What is Postmodernism?

Maybe you have heard the term thrown around but aren't quite sure what it is. Philosopher Paul Copan has written a very helpful article on what Postmodernism is:

"In one of his dialogues, Plato cited the thinker Protagoras as saying that any given thing "is to me such as it appears to me, and is to you such as it appears to you."1 This sounds rather contemporary. We hear slogans declaring "that's true for you but not for me" or "that's just your perspective." These statements reflect the postmodern mood that continues to affect and shape Western culture.

How did postmodernism descend upon our civilization? What is postmodernism? What are its defining characteristics? We will look very briefly at these questions.

1. How did postmodernism emerge? Obviously, the term postmodernism presupposes an era that preceded it—modernism. But we must also understand what modernism was reacting to—namely, premodernism.

Premodernism: Before the 1600s, people in the West generally believed that God (or the transcendent/supernatural realm) furnished the basis for moral absolutes, rationality, human dignity, and truth. This is expressed by the noted Christian theologian Anselm (b. AD 1033), who said, "I believe that I may understand" (credo ut intelligam) he spoke of a "faith seeking understanding" (fides quaerens intellectum). That is, the starting point for knowledge and wisdom was God, who provided the lens through which one could properly interpret reality and human experience. By having faith in God, the world could be rightly understood.

Modernism: Then came philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650). As a Roman Catholic, he was troubled by the philosophical skepticism and (due to the Protestant Reformation) the theological uncertainty of his day. So he embarked on a "skeptical voyage" in the pursuit of absolutely certain knowledge. As part of his project, he determined to doubt everything: Maybe an evil genius was tinkering with his mind - or maybe everything is an illusion. But he concluded that at least he knew he was doubting, which is a form of thinking. He concluded: I think; therefore I am (or, in Latin, cogito, ergo sum). So without realizing it, Descartes' project removed God from center stage, replacing it with the human knower as the starting point. The effect would be momentous. The rationalism of the European Enlightenment (c. 1650-1800) reflected this shift. This period was both optimistic about human potential and reason, but was also skeptical about church authority/state churches and Christian doctrine ("dogma").

This was just one of many modernist projects that assumed that human dignity, truth, and reason could be preserved without God. Besides rationalism (with its emphasis on reason), there were Romanticism (with the emphasis on feeling), Marxism, Nazism, and other utopian schemes that sought to displace God as the starting point for understanding and living. The Jewish-Christian worldview that had deeply influenced the West was now being challenged.

Postmodernism: Then, in the wake of two World Wars, a postmodern climate started to permeate the West. Confidence in human progress and autonomy was shattered on the rocks of Auschwitz and the Soviet gulags. The systems or "grand stories" ("metanarratives") of Nazism, Marxism, scientism, or rationalism ended up oppressing "the other"—that is, those marginalized by these systems such as Jews, capitalists, etc. These systems proved to be total failures. So with postmodernism, not only was God excluded as a foundation for making sense of reality and human experience; we cannot speak of any universal truth, reason, or morality. We just have fragmented perspectives.

If the French Revolution and the storming of the Bastille in Paris (1789) stands as a picture of the shift to modernism, the fall of the Berlin Wall exactly 200 years later (1989) symbolizes the failure of modernism and rise of postmodernism..." (More)

For more resources, visit Paul Copan here...

Did Humans Invent God?

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Spiritual But Not Religious?

Interesting article at CNN..

"I'm spiritual but not religious." It's a trendy phrase people often use to describe their belief that they don't need organized religion to live a life of faith.

But for Jesuit priest James Martin, the phrase also hints at something else: egotism.
"Being spiritual but not religious can lead to complacency and self-centeredness," says Martin, an editor at America, a national Catholic magazine based in New York City. "If it's just you and God in your room, and a religious community makes no demands on you, why help the poor?"
Religious debates erupt over everything from doctrine to fashion. Martin has jumped into a running debate over the "I'm spiritual but not religious" phrase.

The "I'm spiritual but not religious" community is growing so much that one pastor compared it to a movement. In a 2009 survey by the research firm LifeWay Christian Resources, 72 percent of millennials (18- to 29-year-olds) said they're "more spiritual than religious." The phrase is now so commonplace that it's spawned its own acronym ("I'm SBNR")

More...

To think more clearly about SBNR, pick up a copy of True for You, But Not for Me: Overcoming Objections to Christian Faith by Paul Copan

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The Truth

Truth is discovered, not invented or created. Gravity existed before Newton and deliberately taking an innocent life was wrong before America passed a law against it. Truth is simply the way things are...reality as it is and whether that is morality, economics, theology, or science--there is a way the world is and responsible human beings seek to conform their lives to as much truth as they can get their hands on.

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"Let’s Talk About Faith" - New York Times op-ed

Ross Douthat has written a very perceptive op-ed piece at the New York Times and is well worth the read regarding faith in the public square (related to Brit Hume's comments and the controversy this has stirred up).

Christians are called to engage our world with the good news Jesus offers. It is either true and the hope of the world, or false and a delusion of great proportions. But Christianity needs to rise to the level of true or false. And we need to talk about it in those terms. Not the neutered and self-referentially incoherent language of "that's just true for me."

I have picked out some especially insightful quotes to consider:

"Liberal democracy offers religious believers a bargain. Accept, as a price of citizenship, that you may never impose your convictions on your neighbor, or use state power to compel belief. In return, you will be free to practice your own faith as you see fit — and free, as well, to compete with other believers (and nonbelievers) in the marketplace of ideas...."

