Postmodernism is the term that has come to describe the pervasive way of thinking in the Western world, particularly in the last twenty years. While the earliest seeds of postmodernism can be traced back to the writings of men such as Nietzsche, Heidegger, Marx, and Freud, key men who solidified its place in contemporary philosophy include Geoffrey Hartman, Jean-François Lyotard, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Richard Rorty. The New Age movement has helped to distribute this philosophy into the general culture of societal thinking today.
In the rational thought of previous generations, men believed in a “worldview” or what some have called the “presupposition” of their life’s philosophy. This worldview meant that everything they believed came under a universal-principle view. Even the Christian believed his worldview came under the canopy of the Scriptures, and thus everything must be subservient to its governing perspective. Such reasoning played a dominant role in understanding and interpreting an individual’s purpose for existence.
In contrast, today life is viewed as fragmented and void of any universal principle organizing the particular incidents and experiences of life. In fact, the concept of a worldview is dead and meaningless to the postmodernists. Even the perspective of “reality” has no objective meaning; reality has been reduced to merely that which exists within an individual.
The Reality of Man
Postmodernism believes that the only reality that does exist for a man is that which he creates. Since there is no God to affect the view of reality and how we should behave in life, and since there is no absolute truth, then reality is only what we make it to be. This brings to mind the writing of Hollywood’s New Age guru Shirley MacLaine. In her book Out on a Limb (1983), she asked the question of her “spiritual guide” David if he believed in reincarnation. His response was, “It’s true if you believe it and that goes for anything.” This reveals even from years ago that postmodernism has never viewed reality from principles but from preferences, for this present-day philosophy denounces all “principles” or anything that is in the context of “authority” and dogmatism. Even Enlightenment’s sacredness of reason and science has become viewed as tools of oppression against man. Many of the postmodernist writers, especially the feminists, believe that science is built upon a “male-centered view” and thus becomes culturally coercive upon a generation.
If reason and science are denounced, then what is to take their place for man? When man is convinced to abandon reason and objective knowledge, the resulting vacuum is filled with experiencing life through only the avenue of subjective feeling. Emotions, feelings, inward reflections, subjective experiences, and even self-created myths, all become contemporary man’s new reality.
In the latter part of the 1700s, there were men who questioned the ability of man to truly “know” anything. David Hume and Immanuel Kant questioned the concept of epistemology, believing that perhaps all knowledge needed to be placed into two categories, that of the phenomenal (the reality world) and the noumenal (a world that could not be known). Philosophers then took those two divisional worlds of knowledge and declared there to be an “upper story” and a “lower story” world of knowledge reality: the lower story being the “real” world in which we live day by day, based on reason and factual perspective; and the upper story being an escape world where reason does not exist but is simply a world where we make life to be what we desire for ourselves. In those early years when such a concept of epistemology was presented, philosophers knew there was an impregnable gulf between those two stories. And the only way to leave the lower story and reach the upper story was for reason to be destroyed or rendered inoperative for a season of time. This could only take place through hallucinogenic drugs or alcohol, or by convincing the mind to believe the unreal to be real. By doing so, a man could catapult himself from the real to an unreal world; but it would have to be an “escape from reason.” Nonetheless there was always that gulf that divided the real world from the non-real world. An Anne of Green Gables could adopt a window friend and pretend with a vivid imagination that this friend existed in order to escape from the real world of hardship and being an orphan. There was also the looking glass of Alice in her Wonderland where animals talked and the non-real became real. There is also the world of imagination of children playing with dolls and toy soldiers. But there must always be that clear line of demarcation drawn between the real and the non-real. Today, the postmodernists have blurred the line of difference and distinction between those two stories, between the real world in which we live and the “reality” world we create and make our own.
This concept of reality will be seen by the postmodernist denouncement of truth, of absolutes, and of the real to be found outside of ourselves. When this denouncement is made, then man creates his own reality without having to prove it by reason or trial. Allan Bloom alludes to this in his book The Closing of the American Mind (1987):
The danger they have been taught to fear from absolutism is not error but intolerance. Relativism is necessary to openness; and this is the virtue, the only virtue, which all primary education for more than fifty years has dedicated itself to inculcating. Openness—and the relativism that makes it the only plausible stance in the face of various claims to truth and the various ways of life and kinds of human beings—is the great insight of our times. The true believer is the real danger. The study of history and of culture teaches that all the world was mad in the past; men always thought they were right, and that led to wars, persecutions, slavery, xenophobia, racism, and chauvinism. The point is not to correct the mistakes and really be right; rather it is not to think that you are right at all.
