Postmodernism: An Opportunity for the Church - Part III

Perhaps postmodernism's most devastating impact is in its discrediting of history as a meaningful source of knowledge and values. One of the central themes of postmodern writers and philosophers is that "history is written by the winners" thereby concealing the oppressive motives of the "victors." This is applied in particular to Western history which is regarded as more oppressive than any other as evidenced by its "success" which according to the postmodern came at the expense of those cultures that stood in its way. This inevitably results in a portrayal of Western expansion as being driven entirely by greed and avarice while the mostly primitive peoples they encountered are portrayed as innocent and untainted by such shallow virtues. This makes the postmodern suspicious of all meta-narratives, or all-encompassing stories that purport to offer a true explanation of reality, such as Western History and Christianity in particular.

First, this unbalanced perspective of history is based on the false assumption that man is inherently good and his expressions of "evil" derive from an external influence rather than his internal nature. This, in many respects, is nothing more than a new iteration of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's "noble savage" perspective in which Rousseau argued that man was essentially good when in the "state of nature." Secondly, by exploiting the thread of truth that does exist in the axiom, "history is written by the winners," postmoderns are able to discredit all of history as unreliable. But here again postmodernism is not alone in its diminution of history. Modernism also diminishes history as meaningful source of knowledge by its implicit emphasis upon the future. In other words, in the light of such stunning modern advances in science and technology why look to the past? Suffice it to say, the combined disregard of history implicit in modernism and the disbelief of history solidified by postmodernism have thoroughly undermined the historical record as a legitimate basis for defending the claims of Scripture, moral truth, or rational reality for that matter.

Returning to this theme of "deconstruction," postmodernism as a philosophy offers no positive agenda or any coherent solution to humanity's dilemma. Postmodernism only deconstructs the traditional understanding of meaning, purpose, love, beauty, moral distinctions, and truth. Postmodernism rejects all realist commitments such as, any "theory-independent or language-independent reality or truth, the notion that there is only one way the world really is, and that the basic laws of logic apply to reality." In other words, postmodernism says that nothing can be objectively true because your categories of true and false, right and wrong, are all products of cultural bias or social construction. Therefore, since each of us experience different degrees of influence from these external forces, postmodernism assumes, and it is only an assumption, that there is no over-arching universal truth available for discovery.

The result of all this philosophical wrangling is a generation increasingly "disconnected" from any tangible sense of hope, meaning or purpose, as well as meaningful relationships. They are being raised in a world where all of these categories have been stripped of their original content and substance. Modernism provided an object of hope other than Jesus Christ while postmodernism, though it does reveal the futility of such misplaced hope, in the end offers nothing to fill the void. There is some substantial evidence to support this statement. In 2003, The Commission on Children at Risk was formed to "investigate empirically the social, moral and spiritual foundations of child well-being." The Commission included 33 of the nation's leading doctors, research scientists, mental health and youth professionals representing some of the finest institutions of higher learning in the nation, including Harvard, Yale, and Columbia. The study was led by Dr. Kathleen Kovner Kline of Dartmouth Medical School. Suffice it to say that this commission and its representatives were not the bastion of "conservativism" which makes the results all that more compelling.

Among their findings, researchers reported that "at least one of every four adolescents in the U.S. is currently at serious risk of not achieving productive adulthood." Additionally, the researchers reported that "about 21 percent of U.S. children ages nine to 17 have a diagnosable mental or addictive disorder associated with at least minimum impairment." Several recent studies suggest "that nearly one of every ten high school students may suffer from clinical depression." There is, according to the research, a serious crisis among young people today. In summary, the researchers said, "We are witnessing high and rising rates of depression, anxiety, attention deficit, conduct disorders, thoughts of suicide, and other serious mental, emotional, and behavioral problems among U.S. children and adolescents."

As to the cause of this crisis, the researchers wrote, "What's causing this crisis of American childhood is a lack of connectedness." They went on to define this "lack of connectedness" as a lack of "close connections to other people, and deep connections to moral and spiritual meaning." I would suggest that this lack of connection could be largely attributable to postmodern ambivalence. What was most astonishing to me were the unanimous recommendations of the committee in saying, "For what may be the first time, a diverse group of scientists and other experts on children's health is publicly recommending that our society pay considerably more attention to young people' moral, spiritual, and religious needs." Remember, this was a secular study that sought to "empirically" understand the apparent crisis among American youth that came to these conclusions.

Herein lays the great opportunity for the Church today because life without hope, meaning, or purpose is simply untenable for human beings made in the image of God. The escalating destruction of the personal, psychological, and spiritual well-being of young people revealed in the aforementioned study bear this out. I would suggest that postmodernism therefore exists in a very fragile state because it conflicts with the yearnings of the human heart. We are born with a God-given desire to make sense out of life and to attempt to know our purpose and the meaning of this present reality. We simply cannot survive psychologically in a state devoid of any meaning, try as we might. This innate desire on our part is why I think postmodernism, as a philosophy, is waning so soon after its appearance in the marketplace of ideas.

The challenge however is in understanding the tangible effects that postmodernism has had on real people whom we are trying to reach with the Gospel - these tangible effects again being a suspicion of the past; a rejection of all meta-narratives, and a rejection of logic as a valid tool for discovering truth even if such a thing exists. That might explain why, in large part, the postmodern generation of professing Christians hold little interest in doctrine because in the end they regard doctrinal claims and theological convictions as merely different interpretations or opinions, believing that there is no over-arching truth to be found. I believe the same influence might be to blame for the prominent lack of interest in Church history among so many professing Christians.

Copyright S. Michael Craven 2006

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S. Michael Craven is the Founding Director of the Center for Christ & Culture, a ministry of the National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families. The Center for Christ & Culture is dedicated to renewal within the Church and works to equip Christians with an intelligent and thoroughly Christian approach to matters of culture in order to recapture and demonstrate the relevance of Christianity to all of life. For more information on the Center for Christ & Culture, additional resources and other works by S. Michael Craven visit: www.battlefortruth.org