In our first lesson we built our case for the fact that most Evangelicals don’t think. You will remember that we said that the basic problem has been that the Church has allowed itself to be more influenced by the culture than by the Bible. The result has been that the Church has been marginalized to the fringes culture to such a degree that She is without a witness to the culture. She has been forced out of the market square and into the dark alleys of the culture.
We went on to look at a brief survey of what Scripture has to say regarding our minds and God’s call to us to think. We noted that we have a responsibility before Him to renew our minds and think in a way that imitates the thinking of our Lord Jesus.
We then spent some time looking at our presuppositions and how they shape the rest of our thinking. We applied what we learned to the topic of origins and showed how you can use presuppositional thinking to help materialists and naturalists understand the inconsistencies in their thinking. I hope you saw that with a proper application of Christian thinking we can open opportunities to show others of the glories of the Gospel in the world of thought.
Last time we discussed the differences between a Christian mind and a carnal mind. Particularly we saw that the Christian mind is marked by its supernatural orientation, by an awareness of evil, a supernatural conception of truth, an acceptance of Godly authority, its high regard for people, and its sacramental cast. We saw that the carnal mind is opposite in all these aspects.
Today we hope to begin making application of what we have been discussing by looking at a couple of ways the church has failed in following God’s call for His children to renew their minds. Specifically we are going to look at the intrusion of postmodern thinking into the church.
Let’s begin by defining what we mean by this term ‘postmodernism,’ and then see how it has influenced or invaded the church in our day.
The Marks of Postmodernism
Have any of you had the experience of talking with an Evangelical brother or sister, and when you share with them a Scripture based tenant of the faith such as election or limited atonement and you get the response, “Well, that’s just your interpretation.”
Or how many of you have been discussing religion with someone who claims to be religious and you let slip that you believe that Jesus is the only name given under heaven by which men are saved, only to hear the response, “Well I feel that there are many ways to god and many paths to heaven.”
Where do these kinds of comments come from? What kind of thinking produces such comments in the face of clear teaching from Scripture to the contrary? These types of comments are manifestations of postmodern thinking in the church. We are awash in a sea of postmodernism, being slowly cooked like the frog in the pan of water.
What is postmodernism? It is a way of thinking, or we may say it is a distinct set of presuppositions that cause a person to look at the world a particular way. When a person is a postmodernist it will show up in their religion, art, philosophy, architecture, and cultural and literary criticism. In other words, it shows up in all their thinking.
Postmodernism is largely a reaction to the generally assumed certainty of scientific, or objective, efforts to explain reality. In other words, it rebels at the idea that there are certainties or laws in the universe. In its essence, it comes from the belief that reality is not simply mirrored in the human understanding of it, but rather, reality is constructed by the mind as it tries to understand its own particular and personal reality. Reality thus becomes subjective, interpreted and understood differently by each individual, and so it is no longer objective.
For this reason, postmodernism is highly skeptical of any explanations that claim to be valid for all groups, cultures, traditions, or races. So when you tell a postmodernist that Jesus is THE way, he rejects that idea as being dogmatic, or as just your understanding of reality.
Postmodernism focuses on the relative truths of each person. In the postmodern understanding, interpretation is everything. Reality only comes into being through our interpretations of what the world means to us individually. Postmodernism relies on concrete experience over abstract principles, knowing always that the outcome of one’s own experience will necessarily be fallible and relative, rather than certain and universal.
Every definition and every view of postmodernism will vary slightly. Any understanding of it can best be explained by describing what it believes. And what it believes can be summarized in four basic doctrines that it holds. As we go through these, think particularly about how these doctrines are manifesting themselves in our culture, and more importantly in the church in our day.
1] Lack of objective truth and the abandonment of meaning- For the postmodernist truth is whatever you want it to be. It is left completely up to the individual, and every individual has his/her own truth- each just as valid and “true” as any other. This results in very subjective truth, and a rebellion against objective truth.
For example, Postmodernists have a language game they like to play called deconstruction, and it is taught in some public schools. In this game human language, whether spoken or written, does not refer to an objective world out there, but is instead a system of linguistic signs referring back to itself. Let me explain what I mean here.
If you read the gospels you probably believe that the authors intended to describe events that really happened in the land of Israel in the first century. There you read of the birth of the Son of the living God in human form, who was arrested, died by crucifixion, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven.
Postmodernist deconstructionist literary critics regard all that as untenable. They would say that the original authors are no longer with us so we can give whatever meaning we like to what these authors wrote. Thus, for the postmodernist there is no objective world beyond your own interpretation. Words only refer to other words. Meaning and truth are thus endlessly deferred. Reality is what you make of it.
2] Moral Relativism- Second, not surprisingly postmodernism holds to moral relativism. Francis Schaeffer described an absolute as “a concept which is not modifiable by factors such as culture, individual psychology or circumstances; but which is perfect and unchangeable.” He was thinking like a Christian. But an absolute is the antithesis of relativism,
For the postmodernist nothing is certain, there is no ground for absolute truth. They are nihilistic (the rejection of all religious and moral principles) because they deny all objective grounds for truth. For them there are no absolutes and no certainties because everything is up to your individual interpretation. Hence, there are no absolute morals. Morality is left up to the individual or the will of the culture. What is right for you may not be right for me, but it is still right because it is right for you. What is good in Tibet may not be good here, but it is still good because the Tibetians say it is.
3] Glorification of Tolerance- Third, postmodernism holds to pluralism or egalitarianism that is allied to their relativism. Egalitarianism means there is a level playing field for everything, and especially for all religions. For the postmodernist religion is a matter of personal choice. The one great heresy is to say that your religion is correct and all the others are wrong.
Tolerance is the essence of postmodernism. Nothing is seen as superior to anything else, not morality, values, or especially not religion. No one religion is superior or to be deemed the final authority. No one truth is superior to any other and no set of morals is any better than any other. All must be accepted as equally valid. And don’t you dare condemn the morals, values, or religion of anyone else. All must be tolerated as equally valid and truthful.
4] The Rule of Feelings- Finally, postmodernism holds to an existentialism (a philosophical theory or approach that emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will) in which feelings rule. Doctrine, truth, traditions or even empirical facts are not what count. It is what I feel that makes something right or true. Essentially existentialism is a revolt against rationalism, which is the belief in reason alone. Existentialism focuses on the inner or personal experiences of will, emotions, beliefs, imagination and intention. Existentialism believes that there is no meaning in any one thing, or in everything put together. For the existentialist the world is absurd and pointless. To be human is to choose in the light of the absurdity of the world. Choice is the centre of human existence.
So for the postmodernist we are what we choose. We make ourselves by our choices. Since our choices have no rational basis or purpose it does not matter what we choose, or that we choose at all. All that matters is how we feel about those choices. Thus if we feel good about choosing to have an abortion, it makes that choice good no matter what someone or something (the Bible) says about our choice.
Do we see these trends around us in our culture? I think the answer is obvious. Have they invaded the church and her doctrine? I think the answer to this question is also pretty obvious. In our next essay I will show you why I believe that to be true.