In his work New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-analysis (1933), Freud had already addressed a relativism that sought to abolish any objective absolutes for directing human behavior:
Fundamentally, we only find what we need and only see what we want to see. We have no other possibility. Since the criterion for truth, correspondence with the external world, is absent, it is entirely a matter of indifference what opinions we adopt. All of them are equally true and equally false. And no one has the right to accuse anyone else of error [emphasis added].
This thinking pronounces candidly the days of the Judges, when everyone does that which is right in his own eyes and creates whatever world he wants for himself without accountability to anything or anyone. Convictions are no longer part of man’s conscience or thinking; everyone has his personal opinions, and no one is to view his opinions higher than anyone else’s opinions. There is no truth; all opinions are relative. This is how radio “talk shows” survive: everyone calls in and gives their opinion, but by the end of the show there is no establishment of truth. Perhaps the talk show “host” will be able to make everyone’s contribution of benefit and “he has a point.” For every opinion is equally right.
Postmodernism’s Concept of Religion
Perhaps the acceptance of religion by postmodernism creates the greatest surprise. It must be remembered that “modernism,” based purely upon reason, denounced religion, believing that it should not exist. With this belief the early atheists consistently attacked religion’s purpose of existence. But postmodernism permits an individual’s religion, as long as it is kept within the confinement of one’s self. It is adamantly opposed to the propagation of religion to others or the concept of “evangelizing” the world. One may believe what he wants to about God (or gods), but religion must be purely individualistic and never collective. There should be no churches, assemblies, classes, etc. But let everybody believe what they want; whatever makes them “feel good,” that should be their belief. Personal religion must never be based upon doctrine, any concept of absolutes, or a consistent belief.
Postmodernism strongly denies creeds, articles of faith, and any form of dogmatism that is demanded of others. In fact, religion should be whatever an individual makes it to be, like an elixir of instant, feel-good, subjective syncretism. Even Christianity should permit individuals to take a number of beliefs and collectively bring them together to make a buffet of subjective beliefs; whatever suits your taste at any given moment would be most proper. Such beliefs may change from week to week, for another aspect may be found of greater pleasure for the life and added to the pot; this all can be freely mixed to make one’s own “reality” of religion.
How would this concept define morality? Postmodernism declares that all moral values are relative. This necessitates that each person develop his own moral values without a concept of God or an objective revelation, such as the Bible influencing his subjective religion. Man is not to be looking for what is right or wrong, but what will please him or what he will gain from it. Even the cultures of various countries and races should be permitted with all of their views of right and wrong. Thus, evangelizing them would be a detriment, and to condemn them for what they do would be absurd in manner and respect for their subjective ways and beliefs. The “natives” do what they do because they were shaped by their culture, and who are we to tell them it is wrong? They have no responsibility or accountability to its being right or wrong. Because this is to be the view of postmodernism, tolerance becomes one of the pillars of this mindset. Yes, according to postmodernism we must tolerate all manner of living, of belief, and of lifestyle. Nothing is to be said in opposition; they are to be accepted, commended, and encouraged. Of course, this tolerance is not to be given to those who believe in absolutes and are dogmatic in their beliefs of right and wrong, and of what is to be the only road that leads to God, that is, the way of Jesus Christ found in the Scriptures. And if one dare think that another individual is wrong, or that there is some form of punishment such as hell awaiting those who reject the Gospel, then woe be to that person! Yes, such individuals will not be tolerated in a postmodern society!
It will be observed as we inquire deeper into this dark chasm of postmodernism that it is exclusively based upon individualism. It is one thing to live in a pluralistic society, but now we are being demanded to accept all religions as equally true and to believe that there is no right or wrong religion and no one road leading to “God.” Even the courts are now declaring that it is up to each individual to determine the concept of “meaning,” of existence, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. No one religion has a right to declare the exactness of these concepts of God. Any negative statement given against another religion will be viewed as hate speech.
