Introduction
Postmodernism it’s a buzz word that has been floating around evangelicalism for over a decade. For many, the mere mention of this word conjures negative emotions. The concept of post modernity represents a spiritual battle that we see emerging in our spiritual formation today.[1]
Some churches are adopting postmodernism in an attempt to move with the times, while others are choosing to ignore the fact that it exists. Neither is an appropriate response because God’s church is called to reach the people who live within culture.[2]
Here is principle that will help guide spiritual formation through the confusion of postmodernism
1. Postmodern challenge for Spiritual Formation
That sense of strangeness may well be due to the rise of postmodern culture perhaps the most important intellectual and cultural movement of the late twentieth century. What difference does postmodernism make? Just look at the modern media, pop culture, and the blank stares you receive from some persons when you talk about truth, meaning, and morality.[3]
Postmodernism developed among academics and artists, but has quickly spread throughout the culture. At the most basic level, postmodernism refers to the passing of modernity and the rise of a new cultural movement. Modernity the dominant worldview since the Enlightenment has been supplanted by postmodernism, which both extends and denies certain principles and symbols central to the modern age.[4]
Clearly, much of the literature about postmodernism is nonsensical and hard to take seriously. When major postmodern figures speak or write, the gibberish which often results sounds more like a vocabulary test than a sustained argument. But postmodernism cannot be dismissed as unimportant or irrelevant. This is not a matter of concern only among academics and the avant-garde this new movement represents a critical challenge to the Christian church, and to the minister.[5]
Actually, postmodernism may not be a movement or methodology at all. We might best describe postmodernism as a mood which sets itself apart from the certainties of the modern age. This mood is the heart of the postmodern challenge.
What are the contours of this postmodern mood? Is this new movement helpful in our proclamation of the Gospel? Or, will the postmodern age bring a great retreat from Christian truth?
2. The Deconstruction of Truth
Though the nature of truth has been debated throughout the centuries, postmodernism has turned this debate on its head. While most arguments throughout history have focused on rival claims to truth, postmodernism rejects the very notion of truth as fixed, universal, objective, or absolute.[6]
The Christian tradition understands truth as established by God and revealed through the self-revelation of God in Scripture. Truth is eternal, fixed, and universal. Our responsibility is to order our minds in accordance with God's revealed truth and to bear witness to this truth. We serve a Savior who identified himself as "the Way, the Truth, and the Life" and called for belief.[7]
Modern science, itself a product of the Enlightenment, rejected revelation as a source of truth and put the scientific method in its place. Modernity attempted to establish truth on the basis of scientific precision through the process of inductive thought and investigation. The other disciplines attempted to follow the lead of the scientists in establishing objective truth through rational thought. Modernists were confident that their approach would yield objective and universal truths by means of human reason.[8]
The postmodernists reject both the Christian and modernist approaches to the question of truth. According to postmodern theory, truth is not universal, is not objective or absolute, and cannot be determined by a commonly accepted method. Instead, postmodernists argue that truth is socially constructed, plural, and inaccessible to universal reason.[9]
According to the deconstructionists, one influential sect among the postmodernists, all truth is socially constructed. That is, social groups construct their own "truth" in order to serve their own interests. All claims to truth are constructed to serve those in power. Thus, the role of the intellectual is to deconstruct truth claims in order to liberate the society.[10]
What has been understood and affirmed as truth, argue the postmodernists, is nothing more than a convenient structure of thought intended to oppress the powerless. Truth is not universal, for every culture establishes its own truth. Truth is not objectively real, for all truth is merely constructed
Little imagination is needed to see that this radical relativism is a direct challenge to the Christian gospel. Our claim is not to preach one truth among many; about one Savior among many; through one gospel, among many. We do not believe that the Christian gospel is a socially constructed truth, but the Truth which sets sinners free from sin and is objectively, universally, and historically true. As the late Francis Schaeffer instructed, the spiritual formation must contend for true truth
Postmodernism also have a nuanced view of truth. Some go as far as to say “there is no Truth with a capital ‘T’." As with subjectivity, postmodernism recognizes that what we hold to be true is anchored in fundamental assumptions that vary from person to person.
This scares many Christians, because it sounds suspiciously like moral relativism: the idea that there’s no absolute truth. While many secular postmodernism certainly fall into the camp of moral relativism, that’s not the case with all postmodernism. Postmodern Christians don’t necessarily believe that there’s no absolute truth, but many believe that it’s very hard to understand and even harder to articulate.[11]
To be able to understand and articulate something is to exercise a degree of control over it, and we certainly cannot control God. Postmodern Christians believe that truth, like God, is transcendent and can only be encountered through being, not through intellectual understanding.
3. Postmodern challenge for Church against Ministry
The purpose of ministry is to define and defend the truth claims that make up the good spiritual formation. This is important to the Christian disciplines of spiritual formation and evangelism, as well as to individual Christians in their daily lives. A systematic or integrated theology that cannot be adequately defended or shown to be rationally coherent is really no theology at all. Ministry can pave the way for evangelism by removing obstacles to the Gospel, and showing the weaknesses in alternative views.[12]
I defines ministry as “meeting needs with love." Ministry is also about helping people find their passion and their calling from God. One of the most effective ways that many ministries do this is to take mission trips.
