What is Postmodernism?

(By Pastor Mark Fontecchio)

Question: What is postmodernism?

Answer: Postmodernism is a term that describes the mindset of our current culture—a collective mindset that is markedly different from the mindset of the previous era (the modern era). We are living in the postmodern era. Postmodernism calls into question the ideals, principles, and absolutes that lay at the heart of biblical Christianity. Postmodernism is not a conspiracy; it is not a group of people who consciously decided to attack the Christian faith. Postmodernism is simply a natural development in cultural thinking over time. Yet, at its very core are philosophical beliefs that attack and challenge the values and principles of biblical Christianity.

If we think of human history in three separate categories, there are the pre-modern, modern, and postmodern eras. Putting it into historical perspective, the pre-modern era essentially took us up to the Age of Enlightenment (the Scientific Revolution, the Age of Reason, the Industrial Revolution, those general historical benchmarks). Most people point to 1789 (the storming of the Bastille in France) as marking the end of the pre-modern age and the shift into the modern age. The modern era was comparatively short (1789–1989); the postmodern era is from roughly 1989 to the present. Thus, we have just recently witnessed a major cultural shift in thinking.

What Does This Mean?

Recognizing these historical changes is of little value if there is no knowledge of the resulting influence on our approach to faith, the Scriptures, and the absolute truth of God’s Word. Consider the different approaches to faith.

In the pre-modern era the key word was faith. People had a deep devotion (believers and unbelievers alike) to a creator god. People understood that there was something beyond themselves that existed, and they had a general trust in their creator. Even if they had not trusted in Christ for salvation, they undoubtedly had a reverence for a creator. Amongst the lost, faith was generally not considered something to be mocked. Faith in a god was an acceptable part of culture.

In the modern era reason eclipsed faith as the new standard. If you could not prove it using the scientific method, it did not exist. This had a lasting and dramatic impact on the Christian faith. Science now eclipsed theology as queen of the sciences. Men had become too smart for their own good. When the imperfect science of men contradicted the Bible, science was to be believed. Compulsory schooling laws and public education further added to the corrosion of faith. Churches began to propagate an erroneous theory, which proclaimed that the science of men was perfect and without error. Much of what was taught as science, were in reality the theories of unredeemed men. This was particularly true in regard to the Darwinian evolutionary theory of the origin of man. Men and women began to accept these theories as factual, and the end result was tragic. Believing that science cannot be rejected, they approached the Bible thinking it needed to change to conform to science.

This led to a torrent of liberalization of the Scriptures. People began to reject the biblical accounts of Adam and Eve, Jonah and the whale, the parting of the Red Sea, and the sun standing still for a day. Eventually, this led them to reject the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, and the Resurrection of Christ. The reasoning was straightforward; none of these events could be scientifically proven.

Following this dangerous approach, many churches and seminaries quickly became liberal. A downward spiral ensued that changed the early seminaries and churches in the United States. Institutions that were once rock solid, built on the foundation of the Word of God as their only authority for life and practice, became leading outposts of mockery and ridicule of the Bible.

The minute someone begins to say that the Bible contains errors, it is only a matter of time before none of it is of any value to them. Do not ever buy into the argument that the principles of the Bible are to be respected, but the Scriptures themselves have scientific errors. This will lead to the rejection of the central truths of Jesus Christ. The Word of God stands as a unit.

Today, in the postmodern era, the key word is now bias. Everyone has his own viewpoint and perspective on life. Some people may still hold to reason; others may hold to faith. Or, it may even be a combination of both reason and faith. The bottom line is that everybody approaches life through his own individual bias.

In the pre-modern era people were quite comfortable with supernatural explanations. In the modern era everything had to have a natural explanation. Today, in the postmodern era, there are no explanations because it just does not matter. This can be witnessed in mass media and marketing. Some of the most successful marketing campaigns are those that make absolutely no sense at all, but they are so bizarre that they are memorable. It seems there is no need to connect the advertisement to the actual product; it just needs to be bizarre and memorable. In the postmodern age no explanation is needed.

In the pre-modern era the five senses were considered to be incomplete. People understood that there was something beyond what you could touch, feel, smell, hear, or see. In the modern era everything had to have a natural explanation. If you could not experience it with the five senses, it did not exist. It is quite remarkable that today, in the postmodern age, we have returned back to the concept of the five senses being incomplete. People recognize that there is something more to life. They recognize that the optimism of the modern age, that everything could be solved by science, was overstated. It is well known that you cannot prove everything scientifically. The problem now is that so often people are searching for answers in all the wrong places. Instead of turning to Jesus Christ and the Word of God, they are looking into Eastern Mysticism, pagan religions, and the New Age Movement. Their souls are famished, but they are willing to feast on any spiritual food that they stumble upon.

