What Christians Can Learn from Postmodernism

Postmodernism doesn’t bring us to God, but it can bring us to the church doors.

This is a guest essay by Nathan Pinkoski.

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Modernity has been hard on Christians. Once, unexplained natural phenomena looked like God’s action in the world, but science now explains these things away, making God look distant from the physical realities of life. Material progress makes faith seem dispensable; when technological advances in medicine shield us from the reality of death, meditating on what happens after we die seems unimportant. To many, it seems that as secular reasoning has advanced, the scope for the sacred has shrunk. One conclusion is that Christians just have to adapt. If the world has little need for transcendence, perhaps we ought to focus only on providing for people’s physical and material needs, rather than on their spiritual ones.

Or perhaps we should change our theology or moral teachings to conform to the demands of scientific rationalism.

Those involved in church life will have heard many variations of this argument. The basic idea is that we should accept the authority of the secular and let it determine what’s left over for the sacred, adapting Christian practice and teaching accordingly. But Christians should reject this. If we accept the ever-expanding authority of secular reasoning, we have can’t a good society and we can’t have faith. And it may seem surprising, but some of the best resources for understanding the pretensions of secular reasoning are postmodern.

Progress Is a Scam

Though Christians are unsettled by what modern habits seem to do to our parishes, we often assume modern progress is genuine, bringing unqualified goods. Few Christians dare to question the authority of modern science or claims that the modern era has brought moral progress. Who doesn’t, for instance, think it’s an improvement not to have public executions?

Postmodern thinkers can give us the courage to start questioning the assumption of progress. Take the work of one Michel Foucault.