POSTMODERNISM AND CHRISTIANISM

© Carlos Padilla,  May 2021

Postmodernism is a philosophical movement that has influenced the world after modernism. Its postulates affirm that there is no absolute truth, nor faith that is the truth. Christianism on the other hand affirms that there is one absolute true, that the Bible is revealed by God, that His ethic calls us to live a holy and moral life, that sin is universal in every man, as it is redemption offered to all by Christ. Christian ethics vs the postmodern, Christian moral ideal according to the Old Testament and New Testament takes us to the Christian moral ideal “Summum Bonum” the practice of love, the Kingdom of God and its proclamation. The value of human life in the Christian vs postmodernism, which despises it due to its relativism. How to relate with culture, abortion, euthanasia, bioethics, human sexuality, war, death penalty, the ethics of work, race and nature, are essential questions that the Christian, and any citizen must know about to be well informed of which is the debate that we are living and that affects us in our days to the future of society. The consequences of postmodernism in the life of the human being are tragic, as I will expose, because it offers a panorama without hope, nor faith, without absolutes, a relative ethic, a situation in which man must accept that his neighbour thinks different, and cannot do anything even if that ends in death, or in despise of live, family and social wellbeing. But the most dangerous is that this system which permeates governments, education or philosophical systems and justice, is the one we have to live in. There is hope because postmodernism soon shows its weakness, and as soon as someone studies it, he will want to know the truth, because truth shall set you free (John 8:31).

Postmodernism

Postmodernism is term meaning after modernism. As a philosophical movement its focus is to react against reason as the only solution to all the problems of man, which was the previous postulate of modernism, the period of time just before. In its rejection to truth or any absolute, religious pluralism is a result that for postmodernism none of the religions can be assured to be true of false.

History of Postmodernism

The history of postmodernism is originated after the delusion in which society fell after experiencing that reason only is not sufficient to achieve a better world, as modernism postulated. Therefore, its origin is a reaction against dilution and failure. Though modernism exposed that there were absolutes like truth, to date postmodern man, as a reaction against, thinks these do not exist, there is no absolute truth. The danger is that they reach a point that even things that science proves are not accepted, and what matters is what one desires. This kind of thinking had its foundation in humanism, renascence and naturalism which place man in the centre, instead of God, and scientific thinkers in the place of theologians. As reason fails and the scientific model of illustration to modernism, collapse appears and we find ourselves in postmodernism. Having said this, it must not be forgotten that the concept of modern, must never lose its meaning, which is, the latest. This movement was not originated in philosophy but in architecture in the decade of the 50s of the XX century, and then affected art and literature in the decades of the 70s and 80s to then affect the church in the 90s. The village family church would become a mall, and now services are offered through internet. If this is good or not, holy and ethical will depend more of the content of the message, of the way brothers treat each other in the church. Weather in the church or in society, postmodernism has already shown its defects and lacks, being that now the world is moving towards an uncertain future. The church must take advantage of the situation to provide the Gospel and establish the foundations of truth.

Postmodern Philosophical Worldview

The worldview or the way postmodernism interprets the world argues philosophically that there is no absolute truth, nor objective, which affects the fields of spirituality and of religion in a way that spiritual experience is preferred to the religious. To apply what for me maybe real, but may not be for you, to God’s truth and of the Bible, we find that who is into that way of thinking is in a ground with no foundation. On the other hand prefers the visual and interactive world, before a book or words. The key is deconstruction, fruit of nihilism, but then, also postmodernism will be deconstructed and eliminated. Since “I think, therefore I am” of Descartes, to the critique of pure reason of Kant, which takes to relativism and the impossibility to know truth, the fact is as Jaume Llanas sais, postmodernity is the greatest cultural change occurred in history in the last 500 years moving the world away from rationalism.

Sources of Postmodern Knowledge, Truth, the Absolute and the Relative

Postmodernism makes great remark in the impossibility of knowing truth, it cannot provide absolutes, it intends to leave the objective and it gets lost in the subjective at the sea of relativism, which permeates all its world vision. The cause is that reason has passed to a second place because personal experience has imposed itself and this implies distancing from the knowledge of truth, or of Biblical faith, because the need of salvation is unique for all and its absolute truth, but one must believe that the Bible is revelation of God. If the sources of knowledge are based in my own experience, my own perspective, my own interpretation, or my own desires of living without God, or because He is not the servant or our own desires, denying the evidence and believing that we are supermen, we arrive to Nietzsche, who concludes in mental chaos without a north which to hold on to, to a society in decomposition like today’s, if everything is relative.

Church, Culture, Art, Economy and Entertainment of the Postmodern Man

The postmodern church tries to embrace the diversity of believers in community, which has brought a new type of “mega church” which in the US looks like a large mall for families. But there is a problem with discipleship which blurs, but it was “corrected” with the small groups in houses, creating new leaders and giving coverage to the pastoral needs and of the many disciples, as Rick Warren put into practice. But the vision of one pastor one church vanishes, resulting with the pastor as a supervisor or bishop, as it is known ecclesiastically in the Episcopal system or church government. The mega churches proclaim to be a refuge, have a vision of mission which serves the postmodern generation offering a bit of everything, have adapted their liturgy, service, worship and praise towards a “relation and experience” instead of “religion and tradition” the new religious experience which the generation of the Baby Boomers, children of the survivors of the WWII, seek for their children and families, those of generation X, millennials, and generation Z, all to the style of a family church mall type. These groups although they may be a product of the Method of Generations of Ortega y Gasset, (himself part of a generation of thinkers, the famous of the 27^th) which exposes that different groups have different world views and act in consequence; that way we can serve the people of God and understand society better. Also, these characteristics that are offered to these groups in the new churches change denomination for vision, so as they leave the traditional and denominational declaration of faith, offer a program with more services to the community, charismatic, philosophical, mass prayer, fashion music, social message, for all to feel good, and less focused in the service to God, the theological sermon and silence prayer, or worship choir. Not all is bad, but the focus on God and the theological knowledge has been lost, and many groups fall into liberalism. But if the program of the small groups is well carried out, during the week it can be compensated with a good discipleship. The present challenge is generation Z and the change from postmodernism to transmodernism, and a new amalgam of concepts that, again produce a world vision focused on relativism, the lack of ethics, without Bible; those we must reach and attract to church.

Postmodern theology, following the tendency of relativism which takes to liberalism arrives to interpretations that do not follow the revelation and Biblical hermeneutics, like for instance to conclude that Jesus and Paul, or John and Peter, taught different things and opposed doctrines, when the reality is that the Bible only shows that God is able to deliver the same message through different styles and emphasis, but one only doctrine. The ritschilian thinking of the old modernism like the one of postmodernism see the doctrine of Jesus as more moral, and the one of Paul, more theological, and irreconcilable. Christianity must focus apologetics in a specific way to reply to the challenge of postmodernism, not that answers change, but the questions of this generation do.

The culture of the postmodern generation does no longer know the language with which the world, up to modernism had grown up with. Words like sin, repentance, gospel, cross, holiness, condemnation, heaven and hell, truth, ethics, moral, either do not form part of the daily vocabulary, or generation Z finds them obsolete. It’s a culture of “all now”, consumerism, virtual world, internet, digital money, digital church, social networks, the visual before reading, the superfluous before compromise. Art, economy and entertainment are virtual, and this affects the church, also virtual.

It will continue on part two: Postmodernism in Spain and our Church