While this world continues its collision course with God and His appointed Tribulation Period, there are two dominant powers that control today’s world system. The first power is New Atheism, as addressed in the previous article. The second power, Postmodernism, has become the philosophical heartbeat of the world today.

The Birth and Definition of Postmodernism

Over the many centuries since the first coming of Christ, a great number of godless and destructive philosophies have been birthed from the matriarchal womb of Humanism. By far, its worst offspring is the growing child of postmodernism, a philosophy that has arisen in the aftermath of modernism. Modernism is a philosophy based on reason; it claims everything believed must come through the rational, empirical powers of man. In the aftermath of modernism, man believes that enough time has been given for reason to prove itself. Postmodernism concludes that reason has utterly failed humanity. What is this belief that concludes reason has failed?

The latter part of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century brought many apparent hopes for humanity: psychology, progressive education, modern science and medicine, communism, fascism, the League of Nations (later, the United Nations), atomic power, ecumenism, telecommunication, etc. Amidst these hopes and changes, some have believed that the needed changes within humanity have not come quickly enough. These people conclude that reason has thus failed humanity, that it has failed to make the world a better place to live. The disillusioned response to this despair is postmodernism.

Postmodernism seeks to correct humanity by first eliminating absolute truth and then making everything including religion and the empirical sciences relative to an individual’s feelings and desires. After casting off the neuro-cloak of reason, mankind first entered the fluid, elastic, subjective philosophy of existentialism. Today this existentialism has been repackaged as postmodernism, or a thinking that followed the failure of modernism and reason.

Postmodernism denies the existence of any absolute truth, especially in the realm of theism and religion. When a postmodernist is confronted with the concept of truth, his viewpoint is: “That may be true for you, but not for me.” Therefore, there is no absolute truth to be given about God, morals, lifestyles, or what is the true religion. This viewpoint of opinion would be appropriate concerning favorite foods or preferences in honorable décor, but never for biblical absolute truth. The destructive dangers of postmodernism begin with the open and bold rejection of absolute truth and lead to a loss of distinctions in matters of God, morals, religion, and faith. It culminates in a philosophy of religious pluralism that says no belief or religion is objectively true, and therefore no one can claim his or her religion is true and another’s false.

The Advancement of Postmodernism

Such a secularistic philosophy did not come to mankind overnight. It has been the process of the unraveling of thinking for several generations. From Augustine to the Reformation, the intellectual scholarship of Western civilization was dominated by theologians. During the Renaissance (including thought from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries), man began to elevate himself to the center of what was real. And if the Renaissance can be called modernism’s grandmother, the Enlightenment (late seventeenth to the eighteenth centuries) was its mother. Men such as René Descartes personified the beginning of this era with such proclamations as “I think, therefore I am.” For these men, man himself, not God, was the center of truth. The Enlightenment imposed the scientific model of rationality upon all aspects of truth. It declared that only scientific information could be objectively understood, defined, and defended. It was in this philosophical hour that truth as it pertained to religion was discarded.

Men such as Immanuel Kant in The Critique of Pure Reason (1781) declared all truth as “relative.” Kant argued that because true knowledge about God was impossible, all knowledge must be divided between facts and faith. It was here that spiritual matters were assigned to the realm of opinion, leaving only the empirical sciences as the voices of truth. Though these modernists believed in scientific absolutes, the written Word of God, the Bible, was evicted from the realm of truth and absolute certainty.

Ironically, from rational modernism came non-absolute postmodernism. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) has been designated the patron saint of postmodernist philosophy. Nietzsche strongly supported the concept of perspectivism, which says that all knowledge (including science) is a matter of perspective and personal interpretation. Since his days, a number of postmodern philosophers have built upon his writings. Men such as Foucault, Roty, and Lyotard shared his rejection of God and religion in general. These men rejected all absolute truth, or as Lyotard stated, “a rejection of a metanarrative” (a truth that transcends all peoples and cultures).