As for the Bible, it is not accepted as absolute but simply viewed as the subjectivism expressed by its authors. For what really happened is unknowable, and if it is knowable, it is unimportant. The Liberals, going back to the mid-1800s, denied the historicity of the Bible, and all of these years since have tried to prove the unreliability of its professing historical aspects. But now the postmodernists tell us that the history does not matter; it is simply what the Bible writings do for you in a moment of time; they are neither to be taken literally nor dogmatically but are simply to be an avenue or a tool whereby we come to our own subjective “experience” in religion. One has the right to draw from the Upanishads, the writings of the Hindus; the Sutra, the writings of the Buddhists; the writings of the Koran; or any other religion: all are permissible in order to gain one’s own “inner” perspective of reality. It could even be through an assortment of all of these writings that thus reality for one’s self is found. There is no “truth”; there are only truths, and those truths may be for “the moment” and only for that individual at that time.
It must be acknowledged that Europe is moving quickly to the abandonment of Christianity while America, through the postmodernism of the mega-churches, is moving to adopt a more comfortable form of Christianity. America has adopted a more palatable Christianity with that of the world and its postmodern thinking. In the end, the product will be the same; both become an effect of the modernity upon the Church and the mutual destruction of public, Biblical Christianity. But more words will be given on this subject in our last article of this issue of Straightway.
Postmodernism and History
The historicity of Christianity is being denied today, not only by the world but also by the public institutional church. Mel Gibson’s The Passion gave us a hodgepodge of myth, legend, and some history thrown into the movie to more pronouncedly bring us into an existential experience of the “feelings” of Mary, of Jesus, of women, of soldiers, and many others. All was mixed together and permissibly accepted in the light of what it did existentially for the audience. Both the Liberals and the Modernists reject the resurrection of Jesus, other than for existential influence for the individual’s subjective religion. Again, in a postmodernist context, Christian history is irrelevant, it is immaterial, and the Church should spend no time discussing this issue since it is not important.
But this mindset influences all perceptions of history. A simple example of this is found in the newer history books written on the Civil War, or even by visiting the few museums dedicated to its history. The honest heart would be amazed at how the history is being written and certain aspects of its existence even denied. History either commends or condemns; therefore, the present generation must do something with it or deny its existence. A recent poll indicates a growing number (at this time 33 percent) of those in America do not believe that the Holocaust took place, that the killing of some six million Jews by the Nazis during World War II ever happened. Such individuals believe that it has been a Jewish mythological propagation to produce global sympathy, and that the various holocaust museums in Israel, in America, and in Europe are only in existence to maintain the myth. This will be true of all the histories of evil men: the present ruling powers of modern history will redefine and reinterpret. What was viewed as barbaric and an atrocity at the time it happened will be rewritten to laud the incident. By what we see today of our present administration and the evil and deception intricately woven in his doings, present historians will declare him as the best man for our country and the world. Amidst the quagmire of our postmodern times, we must remember there are no principles, only preferences; there will be no simple reality of right or wrong, but a grand objective universalism. Truly, postmodernism is the extreme form of relativism.
Postmodernism and Culture
One of the powerful viewpoints of postmodernism that has become a crucial weapon of destruction to truth in our contemporary may be found in the “culture” of a people. Culture, from a secular perspective, can be the fineness of feelings, thoughts, tastes, manners, etc. of an individual, of a civilization, of a given race or nation at a given time or over all time. This will include customs, arts, conveniences, etc. But the word also includes the development of the mind or body by education or training. Postmodernism believes that whatever a people’s culture may be, it must be accepted by others. Heretofore, when certain ethnic groups entered a country, they either complied with the culture and language of that country, or they isolated themselves into a geography within the country where they could continue their “culture.” We have observed this in large cosmopolitan cities where there is a “China Town” or as in the city of Jerusalem where there is a distinct Arabic section of the city in contrast to the Jewish section. Postmodernism forces a society to integrate and accept these cultures. All must blend into one, with the acceptance of their music, their language, their living, and their sins without any negative response. This would be true in a community; even churches would be forced to accept whatever cultural lifestyle that comes. It is one thing to accept the cultural foods, clothing designs or colors, manner or protocol, music, architecture, and even certain living persuasions of a people. But it will be quite another to accept their views of God (or gods) and of Jesus Christ. It will be quite another to accept their lifestyles that promote iniquity and bold anti-God events and programs attacking Jesus Christ. It will be quite another to accept their specific views of law and of what is right and wrong to govern that community or nation. Such is the case of the “culture” of Islam. The very foundational belief of Islam is against everything that historic America is founded upon. Such an individual could not become an American, unless America can be changed to assimilate the anti-Americanism within the country.
