What Is Post-Modernism?

Tom:

Thanks, Gary. You’re listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage everyone who desires to know God’s truth to look to God’s Word for all that is essential for salvation and living one’s life in a way that is pleasing to Him. In this first segment of our program, we’re winding up our series on “The Emerging Church” movement, a development within evangelical Christianity that’s having a major influence on young adults from age 18 to 30. And Dave, what I would like to do over the next couple of programs is recap some of our major concerns regarding “The Emerging Church” movement. I have a list of critical points we covered in detail the past week, so if someone wants to have more of an explanation of the things we are going to capsulate here, you can go to our website where our programs are archived. What we are going to be addressing, I think we need to qualify some of this, may not be evident in every Emerging Church, or Emerging Church wannabe, but they are certainly representative of most of the leaders and writers of “The Emerging Church” movement.

So, I want to start with—and Dave, you can expand on anything that I bring up here, and just jump in when you feel led.I want to start with a general definition of “The Emerging Church” movement, and it’s pretty simple. It’s an attempt to reach today’s culture with the gospel, a culture that is identified as characteristically postmodern. The appeal is primarily to those between the ages of 18 and 30, but Dave; I’m finding that many people are being attracted to this movement regardless of their age. Here are some characteristics of what is a postmodern generation all about? Well, I think people, when I mention these things or go over these things, you will recognize, whether it be your children if you’re in this age group, your peers, and so on. But one characteristic would be a person that disdains authority, particularly religious authority. This would be an individual who has a pension for rejecting absolutes, or authority. They would believe that truth is something relative, and it’s only acceptable on a pragmatic basis, that is, whatever works for a person, that would be their truth. Logic and reason, within this movement that would be, logic and reason, they would say, No, that’s a modern generation, which supposedly, developed out of the enlightenment.

We’re going to use logic, reason, science, solve all our problems, and so on. But in the postmodern generation, they are beyond that. They said, Science, reason, logic, didn’t solve any of the problems, it created, actually more in their view. So they would say that we’re going to move toward the more experiential, the more subjective, and so on. So, logic and reason are not as dependable, according to them, as feelings, which are the primary arbitrators of what’s right and true.In other words, how can it be wrong when it feels so right, you’d hear that statement. Then, visual imagery is much preferred to overwritten or spoken words. You are in a visual generation, you hear that from everybody, and of course, when you have something visual, it’s going to be more subjective, more experiential. People go to movies—well, get ten people together and have them tell you what they got out of a movie. You’ve going to get 10 different views, 10 different opinions, it’s very subjective.

And there are some other things that are worth noting in this characteristic of the postmodern generation. One would be an individual because it’s subjective and experiential. They have no problem and their pension is not toward logic or reason, so they have no problem carrying contradictory thoughts or ideas at the same time. Sensual pleasure, self-gratification, that’s a part of the postmodern generation. In other words, they are high priorities. They say, well, come on— if it doesn’t right, it can’t be good. So, it’s all based on, again, self-gratification. It’s a very consumer-oriented generation. So you come up with something that brings pleasure, whatever, that’s going to have a priority.

Dave:

Tom, I’m just going to jump in for a few comments.

Tom:

Go ahead.

Dave:

They must have some reason for preferring this. They must have some reason for wanting to go in this direction.

Tom:

But it’s not based on logic. It’s based on feelings.

Dave:

No, but still, you can’t escape—well, my reason is, it feels better, but still it’s a reason, okay? Now, the Bible, God says, “Come now, let us reason together.”If you went to Acts, I don’t know how recently we’ve done that, but Paul reasoned everywhere. He went in the synagogue, he reasoned with them out of the Scriptures, Three Sabbath days he was there, and he reasoned with them in the marketplace, in fact, he argued with them.

Tom:

Dave, didn’t he says, Well, come on, guys, how does this make you feel? Don’t you feel good about this?