This philosophical war in history against truth has now come to maturity in postmodernism’s full denial of all claims to absolute truth. One of the purposes of philosophical thinking in history has been the ability to discern distinctions, to have the capacity to distinguish this from that in any realm of knowledge. But if one denies objective and absolute truth, then everything becomes a matter of personal interpretation. Therefore, all books represent merely an author’s experiential interpretation of truth. And then to the existential postmodernist it is the reader (not the author) who actually determines what the book means. Thus, in the realm of religion any significant distinctions are no more meaningful than the argument that chocolate tastes better than vanilla.

Postmodernism versus the Truth of Christianity

Does the reader see the far-reaching powers in this global philosophy controlling the mindset of the world’s common man? If absolute truth does not exist, and if there is no ability to make right or wrong distinctions, then all concepts of religious faith are viewed equally valid. Such thinking leads to philosophical pluralism where no religion has the right to declare itself true; to declare one religion true is to declare the other false and inferior. Such thinking also declares that there are no longer concepts like error, heresy, apostasy, good and evil, right or wrong, holiness and sin, or God and the Devil.

When Jesus told Pilate that He came to bear witness of the truth, Pilate asked the question, “What is truth?” and then walked away. This is the postmodernist’s response. To them truth is relative and opinionated. The controlling powers of such a philosophy denounce the Bible and its claim to be the only infallible voice from God. They call the Christian faith a religion of “intolerance,” “bigotry,” “pride,” and “arrogance.” To the biblical Christian, truth is not a matter of attitude or preference. It is a matter of what “thus saith the Lord.” The postmodernist does not see that he is dogmatic and absolute in his condemnation of whom or what he deems “dogmatic” and “absolute.” Christ Jesus is the Son of God, He did die on the cross for our sins, He did rise bodily from the dead conquering death, He will judge humanity one day, all of mankind are sinners, and hell is the inevitable place of eternal damnation upon those who do not trust Jesus Christ as their Saviour. To the Christian, these are all absolute truths that cannot be denied; they are to be believed if one wants to go to heaven. To the postmodernist there is no sin, there is no lifestyle that is wrong, there is no judgment from God, and there is no truth about marriage, family, gender, race, and morality. They are all terms of neutrality and relativism.

Postmodernism and Its Beliefs

What are the beliefs of this evil philosophy that has taken over both the political world and the church world? How far-reaching has its spreading-tent powers covered contemporary mankind? Where is this philosophy found in everyday humanity? We must now carefully and honestly acknowledge postmodernism’s powers as they fully control our society with evil force.

Postmodernism begins with an obvious form of atheism—there is no God, no supernatural Creator, no divine moral Lawgiver, and no ultimate Judge of man’s actions. All postmodernists are atheists; this is the theological foundation of not only secular humanism and Marxism but also of postmodernism. Such a philosophical movement is aggressively determined to destroy the memory of God in history and to declare the autonomous self of man. These men believe ecclesiastical institutions are dangerous and declare, “Religion is unobjectionable as long as it is privatized.” Thus, all postmodernists are against the right of parents to teach their children religion, believing that parents should keep their beliefs to themselves. Such men believe that religions that go beyond personal preferences and convey objective truth (such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) cannot be tolerated in society.

When one begins to contemplate the far-reaching influence of such nebulous thinking, he discerns that postmodernism will absolutely destroy all compartments of true thought. We are sowing to the wind and are already reaping a whirlwind. At one time our legal system was rooted in certain beliefs, including the structural integrity of law; but all of the foundational beliefs of law are rapidly disappearing. The minds of our litigators, our judges, even Supreme Court judges, have fragmented the laws of the land, making them purely subject to the personal whims. There is now a new approach to legal theory which denies linear logic and the concept of absoluteness of truth and law.

Postmodernists strongly believe that Western law grew out of Christianity and the Enlightenment period (when reason reigned); therefore, they claim that Western law has a “white-male bias.” They condemn all concepts of reason that result in objective truth, and believe that there are more subjective ways of knowing. Such men and women are committed to eliminating religious roots and any absoluteness of truth from all present Western law. They press for fragmentation and subjectivity and a bold denial of objective morality that is based on Judeo-Christian traditions.

