1 Postmodern Philosophy and a New Kind of Christianity Brian McLaren’s popular yet controversial book, A New Kind of Christian, has introduced the evangelical world to a postmodern paradigm that raises serious concerns for traditional Christian doctrines and practices. Told through the story of a fictional conversation between Neo, a high-school science teacher and Dan, a burned-out evangelical pastor, A New Kind of Christian calls the reader to discover that modern forms of Christianity are being replaced by postmodern structures, and that the believer should seek to embrace such developments as they live out their faith. During a lecture to a student audience, Neo announces that: I believe that the modern version of Christianity that you have learned from your parents, your Sunday school teachers, and even your campus ministries is destined to be a medieval cathedral. It’s over, or almost over…I want you to invest your lives not in keeping the old ship afloat but in designing and building and sailing a new ship for new adventures in a new time in history, as intrepid followers of Christ. 1
In referring to the “modern version” of Christianity, Neo has in mind those distinctive forms of Christianity that emerged around the time of the Enlightenment and which most people erroneously considered to be essential to Christian faith. Neo describes the modern mindset as the following: It was an age aspiring to absolute objectivity, which, we believed, would yield absolute certainty and knowledge. In modernity, the ultimate intelligibility of the universe was assumed. What was still unknown was ultimately knowable. Also assumed was the highest faith in human reason to replace all mysteries with comprehension, superstition with fact, ignorance with information, and subjective religious faith with objective truth.2
Not surprisingly, the church absorbed these commitments and applied them to its own understanding of how to practice the Christian faith. But since times have changed, such convictions are passé and are superfluous in a postmodern culture, or so it is argued. The serious Christian must learn to reorient their faith around postmodern principles or risk becoming irrelevant to the culture they seek to reach with the gospel message. Those who object simply fail to understand that modernism is not synonymous with Christianity, and that the eternal faith can be manifested in many cultural modes. Moreland and Craig have pointed out that, from a philosophical standpoint, postmodernism is primarily “a reinterpretation of what knowledge is and what counts as knowledge.”3 It rejects the modern view that humans can exercise objectivity in their truth claims, and concludes that we cannot have any certainty with respect to knowledge. As Neo maintains, when one converts to a postmodern mindset, “You begin to see that what seemed like pure, objective certainty really depends heavily on a subjective preference for your personal viewpoint.”4 The postmodern rejection of objectivity and certainty draws parallels to a perspectival epistemology. This system, most closely identified with Jose Ortega y Gasset, holds that “because every life is the result of an interaction between self and circumstances, every self has a unique perspective. Truth, then, is perspectival, depending on the unique point of view from which it is determined, and no perspective is false except one that claims exclusivity.” 5 Though
2 one may be inclined to limit such ideas to non-Christian thinkers, in recent times theologian Stanley Grenz has even echoed perspectivist tendencies: But in contrast to the modern ideal of the dispassionate observer, we affirm the postmodern discovery that no observer can stand outside the historical process. No one can gain universal, culturally neutral knowledge as unconditioned specialists. On the contrary, we are participants in our historical and cultural context, and all our intellectual endeavors are unavoidably conditioned by that participation.6
In A New Kind of Christian, McLaren seems to be implicitly advocating some form of perspectivism with respect to the notion of a Christian worldview, as is evident in the following insight from Dan: No model—no matter how resplendent with biblical quotations—can claim to be the ultimate Christian worldview, because every model is at least limited by the limitations of the contemporary human mind, not to mention the ‘taste in universes’ of that particular age. 7
In other words, there is no single, universal Christian lens through which believers are required to view and interpret reality. Rather, our perceptions of reality are inevitably affected by our unique perspectives. This rejection of a unified Christian worldview is indicative of a commitment to cognitive or epistemological relativism. As Grenz portrays the typical postmodernist: They argue that we do not simply encounter a world that is ‘out there’ but rather we construct the world using concepts we bring to it. They content that we have no fixed vantage point beyond our own structuring of the world from which we gain a purely objective view of whatever reality may be out there.8
