THREE SESSIONS
Judeo-Christian beliefs = apathy or contempt?
Opt for believing in things that seem
incoherent or bizarre?
Popular culture nurtures aberrant beliefs or
misinformed beliefs
MY GENERAL APPROACH
Data
Primary sources
Context
Coherence
Play fair
UNDERSTANDING THE
POST-MODERN,
NEO-PAGAN,
POST- CHRISTIAN
WORLD
OUR FOCUS TODAY
Many contemporary worldviews
Secularist-modernist
“Book” religions
Spirituality (no “book”)
NRM’s / cults
They still compete for space, but …
OUR FOCUS TODAY
 … a bigger idea argues that not only is there
no clear winner, but that it’s wrong-headed
to insist that one is better
 Pluralism
“Emergent” Christianity
 Good: Wants coherent thinking and
authenticity
 Bad: Christianity driven by looking inward,
social causes, but NOT insistence on truth.
OUR FOCUS TODAY
How did it come to this?
Postmodernism
 Two Trajectories
Historical Forces/Ideas
Contemporary Spin
“That postmodernism is indefinable is a truism.”
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
DESCRIBING POST-MODERNISM
Better described …
A reaction against:
 modernism
 i.e., “the modern mind” and its certainties …
DESCRIBING POST-MODERNISM
Certainties …
About
About
About
About
scientific omniscience
human progress
truth propositions
religious truth claims
“meaning” (“epistemic certainty”)
These trends are NOT recent
DESCRIBING POST-MODERNISM
Although “post-modernism” as term was
coined in 1979, the intellectual/spiritual
force has been around a long time.
 Human discovery and science have been
undermining religious certainties since
16th century.
 “modern era” = post-Renaissance
DESCRIBING POST-MODERNISM
 Age of Exploration vs. entrenched Bible
interpretations
 Darwin vs. entrenched Bible
interpretations
 Einstein/relativity vs. Newton
 Fascism / nationalism (= World wars)
propelled in part by all the above
DESCRIBING POST-MODERNISM
By the 20 th century, western culture was
already “post modern”
What most Christians think of today as
postmodernism = “not the way it used to
be” when it comes to Christian dominance
pluralism, politics, political correctness, etc.
Valid perceptions, but it’s more complex
DESCRIBING POST-MODERNISM
Today’s “modern” mind is actually post-modern.
It’s where historic post-modern paths led.
Thrown off old religious ideas
Good thing if they were wrong
Embracing evolution in some form
Still a heated debate; good if ideas are true
Embracing post-Newtonian science
Good if it’s true (consensus)
DESCRIBING POST-MODERNISM
The “new reaction” in 20th / 21st centuries
extreme skepticism about whether there is
any truth at all.
This is current “post-modernism” in the
university classroom
CONTEMPORARY
 Science isn’t truth; it discovers reality and
adds to our knowledge
 (Many): “Truth = only what is discoverable”
If it’s not discoverable, how can we know it? You
can’t call something truth that you can’t discover.
Therefore, science = best option for knowing
what is real.
CONTEMPORARY
Religion / Faith can offer no certain /
permanent truth claims
makes claims undiscoverable via science
With respect to the Bible …
Goes beyond rejecting “Bible science”
Rejecting Judeo-Christian ethics
Rejecting Judeo-Christian dominance in
social/political/cultural spheres
CONTEMPORARY
Forces a decision for the “modern postmodern” …
Is there a reality beyond science?
No
Yes
This reality isn’t in a book or authority figure
CONTEMPORARY
Search for “Spirituality”
Focus instead on relative truth within each
person’s culture and own experience
Find your own truth inside you
Everyone is right – and wrong
Not universal
Question: …
CONTEMPORARY
Why reject “book” religion? (Bible)
Biblical theology = truth propositions
These propositions are subject to interpretation
All communication is inherently uncertain
If certainty in interpretation is impossible, then:
No universal truth
Truth propositions have no authority
Therefore ….
CONTEMPORARY
Truth is individual / internal
Appeal to experience, intuition
embrace mystery vs. dogma
Reject authority (expertise or institutional)
Truth and morality are relative
Honor everyone’s idea / belief / experience /
intuitions / traditions / equally
= pluralism
RELIGIOUS RESPONSES
Wider Western Culture
 Post-Christian era
 Doctrine-less religion
 Eastern religions
 “New Age”
 Paganism (divinize nature)
Christianity?
RELIGIOUS RESPONSES
Christianity
 Resist current modernity (where
postmodernism has led)
 Fundamentalism
 Challenge the current modernity
 Re-articulate but maintain orthodoxy
 Acquiescence
 Post-Christian Christianity
RELIGIOUS RESPONSES
Both Responses use term “emergent”
 Problematic = Adaptation / Acquiescence
 Bad > core elements made unintelligible,
defined out of existence
 Post-Christian Christianity




Evangelical paganism
Internal, focused on this world
Social causes, environment
Resembles old variant of Christianity …
CHALLENGING POSTMODERNISM
Logical Flaws; Unlivable
Denial of certainty is self-defeating
Successful communication does not require
perfection
Imperfect interpretation is livable; requiring
omniscience (total certainty) is not
CHALLENGING POSTMODERNISM
The either-or fallacy on steroids
“Without omniscience we can’t know anything”
Just because we don’t know everything
doesn’t mean we don’t know anything
CHALLENGING POSTMODERNISM
Religious claims and their alternatives can be
tested for coherence (perfect understanding
not required)
Theism and specific ideas that extend from it
that define Christianity
All uncertainties are not equally coherent