Dave:

Yeah, I mean, that’s of course, is ridiculous, as any person who thought about it. So you have to think, you have to come to some conclusions. And I don’t think it’s a long time, is it Tom, I know I just quoted it in my debates at the church where I was speaking in Toronto. But Allan Bloom? I don’t think we’ve mentioned Allan Bloom on this program in a while.

Tom:

Not in a while.

Dave:

Well, it’s worth refreshing our mind. He was, until then, a rather obscure philosophy professor at the University of Chicago, and he wrote an interesting book called:The Closing of the American Mind.These guys minds are closed, you can’t reason with them, in other words.Where did that title, fascinating title, The Closing of the American Mind where did that come from?Surprising, if you haven’t read the book.He says, the one virtue in America is openness—before these guys came along, but this has been a plague in mankind for a long time.The one virtue in America is openness,—you wouldn’t say something is wrong, you might hurt their feelings, and you might shatter their fragile self-esteem.So, Allan Boom says we have become so open to everything that we don’t seem to understand something might be right and something might be wrong.That rules that out, if you’re open to everything, if I tried to say to the Hindu in this debate, well, if God is everything, then God or no God there’s no difference.So you’ve lost the significance of God.So now we have no significance.What’s the significance of pictures, these icons and candles, and so forth?Tell us, how does that work, what is the value, and don’t give me this—well, it feels good, I mean, oh this is what they used to do back then.Since when is that the criteria to the truth?Well, that’s what they used to do back then.I guess Paul said well now, I wonder what they used to do back then.Maybe we could get a new start on this.Jude said, this is the gospel once for all committed to the saints.It doesn’t change.Jesus Christ, what is that? Hebrews:13:8Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
See All..., somewhere around there, “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever.”And Tom, as you know as well or better than I do, they are reinventing Jesus, reinventing the gospel, reinventing the whole thing, so it no longer is God’s Word, it no longer is settled forever in heaven, and it no longer calls us to obedience.We don’t follow the Lord, we follow our feelings; and what did the ancients do, so-called.

Tom:

But you remember, I’m going to paraphrase this a bit, Jesus speaking to the Pharisees: You say, but what I tell you.In other words, they had added their own to God’s Word, to God’s laws.

Dave:

He said you have made void the Word of God by your tradition.

Tom:

Yeah.Well Dave, in this approach, this trying to accommodate, we’ll go back to the thesis from many of the writers in the EmergingChurch movement.The thesis is we want to bring the gospel to this generation.

Dave:

Tom, let me interrupt.Maybe we’re going to go on to say it; we want to bring the gospel to this generation.What gospel?They’ve changed the gospel.Tom, they’ve changed it in order to get it to this generation.So, when you get it to this generation, you haven’t gotten them the truth because you don’t believe.We began, Tom, this program saying there’s no absolute truth, absolutely no absolutes!

Tom:

All right, but let’s just go back to the intention by some—they want to reach the lost today.Now, the question is, how far do you go; this EmergingChurch movement, how far will you go in terms of attempting to relate to the postmodern culture?

Dave:

Well, Tom, see, I’m about to say I get angry, but I will stifle that thought.

Tom:

So noted!Strike it from the record.

Dave:

Right.How do we reach this generation?Well, that assumes, (A) this generation is, somehow they have a different relationship to truth.Truth never changes.So they’ve got a different relationship.Somehow, these people have managed to place themselves in a position with relationship to truth that truth no longer reaches them unless you give it to them in a different way.

Tom:

And the way is, to really deny truth, deny absolute, to get into relativeness.

Dave:

Absolutely!

