I think one of the things that is killing Evangelical witness to the world is that we don’t know how to properly navigate the differences between Premodernism, Modernism, and Postmodernism.
What’s the difference? Here’s a brief history of these terms:
Before the Enlightenment, people were basically Premodern. They had a belief in spirits and demons, in the supernatural, in miracles, in superstition, and almost everyone in this world was religious in one way or another. Then along came the Enlightenment, rationality, the Industrial Revolution, and science. This ushered in the age of Modernism. There was hope and unlimited optimism in the potential of man. People felt like they didn’t need religion anymore since everything was explainable and humans can accomplish anything they set their mind to, without reliance on any “God.” The twentieth century was the culmination of Modernism—but when two World Wars, the Holocaust, the Atomic bomb, the Cold War, and the bloodiest century in the history of mankind occurred—well, needless to say, optimism died. So near the end of the twentieth century, people switched to Postmodernism. Clearly science can’t solve everything. In fact, science has proven its capability to destroy as much as to improve life. So spirituality came back with a vengeance (though, notice I did not say “religion” but spirituality, because organized religion was looked upon with suspicion). People turned to New Age solutions, absolute truth became replaced with relative truth, “authenticity” became more important than “truth,” and people longed for meaning and relationships (but were skeptical and cynical about everyone and everything unless they proved themselves trustworthy first).
So here we stand. What do 21st-century Evangelicals do with this state of affairs?
Well, it depends what kind of Evangelicals we’re talking about. I wrote a blog here about two types of Evangelicals today—the ones who are operating in a twentieth century paradigm (Conservative Evangelicals) and the ones who have adapted to the twenty-first century (Radical Evangelicals).
Conservative Evangelicals tend to be one- or two-issue voters (usually it’s abortion and/or homosexuality) when it comes to politics, and they conveniently leave out every other important issue (e.g. poverty, war, AIDS, all of which, btw, can be included in “pro-life,” not just abortion). Radical Evangelicals take a “holistic pro-life” approach, in which they are not just pro-life before birth, but also pro-life after birth. They take a “holistic sexual morality” approach, in which they don’t just pound homosexuality as a sin but put more emphasis on the sins of pornography, premarital sex, adultery, and divorce (those last four are much more prevalent than the first). It’s more multifaceted.
Likewise, Conservative Evangelicals are Modern, mainly because they focus on only one issue: absolute truth. Whereas, Radical Evangelicals can be Premodern, Modern, and Postmodern (as I will explain in just a moment), which is more multifaceted.
Let me outline the pros and cons of each of these worldviews:
-Premodern pro: belief in God; awareness of spiritual realities; open to miracles.
-Premodern con: animism; superstition; polytheism/pantheism.
-Modern pro: absolute truth; logic (God must make sense to some degree).
-Modern con: excessive individualism; anthropocentrism; belief in humanity to accomplish anything; secularism; logic (God cannot fit every single systematic box we create for Him).
-Modern neutral: science and technology (it all depends what you do with it!)
-Postmodern pro: community; relationships; realization of human depravity; love of authenticity; open to spiritual things.
-Postmodern con: relative truth; excessive cynicism; rejection of organized religion.
As you can see, this list is quite varied and there is no one perspective which is wholly good or wholly bad. The problem is, if we become a “one-issue voter” (i.e. hang our hat completely on absolute truth alone), then we become unnuanced. This leads to two problems: 1) we’ll swallow it all hook, line and sinker (i.e. take all the negative baggage of Modernism along with the one good principle of absolute truth), and 2) we throw the baby out with the bathwater (i.e. discard all the other potential good things about Postmodernism because we reject the one bad thing, relative truth).
Conservative Evangelicals are still pounding the drums of inerrancy and using arguments by Christian apologist Josh McDowell. Those things are fine, and I believe in them, but the problem is not whether these things are true, the problem is that we are not speaking the language of the people. Postmoderns don’t care whether the Bible is inerrant or not. That was a battle fought in the early twentieth century, but that is not the question that is burning first and foremost in their hearts. We are using Modern arguments to try to sway Postmodern people, and it’s like ships crossing in the night.
