable, so those aspects are open season for random beliefs. In the case of God, though, he is almost by definition knowable. God is by definition the creator, so everything you see around you is in some way evidence of whether he exists and if so, who he is. Moreover, God is by definition present--not stowed away in some far galaxy but here in the room with you, now. If that is true then it should be verifiable, and if it isn't verifiable then it isn't in any meaningful sense true.
In fact, whether God is here now should be easily verifiable. If God were a chemical you might need test tubes and who knows what apparati to detect him. But since by definition, he is spirit, and intelligent and caring enough to have created the world, he must (if he is real) be intelligent and caring enough to respond simply to your thoughts. So you can determine whether God is real simply by asking.
But here we encounter a funny thing. The reality is that very few people ever really ask God if he is there. And the people who do, often do it with a terrific sense of fear--even furtiveness. So a person might stand outside on a starry evening, become mindful of the possibility of God, and ask him to show himself if he is real. They stand there looking for a sign for a few minutes, wondering whether each shooting star was sent to them as a message from God and hoping for a clearer sign. If, after a little while, no clear sign has appeared, they forget about their request and go about their lives. Now that is, if you think about it, very odd. The effort they show is microscopic in comparison to the import of the experiment they're making. And when the experiment fizzles after a few minutes--and sure, they might repeat it again every few years--their disappointment is mild at best. The really interesting question is this: why, when there is so much to be gained and so little effort involved, do people not pursue God with more discipline and intent?
The truth is, most of us--maybe all of us--are desperately hoping that God doesn't exist, because we're terrified at what he would think about us if he did. Would he judge me? Would he control me? Would he supervise me constantly? Would he condemn me? And so we run away from him as if he were a tax agent. We burn our tax records and don't respond to letters or summons, hoping the problem will just disappear. And the next thing you know, we're saying, "Tax agent? I don't believe in tax agents. It's a myth. Human beings are genetically predisposed to believe in tax agents."
Hence, scientific naturalism--which is axiomatic, not scientific. Hence, existentialism. Hence, in some definitions of the word, postmodernism.
So terror begets "belief" and befuddles it along the way. To live well, one must go back to the original question and ask it doggedly, with intent. Is God real? If he is real, who is he and what does he think and feel about me? The answer might be horrific or not--but either way, a true answer is better than a pretend one.
Indeed, the fact that God has made the world (assuming he exists) is very good evidence that he is not hell-bent--so to speak--on condemning you. If he were a hateful God he would not have made this world. If he made the world he must have had foresight about what would happen on it and what we would become. If I were him, I would not want to create something only to have it become corrupted and evil and to ultimately destroy it. So, he must have prepared a way for human beings to be at peace with him.
So there are sound reasons to be optimistic that if you go looking for God and find him, your life will get better rather than worse. And I can add to this reasoning the personal evidence that in my case this has certainly proved true. I have sought God doggedly, I've found him and continue to discover him, and my life--from the inside out--just keeps getting better. Lately it's been getting so good that I'm embarrassed to tell people how good it is going--and this goodness is coming directly from God, not from my skill or luck. However, I don't ask anyone else to believe this. Pursue God doggedly and you will find out for yourself.
I suspect that if a person spent--let's say--ten minutes praying to God, once a day, every day for a month, asking him with a sincere and open heart to reveal himself to them, then at the end of that month they would have encountered God in some significant way. The remarkable fact is that almost no one does this, and when they try to do it they soon give up. I think that's very revealing.
Jeff, March 1, 2006 9:25 AM << Home
