As I was attempting to write the next Ad Fontes post on The Fall of Man, I realized that my readers would need a basic understanding of what I mean by POSTMODERNISM. Since I will use this term frequently in many of the upcoming posts, I felt the need to post a basic introduction explaining my understanding of postmodernism. What follows is greatly oversimplified, but will hopefully help to at least create some common language for discussion.
From roughly around 1650 to about 1850, the Western intellect was driven by the possibilities of reason. Reason was seen as the one tool that could solve any problem. With reason properly applied, progress seemed inevitable and potentially unending. Reason could be applied to every area of life. As reason began to be exalted over tradition, great progress was made in individual rights, law, economics, education, and fair government. The expansion of scientific, economic, and nationalistic optimism to all parts of the globe marked this era commonly known as the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was skeptical, and often rejected, the institutions that were more traditional, such as monarchy, or those seen as superstitious, such as many practices within Christianity, favoring instead the institutions based on purely rational ideas such as constitutional government, capitalism, secular education, and the sciences.
With the Industrial Revolution in full swing and Enlightenment thought fully engrained in society, a new movement in the arts was birthed around the 1850’s known as modernism. It influenced painting, music, architecture, furniture, etc. modernism emphasized progress as supreme, casting off all traditional ideas that might be a hindrance. The distinctive character of modern art reflects the values of casting off traditional norms and seeking progress through experimentation. One can speak of modernism to mean the movement within art or the whole cultural movement influenced by the Enlightenment (this is usually what I mean).
The United States experienced the Enlightenment in a culturally different way than most of Europe. This is mainly due to the revivalism in Early American history. Revivalism, as exhibited in the First and Second Great Awakenings (1740-50; 1800-1830) and the Civil War revivals in the South, brought large numbers of people back to a faith centered in the Bible and the Local Church. Thus the more extreme influences of the Enlightenment were tempered by the Christian faith. For those influenced by American Revivalism, the optimism about rationally based institutions which characterized the Enlightenment was extended to the institution of Church. Thus the “modern” Christian is characterized by a strong belief in and trust of the institutional Church, the rule of law, constitutional government, “just” war, and free market capitalism. However, due to the influences of higher criticism and Darwinism, “modern” Christians began to lose the Enlightenment optimism and trust regarding secular education and science, while retaining the optimism about the other pillars of institutional reason.
Although Enlightenment thought is still very influential in culture, it experienced some significant setbacks in the early 20th century culminating with World War II. Many people experienced disillusionment with the institutions that the modern era had championed. For example, science had produced the atomic bomb, and nationalism had killed tens of thousands of our boys at war. Thus in the years following World War II, many people began to rethink the many “modern” institutions. Both the cultural movement and the general tendency to “deconstruct” traditional institutions are referred to as postmodernism.
The effects of postmodern thinking are far reaching into our present day, as one-by-one, each great pillar of the Enlightenment was deconstructed and scrutinized. Effects often take the form of reaching back to pre-modern forms of culture as a more authentic lifestyle. Much of the “hippie” culture of the 1960’s was influenced by postmodern thought as protestors deconstructed the need for war, and folk artist and musicians deconstructed society as a whole; promoting peace, love, and rebellion against tradition. Various forms of communal living reacted to the “white picket fence” of the traditional American dream.
Beginning in the 1950’s, societal folkways, mores, and taboos, such as manners, dress, behavior towards authority, and gender roles began to be deconstructed across all of society. The Civil Rights movement saw deconstruction of traditional racial stereotypes within society. The Vietnam War protests deconstructed war as a necessary aspect of governance. The “back to the land” and alternative health movements that started during the 1970’s revealed a fundamental distrust in technology and medicine as well as a fear of economic instability. Government funded education began being scrutinized due to poor results from public schools. This sparked the “educational products” industry in the 80’s along with the more extreme reactions of the home schooling and even unschooling movements in the 90’s and 2000’s. Much of our Enlightenment inspired nationalism has been replaced with globalism since WWII. With the recent economic downturn, examples of corporate corruption, unethical lobbying, third world exploitation, and the negative environmental effects of manufacturing, few still believe in the promises of liaises faire capitalism. This too is a result of postmodernism. Even the rule of law and individual rights are not above being thoroughly scrutinized and may see some significant changes in the not too distant future before postmodernism runs its course.
Christianity, too, has felt the influence of postmodernism. The traditional values and practices of Church have gradually given way to less traditional and more informal methods. Worship bands, casual attire, informal preaching style, and culturally “relevant” ministries, women in ministry, and racially integrated congregations had become mainstream by the 1980’s. Today the house church and the emerging church movements could be considered extensions of post-modernism within Christianity.
Summary: Modern Enlightenment thought in our present day came from an optimism about the potential progress through institutions and is associated with defending standards, being conservative, combating alternative opinions, and being suspect of intuition and feelings. Postmodernism came from pessimism due to tragedy, and is associated with deconstructing standards, being liberal, understanding alternatives, and trusting intuition and feelings.
I know that this created more questions than it provided answers, and did not include many important aspects of this issue. Maybe I can clarify my understanding in the comments section. In my next post I will try to convey how we might reconcile modern Christianity with post-modern Christianity for overall growth and health of the Body of Christ.
Posted by queencityramblers 