This is where we are today. We are told that we must accept the culture of these myriads of people who are presently being brought into our country. It is not that they must change, but, to the contrary, we must accept their ways, their religions, their languages, their customs, their sins, their “laws,” even if these laws are against the laws of our country. Postmodernism strongly believes that America was based upon a colonialism of the past, which was based upon certain men’s “reality” being forced upon the rest of society. And now, we have come to a generation that must do away with all previous laws of America—its “colonial” Constitution, its morality—and even become a nation of diversification of law. How ironic that we now have another “colonialism” being forced upon us with the aggressiveness of a communist regime. Our Supreme Court, as set up in earlier history, was for a unified country of principles established to interpret a unified view of right and wrong. Though the country “permitted” the presence of differences of opinions and beliefs of religion, there was still a unifying principle of right and wrong that ruled the nation; it had a concept belief of “righteousness.” Now the leadership declares that this is unacceptable. The country’s colonialism must be destroyed, and all cultures within this country must be permitted to live with their laws and lifestyles. Yes, it may be debated that Islam is a religion, but it is definitely a way of life in a culture that controls its people with absolutes. Its control is far more intensified than what is found in today’s mongrelized Christianity which gives no public evidence of intensity of lifestyle. Postmodernism declares that such people must be permitted to live according to their 24-hour-a-day regulations of laws, foods, holy days, prayers, governments, courts, clothing, and family polygamous marriages. Who is to say that the killing of a child is not permitted? Who is to say that the oppression of women is wrong? Who is to declare that if one leaves the “life” of Islam he cannot be put to death? Who is to say that Jihad is wrong? Who can define what a “terrorist” is? All of this is part of the world culture of a people, and post-America, based on postmodernism, must accept them with open arms and without one word of condemnation or any law of restriction. Thus the cities must get in harmony; the prisons must do away with the serving of pork; the public schools must accommodate the teaching of the “culture” of Islam.
Such “intolerant” forcing of “tolerance” also dominates the culture of sodomy, pedophilia, rape, polygamy, pornography, rock music, occultism, etc. These cultures are demanding non-discrimination in every aspect of public living, including the denouncing of distinction of public rest rooms, of human genders, of family concepts and their existence. We are not only to permit them to live their culture publicly but also to provide for them and submit to assist them in a way that indicates no contrary “feeling” or “mindset” about their culture.
God truly made the races, and people have their manner and way of living in the light of their geographies and their nativity. But sin can pervade any culture no matter who the people are. The Gospel condemns sin within any culture, and the Christian is called upon to separate from it. The Christian must not only preach the Gospel to “all” men and call them to Christ the singular Saviour, but also to preach the life-changing power of that Gospel, conforming the believer to the message of that Gospel proclaimed, no matter who the people are and where they live. Ethnic or national cultures may continue with those redeemed people, but the sin found within that culture must cease. There is a biblical culture that all Christians must live, and it rises to a greater authority than their own culture.
Conclusion
Truly our present society is moving with great acceleration into the literal redefining of humanity and its concept of reality and existence. The former language of humanity has become an enemy to postmodernism; its terminology is antiquated and must be discarded; and all of the old forms of human existence will be abandoned. This is not only seen as true for the secular world but also for Christianity. We thus are now witnessing the abandonment of historic Christianity and the mutation of a new Christianity that will accommodate the postmodern mind. Fundamentalism may try to maintain the doctrine of Christianity but will use the wrapping of the contemporary, believing that the end will justify the means and that even the world’s methods do not affect the message.
What new religious shape will Fundamentalism now take in this postmodern world? How will the present trends of Fundamentalism conceptualize Jesus and the biblical principles? More and more, present-day Fundamentalism is becoming the product of postmodernism. Its leaders, musicians, church programs, Christian schools, colleges, and universities are all coming together to make this paradigm shift of what is a “Fundamentalist.” It is evident we will never return to the former biblical days. Fundamentalism has intentionally left the path of truth and is now blazing a new road in a new direction. Our next article will carefully unfold the present dilemma of fallen Fundamentalism.