During the pre-modern era revelation from God (the Bible) was accepted. In the modern era the scientific method was the standard for truth. Today, in the postmodern era, there is no absolute truth. Truth is now a construction of each individual. There are multiple truths, but there is no all-encompassing, single, grand metanarrative, or universal truth that is true of all people of all times.

Remember, in the pre-modern era people generally had a high view of the Bible. This changed substantially in the modern era because then people generally had a low view of the Bible. They denigrated it and ridiculed it. The Bible was under constant attack, while science and reason were elevated. Those with the postmodern view really have no view of the Bible. Any text is just as functional or valuable as any other text. To the postmodern mindset there is no stake in the ground that creates an absolute standard.

This type of thinking can be seen today in our justice system. The United States Constitution is no longer seen as the governing document for our country. As a result, justices in our courts are making their own laws because the Constitution is no longer seen as a regulating document to which they must be beholden. These justices see themselves as a truth unto themselves.

With this same postmodern mindset, men and women (both Christians and unbelievers), who have disregarded the Bible as their only authority, are acting like gods unto themselves. They consider themselves to be the only standard that they need to follow. People with this approach will use the Bible if there is a benefit to them, but not because it is the absolute standard.

The Shift

There can be no denying that we have lived through a major cultural shift. The recent move from the modern era to the postmodern era has resulted in countless significant changes in our culture. Quite often these attitudes and beliefs are showing up within the Church. This directly impacts our ability to communicate with each other and interact with the Word of God. It is helpful to examine briefly this substantial cultural transformation.

Our ability to communicate is foundational. The goal of communication in the modern era was the transfer of knowledge. Under postmodernism the goal of communication is about participation and acceptance. It is thought that you have not really communicated unless you have felt where the other person is coming from; you need to respect everything the other person is saying. It is no longer about the transfer of information. According to the postmodern mindset, you share the blame if someone does not understand your words when you communicate with them. It is now just as much your fault, as it is theirs, because you did not know where they were coming from. This creates a whole new category of political correctness. The attitude or motive of the speaker is no longer taken into consideration. If the person receiving the communication wants to be offended by the words spoken, then the speaker is at fault. The speaker should have been striving for acceptance.

In the modern era there was a definite emphasis on truth. Today this has shifted to a focus on image and perception; truth is no longer valued as it once was. Again, the witness of this can be seen in the media. There used to be a clear distinction between truth and fiction. News broadcasts are no longer just about the events of the day; they have shifted to become all about entertainment. There is now a focus on re-creating history, theme songs, and slogans. The emphasis is now on image and entertainment. The distinct lines between the truth of news and fiction have become blurred.

Before the postmodern era there was a general respect for the societal institutions of authority. Today each person is now the ultimate authority; self is the authority. This emphasis on self has manifested another change. Under the modern age the worldview of most people was anthropocentric. People were looking out for the greater good of mankind. Today that focus has become egocentric; it is all about self.

Postmodernism: Good and Bad

The move to postmodernism creates fresh challenges and new opportunities for the Church of Jesus Christ. Should we embrace postmodernism? Should we reject it all together? The Church needs to reflect on how we are going to deal with some of the issues that have arisen because of postmodernism.

Many believers in Christ are still trying to evangelize the way it was done in the modern era. Then, the focus was on evidential apologetics. Evangelism was concentrated on proving the Resurrection and the biblical accounts of Christ. Systematically explaining the rational truth of the gospel message was the emphasis. This approach does not work with people who have a postmodern mindset. They are completely at peace with letting you believe in the Gospel of Christ. If you ask them if Christ rose again, they will typically answer, “Yes, He probably did.” They have no objections to the idea that Christ rose again. They may even believe it, but for a different reason. Now what are you going to do?

This underscores the importance of recognizing that evidential apologetics has not prepared us to deal with individuals, like an Eastern mystic, who agree with everything we say. If we do not think through some of these issues, it can make for a thorny playing field when dealing with people.

Certainly there is still a place for looking at the evidence and rationalizing through the truth of Scripture as a method of apologetics. Yet, we need to be aware that things have definitely shifted in our culture. We could find ourselves armed with twenty-seven reasons which prove the Resurrection is a historical fact, but before we even get through the first point the Eastern mystic responds by saying, “Yes, I believe in the Resurrection.” Now what do we do? This development of individuals each having their own personal truth can make witnessing much more challenging. The great obstacle in witnessing to people with the postmodern mindset is getting them to recognize that the Word of God is the authoritative and absolute standard on which to base their beliefs.

