Postmodernism is our new rock star. The question is whether twenty-five years from now it’s going to be considered as a Bruce Springsteen or a 70’s rock star wanna-be.

I recently read an article by someone whom I respect who nonetheless basically dismissed two millennia of theological debate as irrelevant to those of us at the dawn of the new millennium. But - at risk of opening myself up to the charge of being a bit acerbic - are we really to pity the poor ignorant hoi polloi who lived in centuries past because they had to live their entire miserable lives without advantage of the insights of Foucault, Derrida, Rorty, Fish and Lyotard?? It is naiveté at best and hubris at worst for us to think that a school of thought not yet three decades old would actually render all previous theological cogitation null and void. A Rortyeseque emphasis on community surely leads us to listen to the two millennia old community of Christian interpreters as we also acknowledge the contributions of our contemporaries.

Postmodern thinkers themselves, as I’ve mentioned - highlight the importance of paradigm. Ironically, in making a proper assessment of the relative significance of postmodernity, it is important to consider the degree to which socio-cultural factors inform the paradigm of postmodernity itself in popular and academic reflection. For postmodernity is not only influenced by the philosophical school of thought known as postmodernism, but is a sociological phenomenon as well.

At least five socio-cultural aspects of postmodernity in contemporary society and thought must be kept in mind when evaluating the significance of the movement.

1 --- It is easy for us in the midst of genuinely creative and valid philosophical discovery to become so excited as to over apply its insights - however legitimate. Over thirty years ago Colin Brown, then Dean of Studies at Trinity College in Bristol, England, commented on this phenomenon in his brief history of philosophical reflection, Philosophy and the Christian Faith:

At almost regular intervals down the centuries someone will hit upon an idea which has some claim to truth. It is then blown up into a system which is thought to be capable of explaining everything. It is hailed as a key to unlock every door….In each case the thinkers concerned were so impressed with their particular insight that they built it into a more or less rigid system which virtually destroyed its original usefulness.…if anything is to be learnt form the history of philosophy, we should be cautious in embracing one set of philosophical ideas to the exclusion of all others, and critical in our evaluation of all of them. Just as no single human being has exhaustive knowledge of the whole of reality, but may have partial and valid insights into this or that field of experience, so no philosophy is all embracing. Its insights and methods are often tentative and provisional. It may have a valid apprehension of this or that. Its methods may be fruitful in exploring certain particular fields. But if we are wise, we shall be on our guard against definitive systems and allegedly omnipotent methods of approach.

Rather than either dismissing the postmodern agenda as a passing fad or embracing it as the ultimate reorganization of philosophical/theological inquiry, we should wait and allow the passing of time, discussion, and reflection to enable a more seasoned judgment. This is not - of course - to be taken as meaning that we don’t aggressively search new insights for their application to reflection about God and transform our paradigm where new reformation is called for. It is, however, allowing history to capitalize the term “new reformation” if we actually experience that degree of sea change. As exciting as its insights may seem today, postmodernity may not, in fact, prove to be a revolution. It might just be a course correction.

2 --- Postmodernity has reached its current level of popularity in a significant period of time psychologically: dawn of a new millennium. Since postmodernity has reached its ascendancy at this point in history it would be easy to inordinately emphasize its significance. In the same way the passing of one millennium to another has historically (and very recently) precipitated heightened interest in eschatology, so also the sheer timing of the rise of postmodernity at this point in the calendar could artificially influence us to view postmodernity as “the paradigm for the next one thousand years.” If Kierkegaard and Satre were writing today, it would be easy to overemphasize similarly their legitimate insights.

3 --- The name postmodernity itself informs the paradigm that the postmodern orientation is the superior replacement for modernity. Modernity is generally considered to cover a time period beginning with either Descartes in the 17th or Kant in the 18th century. Consequently the appellation “postmodernism” can be seen as arbitrarily and artificially elevating the importance of the constellation of concepts associated with the term. The term implies the dawn of a new era of philosophical reflection.

4 --- The anti-foundationalism of postmodernity has struck an empathetic chord with the prevailing ethos of popular culture. This concordance means that the ubiquitous channels of popular media create a powerful predisposition towards acceptance of postmodern concepts.

5 --- Technology and scientific progress have left a powerful impression on the contemporary mind that new equals better. However, in the philosophical or theological realm, novelty is not an intrinsically good quality. Sheer newness does not argue for accuracy. We must take care against placing a premium on new thought because of false analogies with technology or scientific progress.

These socio-cultural and nomenclature considerations do not themselves argue against the significance of postmodern concepts. But they do serve to caution that postmodern teachings be evaluated on their own merit and not be granted importance inordinately.

And, in fact, it might be more helpful to consider modernity and postmodernity as complimentary perspectives rather than viewing one as superceding the other. Modernity and postmodernity can both be described as reflecting legitimate impulses. What is critical is the orientation - or the direction --- of those impulses. A graph might be helpful and a couple of comments.

Modernity can be considered as having the impulse of figuring it out, of using our minds to determine what is true. An anthropocentric modernity would therefore say, “Because I can figure it all out, I’m in charge!” Its man-centeredness is its orientation. With great respect to what he was able to accomplish philosophically, I nevertheless believe we might see this type of assumption in Descartes' Discourse when he wrote: "all things…are mutually connected in the same way, and that there is nothing so far removed from us as to be beyond our reach, or so hidden that we cannot discover it…."

