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Players at the Worldview Table: Postmodernism - Order in Chaos

We Have Arrived

Over the past few months, we've taken a look at several difference worldviews. We started with Christian theism. Then we moved to deism, the worldview where God exists, but doesn’t really interact with us. Next was naturalism, whose adherents believe nature is all there is — no God in the picture. And then we looked at eastern mysticism, magik, and Wicca. And finally, we've arrived at the most pervasive player at the worldview table: postmodernism.¹

Let's begin by defining what postmodernism is (and this is the hardest place to start for reasons to be seen). To put it simply, postmodernism is like rearranging the furniture in the universe in no particular order. Kind of like a college student's apartment.

The ideology is best described by its parts or elements. They include (1) a rejection of all overarching stories, or "meta-narratives," that help us explain life and purpose; (2) the reliance on a relativistic concept of truth; (3) the elevation of life experience over reason; (4) a concept that the "self" triumphs; and (5) the reality that experiences and thinking can be non-rational or even irrational. (Some help on these from Michael Jessup in Christian Scholars Review, Spring 2001).

From Whence We Came

To help us explain where postmodernism came from, I think it is important to look at two sources: historical and ideological. Historically, we can break history down into three broad categories: pre-modern, modern, and postmodern. The pre-modern era ranges from about 30 – 1500 A.D. and includes people like, St. Augustine, St. Anslem and St. Thomas Aquinas. The world was very mysterious and, most importantly, God was viewed as the author of the Great Story and man was merely part of it.

The modern era ran from 1500 to the 1960s. This is an era of great change; the Gutenberg Press, Columbus' voyages, Luther, Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes, Darwin and massive scientific discovery. This was a thinking man's world, and things needed to be explored and explained. Man became the author of the Great Story and God was reserved to write the parts that weren't yet explained. This was an era where faith and reason began to part company.

The most recent era began somewhere in the early-to-mid 1960s and runs through the present. It is a world of hypertext (you're reading this aren't you?), Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida and a combining of rational science and mysticism. In this era man discovers that he cannot write his own story — therefore he assumes there is no story at all.

Don't Cry for Me, Francis Schaeffer

An ideological look at the birth of postmodernity is hard to get a handle on, but with the help of a model introduced by Francis Schaeffer (in the book, The God Who is There), we may be able to at least begin to see its roots.

Schaeffer begins by describing a theoretical time when we would begin to doubt the possibility of knowing (or even the existence of) "Absolute Truth." When this idea is pervasive enough, we fall below the "Line of Despair." Above the line is the hope that truth can be known, but below the line we "despair" because we're not even sure that we can know truth.

Schaeffer then describes how this new ideology takes root in our culture through a process of steps. As a culture begins to embrace postmodernism, it will inevitably be reproduced in art, music, religion, and so on. And this is true of all worldviews, of course. But since postmodernism is so difficult to define (and since it is both a worldview and a time period), let's take our definition and explore how it has become an influence in our culture. Let's see how it has "rearranged the furniture," first in philosophy. Then we'll see how it's trickled down to subjects like architecture and art, music, and even the Church.

Trickledown Ideology

First he contends that it enters through philosophy, and in this case we can point to the Father of Existentialism, Nietzsche. In On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense, he writes

"What then is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms — in short, a sum of human relations, which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are; metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer coins"

After you wade through the figures of speech you get the idea that Nietzsche believes that claims of an absolute Truth, and specifically any belief structure that includes an absolute Truth (Christianity, specifically), is a myth. A believable myth, but a myth nonetheless. This idea is picked up by almost every postmodern thinker throughout the 20th century — Lyotard, Foucault, Derrida, Heidegger, Baudrillard, and so on.

