The Post-Postmodern World

I want to live in the Post-Postmodern World, and that’s why I attend Grace Church.  I’ve had enough of the Postmodern World.  Intellectually, emotionally and spiritually, the Postmodern World is a nihilistic dead-end.  We can all press the fast-forward button and, on its current trajectory, see where our culture is heading. 

As human beings, we live in two universes, so to speak:  An objective universe of material reality and a subjective universe of our own internal emotions.  Objective reality exists, but there is also the internal subjective experience.  The overriding intellectual theme of Postmodernism, which has infected our culture like a virus, is the elevation of the subjective self over objective reality.  This intellectual virus represents a narcissistic indulgence of emotionality.  The Devil’s elixir of Postmodernism is to take the very Christian concept of compassion, of love for our fellow man, and equate compassion with this indulgence of the subjective self.

As Christians, we care, and care very much, how people feel.  This concern for people’s feelings is a core concept of our command to love others.  People’s feelings should be recognized and validated.  However, that validation of the subjective experience is not an end, but a means to an end.  It is the way to lovingly assist others to reconcile their emotional experience with objective reality, which is in so many ways the central tension in our lives. 

This indulgence of the subjective self is seen today through the concept of framing, which is the way we experience the world.  We all carry a frame, a lens to speak, through which we view and interpret events.  In today’s culture, woe be to anyone who dares question another’s subjective lens, no matter how narcissistic or disconnected from reality it is.  The pernicious aspect of negative framing is that if you walk into a room of strangers looking for idiots, you will surely find them.  The question, however, is why are you looking for that?  Why are you carrying that frame?  Because, without that frame, in that room of strangers, you would also find kindness, compassion, love and people of good will.

As Christians, we should see the manifest dangers of Postmodernism and boldly call it out for what it is, but that’s not enough.  What we must do, and I passionately believe that Grace Church has a role to play in this effort, is to define what the Post-Postmodern world should be.  It is not enough to say what we are not; to call out what we oppose.  We must also courageously proclaim who we are, what we are for, and articulate a positive vision for a new Post-Postmodern world.  

Here’s what’s at stake, and forgive me, for I speak as a father with two sons who are rapidly approaching adulthood:  Whoever offers this positive vision for the Post-Postmodern world will set the tone for our culture in the 21st century.  Postmodernism will burn itself out if, for no other reason, it leads to societal disintegration.  

Now, Grace Church, what’s the better alternative that we offer?  

We offer the good news of promised salvation through Jesus Christ.  We offer a glimpse of the Kingdom, where believers shall receive the riches of His glorious inheritance. (Ephesians 1:18)

In Christ,

Mort Taylor