God To The Postmodern

"Cut With The Dada Kitchen Knife Through The Last Weimer Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch In Germany"

-Hannah Hosh 1919

"All things are full of weariness;

A man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,

nor the ear filled with hearing.

What has been is what will be,

and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said,
"See, this is new?"
It has been already
in the ages before us.
There is no remembrance of former things,

nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be
among those who come after.
I the teacher, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I have applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and striving after wind".

-Qoheleth, at least 350 BC (Ecclesiastes 1:8-14).

Who is afraid of postmodernism? These are exciting times we live in and I would not want to be on mission anywhere else. They say we are living in a postmodern age. At this moment in history Christians can either run away from culture, or run into culture, confidently offering Christ where philosophy stops answering questions.

What is post-modernity? Western culture has seen the movements of religion, mysticism, philosophy, reason, science and Romanticism shape the way people think. Still we are left with questions that are not answered and desires unmet. So we have decided to rely on nothing. There is no meaning. No truth. no answers. In postmodernism we embrace the reality of alienation from God, from ourselves, from others, from the physical universe. Brokenness and desperation are acutely felt. There is a sense of rightness without seeing anything right in the world. The world is paradoxical, self-contradicting, and we experience it through random, disjointed juxtapositions (for example, Dada art). There is a craving for something that explains this brokenness and offers unity, a unity that some perceived as offered through eastern religions. Which is why in America so many white people are Buddhists. Some retreat into a belief of some kind of relativistic truth that is warm and fuzzy and offers everybody everything. Honest seekers, however, see through this frail band-aid on the postmodern world view and are left hopeless.

True there is a swing towards something like post-post-modernity. A return to absolute truth and today we see many people attracted to the ridged worldview of Islam. We also see some brought up in lose Protestant traditions returning to ancient liturgical forms of worship such as Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy. But in general, culture is still post modern.

Postmodernism is not a barrier to Christianity. It is not an enemy or inherently evil or out of God’s control. In a way, postmodernism is half of the gospel. The gospel says, yes we were created for something else, yes the world is not the way it should be, yes there is alienation, brokenness, desperation. Yes the world does not make sense, this is not the way it should be. God has, "...put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end" (Ecclesiastes 3:11). But God came physically, from his super-reality into our reality to bring this world back to His self, back to the way it is supposed to be. There is going to be unity, there is going to be synthesis. The world will be pulled together and it will make sense. In the gospel God has "...made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth" (Ephesians 1:9-10). Christianity offers exactly what postmodernist is looking for.

So why have Christians been so unsuccessful in this culture? Instead of offering Christ as the answer we have offered the bible as the answer. As Christians we think we need to offer postmodern culture the biblical answer to every question, but this should never be our responsibility. Let's stop pretending like we have all the answers. We have some truth, some answers, but not all of it. Christians are still on a journey towards the ultimate source of truth, which is God. We too still, "see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face, now I know in part, but then I shall know fully" (1 Cor 13:12). What we can do is offer for others to join us in the journey. The bible does not give us everything we need to know about life, but it gives us enough. It does not give us all the answers but it does give us THE one answer, which is Christ. Yes, you learn about Christ in the bible but let us remember that they are both the word of God. Not all things are summed up in the bible, but all things will be summed up in Christ.

Who doesn’t squirm in uncomfortable confusion when they read revelation? But the end is very clear. There is hope. There will be unity. There will be restoration in Christ. I do not mean to demean the bible, there is a place for it in the Postmodern worldview, but let us never make the Bible the means of salvation. There are things we still will not understand, but even still, followers of Christ hold to the firm hope that one day we will hear;

"Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away". And he who was seated on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new". Also he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true". And he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment" (Revelation 21:3-7).