For those who believe that it is impossible to speak objectively about the nature of reality, it follows that it is superfluous to make absolute truth claims about reality. Grenz indicates that postmodernists are not concerned to prove themselves “right” and others “wrong.” Since beliefs are ultimately derived from one’s social context, and not from reference to reality, what may be immoral for one culture could be accepted or even preferable in another culture. It simply makes no sense to judge the beliefs or practices of another group, since doing so assumes a level of objectivity which is impossible to attain. Inherent in postmodern philosophy is a rejection of a correspondence theory of truth. In one particularly interesting dialogue, Neo explains to Dan that: It’s just that the old notions of truth and knowledge are being, hmm, I was going to say ‘deconstructed,’ but we don’t need to get into all that vocabulary. The old notions are being questioned. New understandings of truth and knowledge that might improve on them haven’t been fully developed yet. So Dan, I’m not in any way saying that truth isn’t important. But I am saying that truth means more than factual accuracy. It means being in sync with God.9
Truth means “more” than factual accuracy? The attentive reader will search in vain to discover Neo ever including factual accuracy as a necessary condition for truth. In fact, given Neo’s previous statements which served to marginalize modern belief in objectivity, it is somewhat confusing for him to now imply that correspondence plays some role in a definition of truth. Indeed, if the correspondence theory of truth represents one of the “old notions,” then it is clear that Neo has rejected this theory in favor of an alternative account.10
3 If the truth of a given belief is no longer determined by its correspondence with an actual state of affairs, then how exactly do postmodernists understand truth? Again, Grenz is helpful in explaining this peculiar mindset: The conviction that each person is embedded in a particular community leads to a corporate understanding of truth…[Postmodernists] reject the Enlightenment quest for universal, supracultural, timeless truth in favor of searching out truth as an expression of a specific community. They believe that truth consists in the ground rules that facilitate personal well-being in community and the well-being of the community as a whole.11
One of the most attractive—and even biblical—features of postmodern thinking is its emphasis on community. As believers we are members of God’s family and we must therefore resist the temptation to practice our faith in an isolated manner. But if believers are willing to take this focus to the extreme by adopting a corporate (and thus relativistic) understanding of truth, then they must be willing to face the practical consequences, as Neo seems willing to do: Our interpretations [of the Bible] reveal less about God or the Bible than they do about ourselves. They reveal what we want to defend, what we want to attack, what we want to ignore, what we’re unwilling to question. When Judgment Day comes, God might ask a lot of us how we interpreted the Bible—not to judge if our interpretations are right or wrong but to let our interpretations reveal our hearts. 12
So in the first place, a commitment to perspectivism and a subsequent rejection of a correspondence theory of truth leads the Christian into a state of agnosticism with respect to the Bible’s meaning. The reasons our interpretations reveal less about God is precisely because we cannot be certain whether our interpretations correspond to the objective meaning of the text. Moreover, one might question whether in such a system it can even be claimed that an objective meaning exists at all. At any rate, as David Mappes has noted, Neo’s comments imply that “since believers do not have absolute objectivity or a kind of omniscience, they cannot adequately understand the Bible and thus act on it with certainty.”13 But secondly, it follows that if the true meaning of the Bible does not exist or cannot be rightly understood, then of course, any doctrinal idiosyncrasy is allowable and cannot be criticized as being “unbiblical.” This consequence of postmodern thinking is particularly apparent in Neo’s discussion of the fate of non-believers. As Dan persists in questioning him concerning the necessity of belief in Christ, Neo finally reveals his position on this important issue, intimating that “as we live by [the Christian] story, we find followers of other stories interested in ours because our story, rightly understood, has plenty of room for them and for their stories too.”14 To be fair, Neo does defend some exclusive understanding of Christianity: I believe that Jesus is the savior of the world. I believe that someday every knee will bow to him and every tongue will confess he is Lord. I believe that he is truly the way, that if we believe and follow him, he will bring us to the Father.15
But the problem with this explanation is that it fails to confirm belief in Christ as a necessary condition for salvation. If belief in Christ is merely a sufficient condition for salvation, then Neo has adopted an inclusivist position which seems quite difficult to defend in light of the biblical data. For example, John 3:18 is clear: “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son