All believers come back from mission trips with a deeper faith commitment and a strong desire to serve God in their own communities. This fits in perfectly with postmodern attitudes.
Postmodernism is all about self-awareness. Postmodern prefer to experience something rather than just hearing about it. A worker can preach servanthood and selflessness all he or she wants, but it takes an experience of servanthood to drive those words home. Postmodernism encourage spiritual formation to be introspective and find the meaning behind the ministry. It both challenges and deepens their faith.[13]
4. Christian Ministry in Postmodern World.
Postmodernism represents the unique challenge facing Christianity in this generation. This is the central claim of postmodernism reality is not what it used to be, and never will be again. Humanity now come of age, we will make our own truth, define our own reality, and seek our own self-esteem.[14]
In this culture, ministry is stranger than it used to be. Postmodern concepts of truth now reign in the postmodern age and even in the postmodern pew. Research indicates that a growing majority of those who claim to be Christian reject the very notion of absolute truth.
The "death of the text" is evident in the resistance to biblical preaching in many churches. Postmodern ears no longer want to hear the "thus saith the Lord" of the biblical text. Since truth is made, and not found, we can design our own personal religion or spirituality and leave out inconvenient doctrines and moral commands.[15]
Postmodernism promises that the individual can construct a personal structure of spirituality, free from outside interference or permission. Under the motto, "There's no truth like my truth," postmodernism's children will establish their own doctrinal system, and will defy correction.[16]
Man who claimed to be a Christian and professed belief in Christ and love for the Bible, but also believed in reincarnation. His pastor confronted this belief in reincarnation by directing the young man to Hebrews 9:27. The text was read: "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment
In the name of postmodernism, anything can be explained away as a matter of interpretation. Games played with language mean that every statement must be evaluated with care. A statement as clear and plain as the first line of the Apostles' Creed, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth," must be evaluated in terms of the speaker's intentions. Does this confession assert belief that God is actually the maker of heaven and earth, or is this a statement of mere personal sentiment?
The strangeness of ministry in a postmodern age can be seen in Bible studies which do not study the Bible, but are psychological exercises in self-discovery; in the cafeteria-style morality practiced by so many church members; and in the growing acceptance of other religions as valid paths to salvation.[17]
Modern culture is revolt against the truth and postmodernism is but the latest form of this revolt. Ministry in these strange times calls for undiluted conviction and faithful apologetics. The temptations to compromise are great, and the opposition which comes to anyone who would claim to preach absolute and eternal truth is severe. But this is the task of the believing church.
Conclusion
Postmodernism is only going to gain influence, so we might as well understand what we’re dealing with. The good news is, postmodernism can be a very positive thing for good spiritual formation.
We must understand postmodernism, read its theorists and learn its language. This is much a missiological challenge as an intellectual exercise. We cannot address ourselves to a postmodern culture unless we understand its mind.[18]
By its very nature, postmodernism is doomed to self-destruction. Its central principles cannot be consistently applied. Just ask a postmodern academic to accept the "death of the text" in terms of his contract. The church must continue to be the people of truth, holding fast to the claims of Christ, and contending for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. Postmodernism rejects any "once for all" truth, but the church cannot compromise its witness.
The Christian is stranger than it used to be. But this is an era of great evangelistic opportunity, for as the false gods of postmodernism die, the church bears witness to the Word of Life. In the midst of a postmodern age, our task is to bear witness to the Truth, and to pick up the pieces as the culture breaks apart.[19]
Bibliography
Angela McRobbie, Postmodernism and Popular Culture, NY, Routledge, 1994
Brian McCarran, The Church on the Side, Grand Rapids, MI, Zondervan, 2000
Jan Linn, How to Be an Open-Minded Christian without Losing Your Faith, Co, Navpress, 1988
R. Scott Smith, Truth and the New Kind of Christian: The Emerging Effect of Postmodernism in the Church, GA, Cross Way, 2005
Stanley Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism, Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans, 1996
Timothy R. Phillips (ed), Dennis L. Okholm (eds), Christian Apologetics in the Postmodern World, PA, Inter Varsity Press, 1995
[1] Stanley Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism, Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans, 1996, p4
[2] Angela McRobbie, Postmodernism and Popular Culture, NY, Routledge, 1994, p11
[3] Ibid., p39
[4] Ibid., p40
[5] Ibid., p42
[6] Timothy R. Phillips (ed), Dennis L. Okholm (eds), Christian Apologetics in the Postmodern World, PA, Inter Varsity Press, 1995, p90
[7] Ibid., p117
[8] Ibid., p120
[9] Ibid., p129
[10] Ibid., p141
[11] Ibid., p168
[12] Jan Linn, How to Be an Open-Minded Christian without Losing Your Faith, Co, Navpress, 1988, p94
[13] Ibid., p93
[14] R. Scott Smith, Truth and the New Kind of Christian: The Emerging Effect of Postmodernism in the Church, GA, Cross Way, 2005, p142
[15] Ibid., p149
[16] Ibid.,p151
[17] Ibid., p162
[18] Brian McCarran, The Church on the Side, Grand Rapids, MI, Zondervan, 2000, p202
[19] Ibid., p207