What can we do, then?
First, instead of spending all our time fighting relativism, I say we roll with the punches, we work with what the people desire. Postmodernists desire community and authenticity. I think those are biblical. Let’s give it to them, in a way that only Christians can!
Second, not only should we roll with the punches, we should combine the best of Modernism and Postmodernism. Postmodernists are right in their recognition of the condition of human depravity (Modernists still believe in innate human goodness or at least the ability to improve to that point), so they turn toward the spiritual—however, that often involves anything but the Christian God. If we can somehow harness the belief in absolute truth that Modernists bring, and the belief that the solution is beyond our human capacity that Postmodernists bring, perhaps that will point unbelievers toward the Christian God. Unfortunately most Evangelicals think that Modernism is the answer and Postmodernism is the enemy, and that has been to not only our detriment but that of the world.
Third, our strategy must be reversed. Instead of truth followed by love (which is what Conservative Evangelicals do—sometimes unfortunately though it’s just truth with no love after it), let’s do love followed by truth which is what Postmodernists desire (does it really matter what order we do it in, as long as both are there?). In fact, love followed by truth is often what Jesus did. For example, the woman caught in adultery in John 8—Jesus dismissed the stone-throwers first, then he told the woman to “go and sin no more.” Should we not do likewise, i.e. feed the hungry and embrace the outcast, before we address people’s sins? Once we have earned the trust of Postmodernists, they will be much more apt to listen to us as we address areas of sin and repentance. If you preach first, they will not listen. As such, social justice is as much a part of mission as evangelism is (see the Lausanne Covenant here which talks about that—esp. point #5. This document was drafted by John Stott and Billy Graham).
Fourth, Postmodernism is rampant in the Western world, but not in the non-Western World. The majority of Christians today (almost 70%) live in the non-Western world, and they are largely Premodern. So not only do American Evangelical Christians need to learn the language of Postmoderns (in order to speak to non-Christians in the West today), we need to learn the language of Premoderns (in order to speak to the rest of the world). Our Modernist Gnostic separation of natural and supernatural, of secular and sacred, of body and spirit, needs to be overturned. Premodernism is more of a Pentecost type of Christianity (in fact, Pentecostalism is the fastest-growing type of Christianity today). We need to learn more about speaking in tongues, healing miracles, prophecy, exorcism, and power encounters with other religions. We can’t just live our lives with Sunday being our one spiritual day and the other six days being secular.
Diagnosis:
The good thing and the bad thing about some segments of Evangelical Christianity is our stasis. It’s good in that we’re countercultural, that we aren’t just swayed by the whims of the world. It’s bad in that we are inflexible and sometimes totally out of date, and not addressing the right questions that people are yearning to answer. These are flip sides of the same coin.
Also, ironically, the good and the bad thing about certain segments of Evangelical Christianity is our cutting-edgeness. We are good about being up-to-date with culture/media and not burying their head in the sand. But on the other hand, Evangelicals sometimes are too up to date with culture, to the point where they are beholden to the latest greatest thing instead of the tried-and-true. Again, these are flip sides of the same coin.
How about we take a both/and approach instead of an either/or approach? Let’s be static in the right ways and cutting-edge in the right ways. Yes, we realize that Postmodernism is relativistic. That’s bad. But Modernism, through its absolute adherence to science and secularism, often kicks God out of the picture, and that’s pretty bad too. Modernism has a love for absolute truth, and that’s good. But Postmodernism (and Premodernism) are more receptive to spirituality and religion, and that can be very good if oriented in the right direction. A multifaceted approach with regard to Premodernism, Modernism, and Postmodernism, is what we need.
As Mark Noll says in his latest book, The New Shape of World Christianity, “Today, with the prominence among evangelicals of power encounters, charismatic gifts, talismanic use of Scripture, prophecy and affectional song, the premodern and the postmodern are probably more important in worldwide evangelicalism than the modern.”
