Peter Leithart has pointed out the need for another Christendom. I agree with him completely. This is over against the modernity project, which wants to manage everything on secularist assumptions — in science, law, art, politics, academia, custom, and so on. With regard to human society, the structures of modernity run all the way up, and we need a name for this ubiquitous framework and presence. If we want to replace it (and all Christians should since we were told to disciple the nations), what should we call this thing we want to replace? I suggest the onto-polis. As we preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, the only savior of the world, we are challenging and overcoming the onto-polis.
We should not be interested in bits and pieces. The God of the Bible is no patcher. The so-called postmodernists, and the Christians who tag along behind them, have a limited number of options before them. They can stick with the onto-polis of secular pluralism, contained within the modernist framework of “the marketplace of ideas,” in which case they are not postmodern at all. They have abandoned wide neckties for skinny neckties, and have hailed it as a new era in epistemology.
Or they can abandon the pluralistic framework of idols in favor of one idol — particularism. This is what Heidegger did in becoming a Nazi. He abandoned the god of the philosophers for the god of the Germans. It is hilarious to watch the discomfiture of his defenders as they try to explain his apostasy from the tenets of a pluralist and liberal modernity. But there was nothing inconsistent in what he did. Why serve the etheral onto-idols of modernity when you can serve the very tangible idol of blood and soil? Heidegger opted for a god before whom he could dance, if only for a few years. The Christian rejection of Heidegger should be on account of his failure to love and honor Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. It should not be because he sinned against secular modernity by betting on the wrong horse in the war.
The only genuine alternative is Christendom. The salvation brought by Jesus Christ to the world is supposed to be declared to the world by those who preach His gospel. This global Christendom will be the result of the successful fulfillment of the Great Commission. In the meantiem, we are not permitted make our peace with modernity. We are not permitted to make our peace with postmodern shams. We are not permitted to abandon liberal democracy for demanding and particular idols, whether those of the Right or Left. We are not permitted to join forces with other monotheists generally considered, asking secular modernity to be a little more polite to us all. This is unfortunately what Westphal does. He chides a “triumphalist secularism [that] makes the world immune to any God who resembles the personal Creator, Lawgiver, and Merciful Savior of Jewish, or Christian, or Muslim monotheism” (p. 3).
In the title of one of his books, Thomas Oden asked, After Modernity, What? The only good answer is Jesus Christ.