The following was excerpted from a series of articles written in 2002 concerning postmodern thought and its effect on the church written by Gary Gilley, pastor of Southern View Chapel, an Independent Bible Church in Springfield, Illinois.This article presented an overview of the three philosophical and religious eras that have dominated Western civilization. It’s a great starting point, if we want to understand our current culture and be effective witnesses to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Premodern

During the premodern era, which extended from Medieval times until the French Revolution of 1789, the Western world believed in the supernatural. No one doubted the existence of God (or gods). Spirits, demons and other beings existed beyond the realm of the senses; and this spiritual world somehow controlled and dominated life in the physical world. Of course there were many worldviews thriving under premodernism. Animism, mythology, Greek philosophy and Christianity all flourished and battled during the premodern era, but as diverse as they were all held firmly to a belief in some form of a supernatural spirit world. Biblical Christianity is obviously premodern in this sense. When presenting the gospel it was not necessary to convince people that spiritual beings or gods existed – everyone believed this. The challenge was to persuade individuals that there was only one true God, who sent His Son into the world as the God-man to die for their sins. In many ways the premodern worldview (which still exists in numerous places throughout the world) was a more fertile environment for the spread of the gospel than either modernism or postmodernism.

Modernism

The foundations of premodernism began to shake a bit with the arrival of first the Renaissance and then the Reformation, but it was the Enlightenment that proved to be its undoing. Influential philosophers such as Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) began questioning not only the dogmas of the past but also all sources of authority. By this time the Western world’s authority was to be found primarily either in the church (Roman Catholicism) or in the Scriptures (Protestantism), or in the case of Islam, in the Koran. The architects of the Enlightenment challenged these authorities, including the beliefs founded upon them, and offered in their place human reasoning. “The goal of the ‘Enlightenment project’… was to free humanity from superstition and found a philosophy and civilization on rational inquiry, empirical evidence and scientific discovery. The term ‘modernism’ is often identified with this overall project. The modernist vision presupposed the power of rationality to discover truth.”

The date of modernity’s death has been a matter of much speculation. Some believe it was at the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 (exactly 200 years after its birth) since, of all social experiments, Marxism most fully attempted to implement the concepts of the Enlightenment. When Communism crumbled so did the last vestiges of the optimism in human ability that for so long propelled modernity. Others believe that, at least in America, modernity died on July 15, 1973, with the demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe housing projects in St. Louis. It was at that moment that Americans threw in the towel on their own utopia experiments, recognizing that reason, science, and technology had failed to enhance the lives of the poor and had actually brought more misery.

Whether modernity died in 1973 or 1989 may be debatable, but that it is dead is not. That is not to deny that many aspects of our society still operate under the vestiges of modernistic principles (and premodern for that matter), but an obvious shift has taken place in the mindset and worldview of the Western civilization. The new worldview is called postmodernism.

Postmodernism

Postmodernism is born out of the ashes of the failure of modernity. It is the reaction of the disillusioned. If the optimistic projections of the last two hundred years of the best efforts of reason, science and technology has failed; and if the tenets of premodernism with its foundation of revelatory truth is preposterous, then all that is left is the pessimism of nothingness, emptiness and uncertainty.

Postmodernity is relatively complicated, so it is necessary to probe carefully both its worldview and its effect on cultures as well as the church. At this point we simply want to recognize that at the hub of this philosophy, as well as all philosophies, is the issue of truth. To the premodernist, truth was found in revelation. To the modernist, truth can be found in reason and science. To the postmodernist truth is not found (indeed it is not capable of being found), it is created. Absolute truth is a fable. It is possible for me to create my own truth, and for cultures and subcultures to create their truth, but it is not possible to find universal truth that is applicable to all people. Such truth does not exist and should not be sought. Those who claim to possess absolute truth only do so in order to assert power over others.

Seminary professor and author Michael Kruger writes, “Postmodernity, in contrast to modernity, rejects any notion of objective truth and insists that the only absolute in the universe is that there are no absolutes. Tolerance is the supreme virtue and exclusivity the supreme vice. Truth is not grounded in reality or in any sort of authoritative ‘text,’ but is simply constructed by the mind of the individual [or socially constructed].” Professor of philosophy and Christian apologist Doug Groothuis elaborates, “For these postmodernist thinkers, the very idea of truth has decayed and disintegrated. It is no longer something knowable…. At the end of the day, truth is simply what we, as individuals and as communities, make it to be – and nothing more.” If this is so, then how do people make decisions and develop values, or even create their own truth? Kruger answers, “What are the postmodernists’ criteria for ‘truth’? Simply what works. The postmodernist is not concerned about absolute truth like the modernist; he defines his ‘truth’ by more pragmatic concerns: What makes me feel good? What solves my problems? What is attractive to me?”

The reader may properly wonder, is not all of this postmodern philosophy a mere intellectual football being tossed about by the elite? Has this mentality really trickled down to masses? Unfortunately, surveys confirm that while the majority may be unable to define postmodernity they are increasingly becoming products of it. For a number of years Barna Research Group has been telling us that belief in absolute truth hovered at around 38% in America. That means that almost two out of every three adults in America deny the existence of absolute truth. But things have gotten worse. At the end of 2001, just a few months after the infamous 9/11 attacks, an alarming survey was conducted by Barna that found confidence in absolute moral truth had dropped to a mere 22%. Barely one in five Americans claim to believe in absolute truth, which is amazing considering, that according to Barna’s research, one out of every three Americans claim to be an evangelical Christian.

In other words, we not only live in a postmodern era (we can’t help that) but most of us have become postmodernist – even many who claim to be Christians.

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NOTE: The entire series of articles about postmodernism can be found here by scrolling down the page. You can’t miss them, and they are well worth the read. The next few posts here at The Battle Cry will focus on the issue of postmodernism and the the church.