4 of God.”16 On the other hand, if perspectivism is true, then perhaps even this passage could be misinterpreted and thus an inclusivist position would be beyond criticism. Indeed, an inclusivism which stems directly from a postmodern philosophy is all the more difficult to counter, since at least the inclusivist committed to “modern” ways of thinking is open to being shown that their position is incorrect. The postmodernist, however, refuses to accept the categories of truth and rationality as legitimate instruments in any theological discussion. For those Christians uncomfortable with the non-realist tendencies in postmodern thought, is there any recourse for dialoguing with those committed to such beliefs? It seems the best approach is to challenge the philosophical constructs which support postmodern thought. If postmodern attitudes are rooted in a perspectivalist epistemology, then the relevant objective is to demonstrate that it is simply a false theory of knowledge. One approach is to show that perspectivism is self-referentially incoherent. A theory falls victim to this error when, in the process of being articulated, it fails to satisfy its own criteria for truth and rationality. Margarita Rosa Levin, writing in response to the pragmatism of Richard Rorty (whom Neo refers to as one of the “great lights of postmodern philosophy”17), has convincingly demonstrated the self-refuting nature of perspectivist theories. She points out that virtually all critics of objectivity say something like the following: 1) It is an objective fact that there are no objective facts; 2) It is absolutely true that everything is relative to a framework; 3) No one can divorce himself from his social milieu to examine his society with a critical eye, and that conclusion is the result of having done so; and 4) There is evidence for the position that there is no such thing as evidence. The serious implications for such statements should be obvious. In defending and promoting the perspectivist system, the postmodernist is actually using reason to do so. Furthermore, he or she assumes that it is absolutely true that perspectivism is a more correct theory than, say, commonsense realism. And he or she presupposes the ability to transcend their cultural context to objectively assess that modernism is an outdated and false paradigm. As Levin continues: In each case [the perspectivist] is in effect asking that you do not apply his assertion to his own position, without giving any reason for exempting his own words from his own general claim. His position is futile and self-refuting; it can be stated, but it cannot convince anyone who recognizes its implications. 18
In short, if perspectivism is true, then it is false. This is evident from the fact that if perspectivism is a correct theory, than it represents at least one proposition which is cultureindependent and objectively known to be true. And obviously this is something which no one, according to the theory, is actually able to do. Why, then, does the perspectivist presume to think that he or she enjoys such a privileged position when the rest of humanity is relegated to ignorance and agnosticism? If the postmodernist replies that the theory really does not correspond to any objective state of affairs, then of course, why should one be convinced that it is true? The fact that postmodernists assume objectivity and certainty in their defense of perspectivism shows that their theory is not comprehensive. While it may be true that some items of knowledge cannot be known with certainty, it doesn’t seem to follow that such is the case with respect to all sources of knowledge. And it also doesn’t follow that we are completely left in the dark regarding those items which we cannot know with certainty.
5 When applied to biblical interpretation, Mappes applies something like a softperspectivism by asserting that “informed evangelicals understand that one can attain a high degree of intellectual and moral certainty in the interpretive process if the literary evidence is sufficient to remove reasonable doubts from differing interpretations.”19 Since perspectivism is self-refuting, it is necessarily false. As such, there is no reason to conclude that our interpretations of the Bible only reveal our own subjective preferences and biases. Indeed, with respect to our knowledge of all reality, there seems to be no good reason to assume that our perspectives preclude the possibility for real knowledge to obtain. By appealing to systemsneutral criteria such as reason and common sense, we may interact with those from other cultures and even criticize their viewpoints. And in utilizing common hermeneutical tools, we can be reasonably confident that our interpretations of the Bible reflect the motives of the original authors. A further approach in dealing with postmodern rejections of objectivity is to distinguish between psychological and rational objectivity. According to J.P. Moreland and William Lane Craig, psychological objectivity is the absence of bias, a lack of commitment either way on a certain topic. The authors suggest that it is sometimes possible to be psychologically objective, but it is not necessary at other times. In fact, it could be argued that in general a person should not practice psychological objectivity, since some beliefs clearly