It was educational, if distressing, to read some college newspapers right after September 11, 2001. Students were often shocked by the unspeakable cruelty of the terrorist acts and had no problem calling them “evil.” Some professors, however, had a different take. “You haven’t listened to us!” was their rhetoric. In the vigorous exchanges that flooded the pages of these gazettes, some questioned the propriety of calling anything good or evil or right or wrong. “It’s not about absolutes, but about perspective and power!” was the sorry supplication.
For argument’s sake, let us assume that there is some truth in the claim that we are a postmodern culture. The central negative claim of postmodernists is that we need to be “suspicious of metanarratives.” This unusual way of putting things simply means that no all-encompassing accounts of reality or grand systems for ethics are to be trusted. Such accounts and systems are part of (for instance) Christianity and Marxism, but inevitably, postmodernists claim, they lead to violence and coercion. And thus, postmodernism replaces modernism, which sought to ground human life in humanly constructed metanarratives-and which failed under its own unrealistic expectations.
This postmodernist claim is being proclaimed in several quarters. At the university level it boils down to this: Knowledge is not about truth but about power. Michel Foucault, the fascinating and maddening French social historian, has traced how the quest for power has led to the development of knowledge in several areas. For example, he believes that modern hygiene is not just something good for which we should be grateful. We should also be wary of it because it involves giving unprecedented control to parents over children and to doctors over less-educated patients.
What positive claims do postmodernists make? They say we should see that we do not need any grand philosophical schemes in order to do some good. For example, ethicist Edith Wyschogrod wants us to abandon moral theory and just act as “postmodern saints” who simply feel an “excessive desire” to try to relieve others’ suffering. The street-level equivalent of this viewpoint is found in the therapeutic model of human relationships: “Don’t offend me-and be sensitive to where I’m coming from.” It is also found in the philosophy of Bob Pittman, MTV’s founding chairman, who says the best programming is “nonnarrative” and makes you feel a certain way rather than giving you any objective knowledge. From this perspective, styles and identities become like clothes to try on. If they fit, keep them; if not, toss them away.
How do we bring the message of Jesus Christ to this culture? It is not easy! For our belief in objective truth and moral absolutes is constantly met with the charge of terrorism-the charge that we are just forcing our perspective on other people.
Unfortunately, sometimes that charge is credible. For instance, William Meade, Episcopal Bishop of Virginia before the Civil War, told slaves that even when their whippings were not deserved they served to give God glory and prepared them for the next life. His “metanarrative”-that is, his way of justifying such unjust treatment-was worse than that of Job’s counselors. Today, some right-wing Fundamentalists hope for a kind of Christian theocracy where unbelievers will be second-class citizens. This is one reason why so many people fear “Fundamentalists,” even if they hardly know what that word means.
Yet usually this charge that our belief in objective truth and moral absolutes is terroristic is unfair. Christian faith is not about theocracy and coercion; it is about what really is true and good. But how do we address those who confuse the quest for power and the search for truth?
For our first step, we can do no better than to follow the Apostle Paul. He had a God-given genius for finding the fatal contradiction in unbelief. Yet whenever he did so, he did not simply lay bare unbelief’s logical inconsistencies; he also underscored the true consciousness of God’s revelation that was found in the unbelievers’ culture. For example, in Athens he quoted the Athenians’ favorite poets both to show that their idols were inadequate and to show that they knew the truth, even in denying it (see Acts 17:28). Similarly, we can find plenty of evidence within postmodernism for belief in ultimate truth and meaning, despite its claims. After all, the postmodern bumper sticker that reads “Practice random acts of kindness, senseless acts of beauty” is not encouraging random acts of cruelty or ugliness. Wyschogrod’s vision is to relieve suffering, not increase it. In spite of all the talk of “feeling” rather than “knowledge” in the MTV world, only certain feelings qualify. The gurus who advise teenagers on those channels are strongly moralistic. Their recommendations are anything but arbitrary. So where do these instincts for kindness, beauty, compassion, and morality come from?
Scripture informs us that they come from the sense of deity that all human beings possess, no matter how much some attempt to suppress it (see Rom. 1:19-21). If you insist that I must be sensitive and inoffensive, then you must play by your own rules and listen to the voice of God within you (see Rom. 2:1-4, 14-16). This apologetic strategy is not just a clever “gotcha” tactic to dismantle an opponent’s worldview. Rather, it appeals to the consciences of those who are trying to live in the fabricated and inconsistent world of postmodern therapy. It acknowledges the insistent reality of divine revelation.
The second step may be more difficult. It is to present the gospel persuasively and not coercively (see 2 Cor. 5:11-21). This is the full-orbed gospel of transformation (see 2 Cor. 3:17-18). Because Jesus Christ atoned for the guilt, the pain, and the misery of the human condition, when we turn to him in repentance and faith we own up to the hopelessness of so many postmodern claims. It is important to recognize that knowledge can be about power. But taken alone that claim is reductionistic. Knowledge is also about truth. Indeed, if postmoderns are right that knowledge can be about power, then they themselves have discovered a truth. The Christian apologist pleads for centering knowledge on God’s truth and God’s glory rather than on human power. We acknowledge that our only hope is in the weakness and “folly” of God’s wisdom that puts the lie to the world’s arrogant pretensions (see 1 Cor. 1:21-25). To believe in Christ is to abandon postmodernism’s cynicism, skepticism, and despair and to begin again, not with randomness or sensitivity, but with the Rock-Christ crucified and risen again.
To believe in Christ is also to abandon modernism. Modernism’s absolute faith in human reason is no friendlier to the gospel than postmodernism’s rejection of reason. Divine revelation is not a cruel and cold metanarrative but a warm and sufficient truth, a truth we can live by, a truth we can trust; transforming truth (see 2 Pet. 1:2-4).