We evangelicals are guilty of an anthropocentric modernity when we insist on answering every question about God. We show ourselves to have submitted to the influence of a man-centered commitment to the supreme ascendancy of our own minds when we completely categorize and fully detail every facet of divinity, which will certainly be both real and imagined. We are not able to do this with accuracy because the finite simply cannot completely probe the Infinite.

The orientation, however, of a theocentric modernity says, “With the mind that God has given me, I can determine what is true. I can search and study and find out about God and about his creation.”

The attitude of a theocentric modernity is reflected in Proverbs 25:2b

…to search out a matter is the glory of kings.

It is the attitude of patient discovery motivated by sincere desire to love God with all our minds.

Postmodernity can be considered as having the impulse of recognizing the mystery of life, the inscrutability of ultimate reality, the overwhelming complexity of everything and the definite limits of our ability to both know all the facts about what is real and the wisdom to understand completely all of reality. An anthropocentric orientation says, “The human mind is inadequate to comprehend what is real and the language of humanity is incapable of conveying what is real and so therefore, there is no authority and … I’m in charge! No one else can tell me what is true.”

We evangelicals show an anthropocentric postmodernity when we so subjectivize what God has revealed to the limits of human mind and language that God is effectively made mute. He might as well not have spoken. Since all is interpretation with no certainty, we replace a robust faith with a tepid spirituality that gains all its strength from the certainty of those who’ve gone before and from those areas where contemporary mores happen to overlap with biblical categories.

A theocentric orientation to postmodernity says, “Life is mysterious and God will never be fully known. God, I worship you because you are above all my categories. The secret things belong to you” (Deuteronomy 29:29a). This orientation would be very respectful of Proverbs 25:2a: "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter."

So the bare impulses of modernity or postmodernity can be considered neither mutually exclusive nor intrinsically morally directional. They can be

anthropocentric and equally unhelpful or theocentric and in harmony with the existence of One who is the Center of everything.

If modernity has taught the family of Western man a more thorough diligence in his quest for God, then postmodernity is teaching him that after all His effort, God and so much of His truth remain a majestic mystery.

We are suggesting that postmodernity helpfully critiques Evangelicalism to the extent it has become inordinately modernized. At the same time, Christianity critiques postmodernism to the extent it denies God the opportunity to speak.

These are genuinely exciting times to be alive, to be a Christian, and to be thinking about these matters philosophically and theologically. Never in the history of the world has so much information been available to so many and so quickly. It is a time of intense reflection and a marvelous opportunity to learn and explore.

But we must remember never to leave our first love. There are those who could not begin to explain postmodernism, those who are thoroughly enmeshed in modernity, those who believe that theology reached its highest expression in Geneva in the 16th century who cause God every day to throw His head back and shout with joy at their love and obedience. Our subtle understandings of the currents of social and philosophical thought and its application to theological reflection do not impress Him. He’s impressed when we love Him with everything that is within us and our neighbors as ourselves. And our interests in all things modern and postmodern must be driven by our passionate love for the One who woos us. We must not be moved a desire that this world would accept us because our cross is foolishness to them. How can they be expected to understand a divine economy that has stretched the best minds of the church and especially when they have not yet been convinced that there is Someone other than themselves at the center of this universe?

In the midst of such exciting discovery, we must never let our enjoyment of exploration and new insight to eclipse the love and gratitude that we have for our Divine Lover, for the One who gave everything to adopt us as His sons, for the God Who created all things, for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is so easy for us to become focused on the new insight rather than on the One Who has given insight.

And it is this love for Jesus Christ that will enable us to have sustained Christian theological discourse in the face of something as controversial as postmodernism. It is our commitment to God that will drive us to listen to those with whom we disagree. We are required to do no less. God calls us to be humble. He calls us to be teachable. And some of us try very hard to adorn these qualities in our everyday lives. But when the subject is Divinity, how can we do less in our theological discussions? Yet, of course, we must affirm what He clearly affirms.

Let us ever be lost in the magnificence of His beauty and unimpressed with our own intelligence and insight.

Solo Deo Gloria 

References and for Further Study

Colin Brown, Philosophy and the Christian Faith 

Antonio Damasio, Descartes Error 

Stanley J. Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism 

Jim Powell, Postmodernism for Beginners 

eter Senge, The Fifth Discipline

D. A. Carson, The Gagging of God

Douglas Groothius, Truth Decay 

J. Richard Middleton & Brian J Walsh, Truth is Stranger Than It Used To Be 

Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Is There Meaning in this Text? 

Peggy Kamuf, ed., A Derrida Reader: Between the Blinds John D. Caputo, ed,

Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida 

Paul Rabinow, ed., The Foucault Reader 

Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge 

On Richard Rorty

Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature 

Richard Rorty, Consequences of Pragmatism 

Stephen Shields is a Technology Manager with USA TODAY and the former Pastor for Cedar Ridge Communities at Cedar Ridge Community Church in Spencerville, MD. He lives with his wife Bethany and three daughters - Michaela Siobhan, Skye Teresa, and Alia Noelle - in the Baltimore-Washington corridor. He graduated from Grace Theological Seminary with an M. Div. He can be contacted at stephen@shieldsplace.org and his website is http://www.shieldsplace.org.