Another major setback of the postmodern era is the pervasive movement toward complexity and not clarity. This is often a very subtle distinction that we see today; the greater the complexity the greater the value. Whether it is an article, a book, a lecture, or a piece of art, the more complex it is the better. Simplicity has lost its value in the current culture. Even television shows have become more complex. They bounce back and forth in time because the old simple chronological approach is no longer accepted.

There is a definite departure from clarity today. Much of what people say is overanalyzed. Quite often we observe the words spoken, “He said this, but I wonder what he really means.” It is hard for those with the postmodern mindset to recognize that at times people simply say what they mean. We witness this same phenomenon when metaphors or exaggerations are overanalyzed. Obvious figures of speech are meant to convey a point. The tendency to overanalyze them offers no value.

The death of absolute truth is a frightening development in the present age. In the modern age we were all on the same playing field; most people agreed that there was absolute truth. The skeptics and unbelievers thought absolute truth was found through science. Believers in Christ understood absolute truth to be the Word of God, but at least we all acknowledged that there was some unqualified standard. Today, most people do not have any standard. This makes it difficult to communicate if the truth is always shifting. It makes teaching others about God’s eternal plan for mankind much more challenging.

Closely related to the death of absolute truth in the culture is the abandonment of certainty. People go out of their way to avoid saying anything that might sound dogmatic. Most people are not certain about anything. They are afraid to speak in absolutes and will seldom give definitive answers. A person with the postmodern mindset would typically say, “I think my way is better. I think you are wrong.” However, they would never say, “I am right and you are absolutely morally wrong.” The abandonment of certainty is a central aspect of our current culture. It is not often that people will speak in unqualified and absolute terms.

In the postmodern era there is the epistemological dance between Scripture, culture, and tradition. Epistemology refers to the reasons why we believe something. Today the reason people (in the Christian faith) have certain beliefs is because of this interconnected concept of Scripture, culture, and tradition. Scripture is usually a part of the mix somewhere, but culture and tradition are typically placed on equal footing. In many books written today, we see this faulty idea that the basis of our beliefs cannot be Scripture alone; it has to be the Scripture, our culture, our tradition, and our own interaction with them.

With the postmodern shift came the intensification of experience-based religion in evangelical churches. The teaching of doctrinal truth has been replaced with entertaining people and helping them to have a good experience. The quality of a church service is now based on subjective feelings more than on the accuracy of what is taught.

Today, in the postmodern church, the focus is often on the quality of the nursery, the parking, the availability of free doughnuts and coffee, the playground for the kids, and whether or not the pews are comfortable. There is little focus on what is being taught by the church. The specific goal of many churches is to make sure people are comfortable to the exclusion of content, substance, and doctrinal teaching. Postmodernism has led to this intensification of experienced based religion; what matters most is how you feel, not the accuracy of the content. What matters most is how you perceive it. The church is seen as having succeeded when the message comes across well, regardless of the substance being taught.

It would be one-sided to only mention the negative aspects of the culture. There are some positive components that have been ushered in by postmodernism. It is certain that the Church now holds the rational high ground in our culture. The viewpoint of the modern era, that everything had to be provable by the scientific method, has been replaced. People might not accept your faith, but they are comfortable with faith being an option. Now we must convince men and women that the Christian faith is the one true faith amongst all the systems of belief in our world. No longer is it a philosophical battle between religion and science; religion has won. Science was proven to be bankrupt because we cannot scientifically prove everything. Science does not solve all of the world’s problems. The exaggerated claims of modern science have been dethroned. This will inevitably lead to a realignment of churches and theological schools. It is forcing churches to take sides, and this is part of what is known as the remnant principle.

Another helpful aspect of postmodernism is that it provides an opportunity for interaction with people about their worldview. People with the postmodern mindset are dialoguing on this issue, and there is no shortage of books about worldviews. Kids today often go to worldview camps or retreats to learn about other religions. The propagation of other religions is not helpful, but at the very least this creates apologetic opportunities. Postmodernism has opened the door to discussions with people who hold to other worldviews.

Postmodernism also forces us to examine our own historical context. It calls us to realize that we are living in a shift of historical thinking. Before the onset of postmodernism in our culture we really did not think about what things were like before 1789, or 1989, and how things have been affected in recent times. Postmodernism has compelled us to examine our worldview.