Tom:

So, again, I know because I’ve had discussions with young people who say my church isn’t like that, we do this, and we do that, we have community, we have relationship, we have so on and so forth.But all we’re asking here in this program is to search the Scriptures, evaluate everything that’s going on in your so-called movement on the basis of the Scriptures.You know, we quote Isaiah over and over again:“To the law and the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.”So, a church that wants to move in this direction, that recognizes some issues, cultural issues within the evangelical church today and there are many.We have gone over these things, Dave, for years almost, whether it be seeker-friendly, purpose-driven, all of these things that are contemporary attempts to reach people through, what?Well, the seeker-friendly and purpose driven.That’s marketing, that’s the marketing approach to reaching the culture.So, we recognize that there are problems, but are these churches that want to be emergent, what are they jumping aboard here?And we’re trying to lay out as much as we can from the writers, the leaders of this movement, what are potential problems?I mean, really big time problems; we’re going to go over these things.

Dave:

Emergent? That’s a catch phrase, that’s marketing, emerging from what? Yeah, they are emerging from the Word of God, the truth, into their own ideas.

Tom:

Yeah, you know, again, it’s somewhat philosophical.They are emerging from a modern way of doing things.The modern, in the sense philosophically of reason, logic that we’re going to understand the Bible intellectually, and without the mystery involved, and so on and so forth.

Dave:

Tom, that’s based upon some assumptions.The assumption is, the Word of God, living and powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword, the sword of the Spirit.Somehow, it’s just not sharp enough; it’s not properly designed for these people.That has another assumption to it.Well, the Bible, that’s an old-fashioned book or it wasn’t written in the proper way, you know, it needs an updating, it needs a revision.And we’ve talked about it before Tom; the heart of man is deceitful above all things, desperately wicked.The heart of man has not changed, human beings have not changed, they still need love, they still need compassion, they still need nurturing, and they still need the Word of truth.They need the Word of God like any other generation did, and Tom we are robbing them of that.

Tom:

Well Dave, one definition of the postmodern generation that I could throw in there, and I think it’s just as legitimate as anybody else’s, and that is, it’s the latest rebellion against God and his Word.So the questions is, how do you accommodate that, and that’s our concerns.We’ve been pointing these things out, trying to accommodate the culture means the culture becomes the basis in which we work out our theology.Now, how bad is that, Dave?

Dave:

Well, Tom, it just denies the whole purpose of the Bible.Why do we even have a Bible?Why don’t we just sit down, generation after generation, and if this is what really counts is what people feel they want to believe, and what makes them feel good, and what appeals to the modern person, I don’t think you need the Bible.You should have just—well, okay, the next generation, well, let’s discuss it, and every generation gets wiser and wiser.So, if you’re a postmodern you must really be right there, but who needs the Bible anymore?And Tom, they’ve trashed it, they’ve junked it.

Tom:

Dave, I find this interesting; 25 years ago, you know, I had the privilege of helping you with,The Seduction of Christianity.Now what did that address—not just what was going on in the church, but it also addressed the New Age movement, right?

Dave:

Um-huh.

Tom:

Now, I don’t remember, help me here, I don’t remember evangelicals trying to become like the New Agers, or identifying so much with the New Agers to the point to where they adjusted their theology, they adjusted their way of going about things, to address this movement, which was massive.I mean, I think it was probably a spiritual renewal for the materialists to go about their lives.But how many people do you remember, who called themselves evangelicals, became New Agers, or like the New Agers, to minister to the New Agers, did that happen?

Dave:

Well, Tom, it just shows that they didn’t really understand the approach they needed.

Tom:

But some people would argue:Now wait a minute, you guys are so far off the mark, you don’t understand, we are not changing the message, we are just changing our mode of operation so that the lost can receive the message.Now, the biggest name, the most notable individual within the EmergingChurch movement is Brian McClaren.Let me give you his quote.He says, “It has been fashionable among the innovative emerging pastors I know to say, ‘I’m not changing the message, we’re only changing the medium.’This claim is probably less than honest, he says—“In the new church we….”

Dave:

Tom, I would take out “probably” this claim is less than honest.

Tom:

Well, I’m just quoting him, okay.

Dave:

Right.