require a certain level of bias, such as the belief that cancer is a disease or that rape is wrong. Rational objectivity, on the other hand, refers to the ability to “discern the difference between genuinely good and bad reasons for a belief and one holds to the belief for genuinely good reasons.”20 In other words, rational objectivity obtains when the thinking subject is able to rationally assess the evidence for a belief apart from any personal interests. The authors conclude that a lack of psychological objectivity does not necessarily involve a lack of rational objectivity. One can have a personal interest in the belief in question but still maintain a level of objectivity in assessing that belief. It seems that postmodernism has erred in confusing a lack of psychological objectivity for a lack of rational objectivity. While the former state can be attributed to most people, it does not follow that the latter applies as well; and it is rational objectivity—not psychological objectivity—which is the most important for assessing truth claims and coming to knowledge. One must be careful, in assessing postmodern philosophy, to understand exactly what its proponents are defending in their arguments. For example, is the postmodernist simply making an epistemological claim (such that all belief is contextualized) or rather an ontological claim (such that belief has no correspondence in reality)? What is typical among most postmodern thinkers is to begin with an epistemological issue and extrapolate that into an ontological one. Millard Erickson argues that: The different theories of truth are not actually so much differing views of the nature of truth as they are differing tests of truth. They differ, in other words, as to whether the mark or sign of truth is primarily consistency, agreement with experience, or practical implications. It is not a question of definition of truth, but rather of justification or warrant, depending on one’s philosophical orientation.21
For Erickson, there really is no distinction between modern and postmodern ideas of the nature of truth. Everyone, it seems, holds to a correspondence theory of truth, as even the
6 postmodernists believe their theory best approximates reality. So while there is disagreement, perhaps, with respect to epistemological issues (how can we know and recognize the truth?), there is considerable agreement when it comes to ontological issues. And certainly this is not an insignificant insight, for if it can be argued that the nature of reality is absolute, then this is one small step toward the admission that this reality can be known with some level of certainty, the very claim which postmodernists reject. To conclude, it is important to point out one significant reason that a refutation of postmodern philosophy is necessary. In his discussion of postmodern philosopher Richard Rorty, Grenz indicates that the: Contemporary attack on the modern view is simply the latest stage in a gradual and continuous development in our understanding of our relation to the rest of the universe, a trajectory that led from the worship of gods to the worship of sages to the worship of empirical scientific inquirers. But [Rorty] hopes that we will be able to divest ourselves of the worship of anything.22
Given such motives behind the postmodern movement, perhaps it is wise to think through the questions raised by McLaren in A New Kind of Christian before accepting its conclusions wholesale, and applying them to our ministry contexts. While some of his suggestions and viewpoints are valuable to the church’s identity and mission, it would seem that the foundational philosophical concepts, in particular, are deeply problematic for the Christian faith. In the end, perhaps the best move is to follow Erickson in his recommendation that “if Christianity is in the final analysis an unchanging message about an unchanging God, then if we err it will be better to err on the side of emphasizing the timeless elements rather than becoming too closely correlated with any given era or philosophy.”23 Notes 1 Brian D. McLaren, A New Kind of Christian (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001), 38. 2 McLaren, 17. 3 J.P. Moreland and William Lane Craig, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2003), 145. 4 McLaren, 35. 5 “Ortega y Gasset, Jose” in The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd ed., ed. Robert Audi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 637. 6 Stanley J. Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 1996), 166. 7 McLaren, 37. 8 Grenz, 41.
7 9 Grenz, 61. 10 See pages 54-55, where Neo alludes to a coherence theory of truth through the analogy of a spider web. 11 Grenz, 14. 12 McLaren, 50. 13 David A. Mappes, “A New Kind of Christian: A Review,” in Bibliotheca Sacra 161 (JulySeptember 2004): 294. 14 McLaren, 159. 15 McLaren, 65. 16 The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. 17 McLaren, 19. 18 Margarita Rosa Levin, “A Defense of Objectivity,” in The Theory of Knowledge, 3rd ed., ed. Louis P. Pojman (Belmont: Wadsworth Press, 2003), 605. 19 Mappes, 297. 20 Moreland and Craig, 150. 21 Millard J. Erickson, Truth or Consequences (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2001), 237. 22 Grenz, 160. 23 Erickson, 313.