Understanding the Times

Postmodernity Blues by Dr. Derek Thomas

For something like two hundred years (intellectuals like to debate this fact at considerable length), ever since the Enlightenment first darkened Western minds through the influence of thinkers like Kant and Rousseau (some blame the French collectively!), and we should not forget Jefferson, the cultural and educational establishment took for granted the 'received wisdom' that man's mind was the measure of all things and 'truth' and 'value' were discernible through reasonable interaction with what could be observed and empirically proven through experiment.

A hundred years ago, it was widely believed that our reason-and especially science-would be the making of us: thus, optimistic pronouncements were made with regard to improving society through technological advancements, social engineering, urbanization, and better education.

Well, that was yesterday and today we know better! Modernity did not bring us health, wealth and happiness. Science gave us nuclear weapons capable of destroying the entire planet. The thinking of the past produced two world wars and a great deal of other nastiness which need not detain us here. Needless to say, modernism died a quiet death having failed to produce what it promised.

In its wake came postmodernity-a worldview that is essentially relativist on every issue of substance, particularly ethics and religion. It is inherently suspicious of the collective, giving precedence to the individual, insisting that everybody's shaping of reality is equally valid.

The end-result? A way of life, to quote J. I. Packer, that "is the egghead equivalent of Mr. Bean." It has spawned views of spirituality without any concept of truth, raised individuality without imposing any limits, and elevated tolerance which is intolerant of any idea of wrong!

What are the implications of this for historic Christianity? There are many-but the most important, and most often heard, distills into the view that plurality in religious expression is something to be welcomed (rather than forms of idolatry as, say John Calvin might have said). It is part of the complex tapestry of humanity's subculture to be preserved and valued as indicative of what makes us human.

All religious expressions thus enable us to get in touch with the transcendent. All dogmatic pronouncements which insist that Christianity-the offering of Christ as unique, the only Savior of men and women to be received by faith alone and outside of which there is no possibility of salvation-such views are deemed offensive, intolerant and exclusivist. All religious expressions have value except this form-a paradox that always haunts postmodernity's 'tolerance.'

To all of this Jesus speaks in cool and calculated terms: '"I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."'

(John 14:6). Which seems to answer postmodernity very easily.

Except that postmodern deconstructionists interpret these words to say that whilst it is true that Christians come to a 'god' whom they call 'Father'

through Jesus Christ, others come to know 'god' through other and equally valid ways!

O brother! Enough already!

(via the First Epistle, the newsletter of the First Presbyterian Church of Jackson, MS)

O brother! Enough already!