Art and architecture. Second, it manifests itself in design — art and architecture. The Tate Modern gallery in London is full of art that falls into this postmodern development stage. I have stood in a small room with a different shade of purple covering each of the four walls (and the exhibit is called — are you ready for this — "Purple") and been disappointed that I did not have the same revelatory experience that the guy next to me was having. Perhaps I just don't appreciate modern art. I'll grant you that. All that to say, when we intentionally make art with no definitive meaning, we're creating out of a postmodern mindset.

Music. Third, Schaeffer indicates that it moves from art/architecture to music. I have not seen a group that exemplifies the postmodern principles in music more than the group from Iceland, Sigure Rós. I went to one of their concerts in an old renovated church in Atlanta. The group began to play their very melodic music, and then they began to sing. At first I thought I just couldn't understand their Icelandic accents. After a while I realized it wasn't supposed to make sense — the words were completely made up. I ducked out to buy their CD at the product tables, thinking it would help me if I looked at the liner notes. No such luck. There were ten pages of nothing. Only the website address was printed. Wait, I thought to myself, I'm not supposed to get it, and the syllables they're singing can mean anything I want them to. Or they could have meant nothing at all. Either way, the group's music is quintessentially postmodern.

Film. Next, it moves from music to more popular culture — and for our purposes here, I'll define this as movies and TV. Take "Seinfeld" (and I am a big fan), a show "about nothing." When you have a show about nothing, you can get away with slipping in some stuff about something. You fans might remember the show about abortion, where Jerry asks Elaine's new boyfriend about his stance, and the folks in Poppy's café go postal. Later in the show, Poppy and Kramer are trying to plan a new pizza restaurant, but they get stuck on two issues; (1) whether people should be able to pick their own toppings and (2) whether a pizza becomes a pizza when you put your hands in the dough or when it comes out of the oven. Do you see? When you have a postmodern show about nothing you can downplay the importance of issues like abortion. Whether or not a woman should abort her child becomes as trivial a decision as what toppings she should put on her pizza.

The church. Finally, he says it drifts into our theology. We could ask ourselves the questions about whether we have allowed the elements of postmodernism to come into the Church. Do we still believe that the gospel is a meta-narrative that leads us to absolute Truth? Have we allowed the Church's teachings to become relativistic? Have we elevated experience over reason? Are we catering to ourselves too much, when Scripture tells us to concentrate on others? And are we allowing ourselves to go so far as to devalue the renewing of our minds² simply because non-rationality is en vogue?

There are some who would point to elements of the emerging church and say that some of what I just described could be said of the movement. Halt! I am not saying that all of the emerging church movement can be painted in that light. However, based on my experience at several emerging church events, I think even those who have led in this movement have begun to recognize the impact that postmodern thinking has had upon the way they "do" church. You have to ask yourself, What is the self-described emerging church emerging from, and what are they emerging to? Now put it in the historical context of the postmodern era. If the Church is often the last place new paradigms take root, then perhaps this is our postmodern experience — just a few years behind the rest of the world (but what else is new!).

Home: Q Visitors: 12

There is no way to adequately cover this worldview in a few paragraphs and so I know I haven't done this ideology justice. However, I think you've been given enough of a taste to see it for yourself.

Just think of Calvin and Hobbes. They have a game they play called "Calvinball." They make up the game as they go, with nonsensical rules and all sorts of changes. And the score can very often be Q to 12. Calvinball demonstrates to us so many of the ways in which this thing called postmodernism has entered our world.

Worldview Wrap-up

This worldview series has been an attempt to get all of us to look more critically at the variety of ideas on the horizon and to look more closely at what we believe to be true. There are lots of players at the table, and I have presented only a few. And new players will be showing up at the table all the time. Be armed with at least a little bit of information, so that you can talk to them about what they bring to the table.

C O F F E E  S H O P

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Do you think postmodernism has affected the way you think
about things?

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One of the final things I want to leave you with is the question that Schaeffer put to so many students over the years as he had conversations with them: When you are brutally honest with yourself, how much of these ideologies that stand counter to Christianity are a part of your own thinking? I pose the same question to you.