Tom:

“In the new church we must realize how medium and message are intertwined.When we change the medium, the message that’s received is changed, however subtly, as well.We might as well get beyond our naïveté or denial about this.”And of course, he’s right on this.So, again, is the culture dictating what is going on here within these EmergingChurch leaders?You read their books, and I’ve read too many of them, to be honest with you, Dave, and I see them trying to become so much like the culture that I couldn’t tell the difference between those who are, supposedly bringing the truth to the lost, and the lost who are among the postmodern generation.

Dave:

Yeah, Tom, it’s a tragedy that is happening, but it’s just one of those things that are very similar to the errors that the church has fallen into.You want to study philosophy, you want to study anything—the ideas of men they’ve come and gone, they change— well, we can improve this.But basically, you get down to it you have the same thing to deal with.We have to deal with sin; we have to deal with God.I often, Tom, say to people, on an airplane, or whatever, they say, you know they think I’m too narrow-minded, or they’ve got their own way.Well, I was talking to someone just, was it yesterday or the day before, I can’t remember, it must have been yesterday, that’s when we were flying.Well in fact, he asked me this:I’m trying to live a good life. I’m trying to be a good person, and I think I’m a better person than a lot of those Christians.

Tom:

One of your debaters in Toronto, Dave, those are the words right out of his mouth, but keep going.

Dave:

So, I said to this young man, very intelligent, very interested, by who’s standard are you living a good life?Now, we’ve got to set the criteria. Who makes the rules?But these guys, these New Agers, I was going to call them, these emergents, they don’t want to let God set the standard because God, somehow He just didn’t know, He dropped the ball, He didn’t foresee the kind of—the new generation and what they would think, and He didn’t really give us any ammunition, and so we are going to have to wing it ourselves.No, you can’t do that.You may, for example, atheists, Richard Dawkins for example:Well, we don’t need some book to tell us what’s right and wrong; we know what’s right and—what’s their standard?Well, it doesn’t hurt other people, if it seems to work, if it binds society together; we all get along a little better.But underneath it all, Tom, we’ve got an evil heart, a selfish heart, self-centered, and that’s what God tries to deal with if we are willing to let Him do it.

Tom:

Dave, the next item that we’re going to capsulize and address.I believe it’s the most evil, the most wicked thrust of the EmergingChurch movement, and that is how they view and handle the Scriptures.

Dave:

Right.

Tom:

We’re going to see that many who came out of evangelical backgrounds now are destroying the Scriptures in terms of, you know, you can’t destroy the Scriptures, okay, but in terms of how the people they are influencing are receiving their teachings, it’s absolutely devastating.Really, to me, it goes back to Satan’s, whether they are witting or unwitting instruments in this; it goes back to Satan’s grand scheme.Genesis chapter l, he begins with Eve, and he says: “Yea, hath God said?”In other words hey, we’re not talking absolutes here, I mean, you misunderstood, you’re not really getting the idea here, this can’t be what God had in mind.And that, which we are going to see, or we will touch on a few quotes before we close out here.But that is the thrust, that God’s Word—well, yeah, it’s God’s Word, you know, we’re not going to throw it all out, but what’s really important is how you feel about it.I’ll give you a there’s a pastor of EmergingChurch, and he says, we need to rediscover what it means to read the Bible existentially and experientially.

Dave:

Paul didn’t anticipate that, I mean, why didn’t he anticipate this kind of stuff.Because he just says, Preach the Word, and he says the Word of God is for doctrine, reproof, correction that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished, may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto every good work.

Tom:

And what if he doesn’t like this thing, Dave, he doesn’t really feel good about—

Dave:

Well, then that’s man’s problem.

Tom:

Yeah, it is.

Dave:

My dear friend, Jack Worsen, used to say—well, he used to quote Billy Sunday, and he said:Well, you’re combing the cat’s hair against the way it’s supposed to go, and it’s really upsetting the cat.Well, Billy Sunday would say:Well, tell the cat to turn around.

Tom:

Yeah, and again, we have the issue here, and it’s best to quote Proverbs:14:12There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
See All..., 16:25:“There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”We’re going to get into this more next week Lord willing.