A rising power in contemporary law today in America is the Critical Legal Studies (CLS) movement. This movement demands progressive and even radical political changes based upon irrational rather than efficient government. It is based on deconstructionism, another principle of postmodernism. Deconstructionism is the ability to dissect a law in order to discover its subjective meaning, which could be different in every court case or trial. Objective law is now meaningless. Invariably the focus is on race, gender, and sexual lifestyles. What becomes reality is socially constructed by those in power, who have the financial means to perpetuate their own power over the people (or hegemony). Such people have turned truth into the myth and the myth into truth; objective reality in their thinking is now the myth. All law in the courts today is subject to deconstruction and social reconstruction. This reconstruction ultimately comes down to politics. As one feminist responded when questioned about her decisions, “You believe in principle; I believe in politics.”

Today law has simply become a tool for wielding political power. Contemporary rulers embrace Karl Marx’s observation that “political power, properly so called, is merely the recognized power of one class for oppressing another.” The men in power today manipulate the law in any way in order to forward their whims. Therefore, law is no longer an objective standard by which to judge and maintain an ordered society; it is now seen as a weapon to overthrow political opponents and submit them to opposing ideologies. It really comes down to who can evoke the greatest sympathy from a courtroom, regardless of any obvious innocence or criminal guilt.

This brings us to postmodernism as seen in present society. The political scientist and social psychologist Walter Truett Anderson (now in his 80s) gives a vivid perspective of where we are socially:

I have been putting words like “abnormal” and “deviant” in quotes because those categorizations are under fire now, the boundary between normal and abnormal is as questionable now as are all the other boundaries that once defined social reality.

This, dear reader, is where the powers of postmodernism are profoundly destroying the very foundation of society.

The foundational concept of society up to this day has always been based upon a “family” defined by father, mother, and children conceived from that union. With postmodernism this must now change. Postmodernists are committed to overthrowing the definitions of these social terms and redefining the social structure of Western civilization. In this process they do not include the church in their social restructuring of institutions. They believe that ecclesiastical institutions are dangerous to the mental health of any society. Even the concepts of “love,” “sex,” and “marriage” are now legitimatized under “free love,” even to eventually include pedophilia. While marriage as an institution may be abolished, society will welcome phrases such as “hooking up,” “shacking up,” and “living together” as the norm. As one postmodernist wrote, “For the sane [as the postmodernists call themselves], so-called relationships could never be subject to contract [such as a marriage license].” There is no “normal” anymore in the thinking of those in authority.

Today’s postmodernists are truly disciples of Marquis de Sade, a most abominable and evil man who embraced all forms of deep, dark, and perverted immorality. From him the postmodernists forward a vision of sexual egalitarianism whereby all sexual practices and lifestyles are equally valid and permissible. Yes, to these thinkers even rape, incest, and pedophilia must be included in this permissibility. Even following the Supreme Court’s recent ruling to legalize sodomite marriages, polygamists have attempted to gain marriage licenses using the Court’s postmodern logic. We are coming to a society that will know no restraints when it comes to what has been biblically identified as immorality.

Examples of postmodernism’s absurdity are found in males and females attempting to change their gender as well as whites and blacks attempting to change their race (e.g. Michael Jackson). Amidst these cosmetic and surgical changes, each individual’s DNA remains the same: the transgender is still his original gender, and the hopeful change of race is still tied up in God’s appointed DNA. How far will these “outward” changes go? Recently Walter E. Williams, a conservative black writer expressed the following in his article “A Minority View.”

The bottom line is that modernity permits liberties previously unknown or unrecognized. Today we’re not held to reality. For example, one does not have to accept the limitations of biology. Say that one is born with XX sex chromosomes and is therefore female or that one is born with XY sex chromosomes and is therefore male. One doesn’t have to accept nature’s determination. An XXer can say that [s]he’s a male. Or a XYer can say he’s a she. One’s sex is seen as optional. Moreover, if a male claims to be a female, others are expected to acknowledge that. For example, Bruce Jenner, Olympic decathlon champion and reality show personality, has recently become Caitlyn Jenner. People now are required to address him as her.

