From Postmodern Times:
Where there are no absolute truths, the
intellect gives over to the will. Aesthetic criteria replace
rational criteria. Listen to the way people today discuss
religion. “I really like that church,” they will say.
Agreeing with that church or believing in its teaching
scarcely enters into it.… But then we start hearing
about what the person does not like. “I don’t like the idea
of Hell.” This is certainly an appropriate response—who cold
possibly “like” Hell? But our natural distaste for this
horrible doctrine is surely beside the point. The issue is
not whether we like it, but whether there is such a place.
Reality seldom takes into account our personal preferences,
even in the most trivial facets of everyday life. That there
might actually be a Hell, a realm of punishment and torment
that lasts forever, is a momentous concept, staggeringly
important. (193-194)
Although postmodernists tend to reject
traditional morality, they can still be very moralistic.
They will defend their “rights” to do what they want with
puritanical zeal. Furthermore, they seem to feel that they
have a right not to be criticized for what they are doing.
They want not only license but approval. Thus tolerance
becomes the cardinal virtue. Under the postmodernist way of
thinking, the principle of cultural diversity means that
every like-minded group constitutes a culture that must be
considered as good as any other culture. The postmodernist
sins are “being judgmental,” “being narrow-minded,”
“thinking that you have the only truth,” and “trying to
enforce your values on anyone else.” Those who question the
postmodernist dogma that “there are no absolutes” are
excluded from the canons of tolerance. The only wrong idea
is to believe in truth; the only sin is to believe in sin.
(195-196)
People, feelings, ideas, values all must
be quantified. The technological mind-set must reduce
everything to numbers. We are in the age of
statistics—opinion polls, standardized tests, and
“assessment instruments” which purport to measure everything
from the quality of our work to our psychological condition.
We evaluate not in terms of right and wrong, but by circling
a number on a ten-point scale. (206)
Christians who decry the Christian
subculture should realize that the alternative may be
cultural extinction. Christianity has been excommunicated
from the culture at large—systematically excluded from the
schools, the intellectual establishment, and the media. The
establishment of Christian schools, publishers, arts groups,
broadcasters, businesses, and so on may be one of the great
achievements of the twentieth-century church. As
postmodernist pressures intensify, having counter
institutions already in place may prove invaluable for
Christians to stage an effective resistance. Christians
should use their bases to make forays into the culture at
large and exert their influence at every level. They should
certainly resist the temptation to remain in the security of
the “Christian ghetto.” they may find themselves accepted,
though, only up to a point. Usually, people do not choose to
live in a ghetto. (210)
The problem is not that Christians have
their own parallel institutions, but that these institutions
are sometimes so similar to secular ones. The mind-set
cultivated by the evangelical subculture often startlingly
resembles that of secular postmodernism. (211)
Instead of preaching that leads to the
conviction of sin and salvation through the cross of Jesus
Christ, churches preach “feel-good” messages designed to
cheer people up. Some have described postmodernist culture
as a “therapeutic culture,” in which a sense of
psychological well-being, not truth, is the controlling
value. The contemporary church likewise faces the temptation
to replace theology with therapy. (213) |