"This doesn’t mean that we need to welcome real bigotry into our public discourse. But what Hume said wasn’t bigoted: Indeed, his claim about the difference between Buddhism and Christianity was perfectly defensible. Christians believe in a personal God who forgives sins. Buddhists, as a rule, do not. And it’s at least plausible that Tiger Woods might welcome the possibility that there’s Someone out there capable of forgiving him, even if Elin Nordegren and his corporate sponsors never do."

"When liberal democracy was forged, in the wake of Western Europe’s religious wars, this sort of peaceful theological debate is exactly what it promised to deliver. And the differences between religions are worth debating. Theology has consequences: It shapes lives, families, nations, cultures, wars; it can change people, save them from themselves, and sometimes warp or even destroy them.

If we tiptoe politely around this reality, then we betray every teacher, guru and philosopher — including Jesus of Nazareth and the Buddha both — who ever sought to resolve the most human of all problems: How then should we live?

It’s reasonable to doubt that a cable news analyst has the right answer to this question. But the debate that Brit Hume kicked off a week ago is still worth having. Indeed, it’s the most important one there is." (read the whole article)

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More U.S. Christians mix in 'Eastern,' New Age beliefs

I came across an interesting article describing the religious landscape today and why we as Christians need to know the times and be ready to act. Here are some of the more striking conclusions:

• "Forty-seven percent to 59% of Americans have changed religions at least once, a Pew survey in April found. The top reasons for most: Their spiritual needs weren't being met, or they liked another faith more or changed religious or moral beliefs."
• "The percentage of people who call themselves Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation, and so many people declined any religious label that the "Nones," now 15% of the USA, are the third-largest "religious" group after Catholics and Baptists, according to the American Religious Identification Survey last March."
• "Despite Americans' overwhelming allegiance to someone they call God (92%), in Pew's 2008 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, 70% said "many religions can lead to eternal life," and 68% said "there's more than one true way to interpret the teachings of my religion."

Click Here To Read The Rest

The Apostle Paul reminds us that the Church is the "the pillar and foundation of the truth" (1 Tim. 3:15)...we must continue to equip and engage and be faithful in an increasingly pluralistic society.

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Truth and Comfort

"If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth—only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair."--C.S. Lewis

Truth is not comfortable at times; in fact it can make us downright uncomfortable. But in the end, it is the only thing on which to base a life.

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Why Relativism is a Really Bad Idea (with a little help from the Colbert Report)

On October 17, 2005 a new word came into existence that really captures the spirit of our age – take a look at this clip:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - Truthiness
www.colbertnation.com
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“It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that’s not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything…Truthiness is “What I say is right, and [nothing] anyone else says could possibly be true.” It’s not only that I feel it to be true, but that I feel it to be true.” – Stephen Colbert

What Colbert is describing with "truthiness" goes by another alias = relativism. Now relativism is all over the place - out there and in here…young and old. I could bore you with statistics, but I don’t have time for that just now.

Relativism is everywhere…but what is it? Atheist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche succinctly defined it this way:

“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”

Is good and evil, right and wrong, foolish and wise - really just a matter of personal preference? So, Letterman style, I want to count down the 5 biggest reasons relativism is a bad idea.

5. Relativism is self-refuting (self-contradictory). To see this, take the statement “there are no English sentences longer than 6 words.” (What’s wrong here? – 9 words). Now let’s take the statement “Everything is relative.” If it’s true, its false. What kind of statement is it? A relative statement or an absolute statement? Relativism at its core is self-refuting. (e.g., My brother is an only child).

4. Relativism eliminates the possibility of moral reform. If moral relativism is true, then what is “right” is determined by whatever the majority of the culture believes. But this leads to the absurd consequence that those seeking to reform the immoral practices of society (e.g., eliminating racism) are the immoral ones because they are acting against the cultural majority. This is a powerful reason to reject moral relativism. (cf. Martin Luther King)

3. Relativism eliminates the possibility of moral progress. If moral relativism is true, then moral progress becomes, by definition, impossible. According to a consistent moral relativist, not only was someone like Martin Luther King wrong for challenging the deeply held moral beliefs of his culture, but the change he affected did not technically “improve” the morals of society—it just changed them.

2. Relativism removes our ability praise good and condemn evil. Think about this – if relativism were true, then we would have to conclude that there is no moral difference between Hitler and Mother Theresa. We would not be able to universally condemn the holocaust, rape, or genocide as evil. And we would not be able to universally say that self-sacrifice is superior to self-centeredness.

1. It diminishes sin. As my friend Brett Kunkle puts it, “once sin disappears, grace disappears with it.” You see Relativism neutralizes the Gospel and removes (people’s perceived) need for a Savior. Relativism cannibalizes truth. But if there is no truth there is no Good News—just news.

What kind of world would it be if relativism were true?

“It would be a world in which nothing was wrong—nothing is considered evil or good, nothing worthy of praise or blame. It would be a world in which justice and fairness are meaningless concepts, in which there would be no accountability, no possibility of moral improvement, no moral discourse. And it would be a world in which there is no tolerance.” – Greg Koukl & Francis Beckwith

*This connection was made by Brett Kunkle (STR) in his chapter on Truth in Apologetics for a New Generation :



Technical Support:
• Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air by Greg Koukl and Frank Beckwith
• True for You, But Not for Me by Paul Copan
• Ethix: Being Bold in A Whatever World by Sean McDowell

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