There is a condition known as species dysphoria, similar to gender dysphoria. It is a condition in which people think they are animals trapped in human bodies. I’ve been giving this option some serious thought. I’ve been thinking of calling myself a springbok [a deer-like animal found in South Africa] trapped in a human body. Some people might argue that I would be in need of psychological treatment. I’d dismiss such a claim as being animalphobic. You might ask, ‘Williams, why in the world would you want to call yourself a springbok?’ I would be doing it for personal gain, just as Rachel Dolezal and Elizabeth Warren benefited by pretending they were of another race. I’d be doing it for tax reasons. I’ve read a considerable amount of the Internal Revenue Code. It says nothing about wild animals having a federal tax obligation. Were government officials to demand that I, as a springbok, pay taxes, I’d report them to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

A point well taken.

Within America’s educational system, Common Core is only a small part of the plan for these End-time days. A further “dumbing down” of the students must include a new mindset that destroys all sexual restraints. The worldview of this country’s youth must be changed to the absurd, assimilating the myth of amorality. All secular colleges and universities must include classes bringing respect to the deviants of society who now rule the world. Nearly every Ivy League school offers more courses in Women’s Studies than in Economics. Stanford’s History Department offers a course entitled “Homosexuals, Heretics, Witches, and Werewolves: Deviants of Medieval Society.” The catalog describes the course as answering the following question: “Why were medieval heretics accused of deviant sexual practices?” The courses are numerous, and some titles cannot even be printed in this article.

Richard Roty, professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford, made the following potent observation from his postmodern perspective:

When we American college teachers encounter religious fundamentalists. . . . we do our best to convince these students of the benefits of secularization. . . . I think these students are lucky to find themselves under . . . people like me, and to have escaped the grip of their frightening, vicious, dangerous parents.

How could a true Christian young person ever choose to attend such secularistic colleges and universities today considering what he will be forced to assimilate in his thinking and living?

Conclusion

We must remember that postmodernism is based on evolution, and evolution is ateleological (“with no purpose”). According to ateleology, the world of mankind has come to this point in history not by design, but by chance, and therefore it must be acknowledged that there is no purpose or destiny for man. This is why history to the postmodernist is meaningless. Living in a world without meaning or purpose brings man to the finality of nihilism. Postmodernism is only intensifying the grief of man—living without a goal or purpose of existence.

Postmodernists have also drunk deeply from the polluted political wells of Marxism. Although Marxism focused on the proletariat (poor working class) rising against the bourgeoisie (the middle class), postmodernists have taken Marxism and metamorphosed and applied its principles to deviant people (such as the sodomites) rising up against race, gender, and socially identifiable groups in order to claim a dominant control. Perhaps this can be called a post-Marxist movement of the politically-proclaimed oppressed groups, which now have increased into the weirdest of the weird. Sodomites have now entered into a secular sainthood in society. Who will become the next sect of victims thrust to the forefront for acceptance through carefully orchestrated sympathies? Certainly the Christians will never be viewed as such although they have already become the “scum of the earth” in the rhetoric of national leadership.

Postmodernists hate true Christians because of their absoluteness of belief. The rising “powers that be” are longing for their genocide throughout the earth. Christian persecution is on an aggressive rise in most countries and has now found a haven of hatred in America. The Christian will become the scapegoat to release mankind from its “suppression” and its “guilt” about standards, principles, and morals. Such demonic powers are gathering momentum; only a Sovereign God will declare in His time, “It is enough!”

When it comes to the Christian’s existence, even in this untoward generation, he is called upon by His Lord to be the “light” to the world and “salt” of the earth. We still must continue our witness and testimony even if it becomes viewed as “lawless” to the laws passed by man. These are days of insanity, of godlessness, of “the Lie,” and the myth. The Christian must not only be a product of God’s amazing grace but also of God’s revealed Truth. And when lawlessness abounds, we dare not permit our love for God and His Word to wax cold.

In our next issue we must candidly and with sobering reality appraise how these pervasive powers have now in a subtle fashion invaded the Evangelical world, yea, even Fundamentalism. As the former America is dead and a new country is rising from the debris and garbage of postmodernism, so historic Fundamentalism is dead and a new concept, claiming the name but in “neo” attire, has risen in victory and power over its churches and schools. May God have mercy on us as we see satanic powers ruling the earth and leaders singing “Amazing Grace” as the “strange flesh” of Sodom dances in the streets.