In 1998, I co-wrote a book with Doug Jones entitled Angels in the Architecture. The subtitle was “A Protestant Vision for Middle Earth,” and at the center of that vision was a robust rejection of modernity. The book begins with the question, “Modernity or medievalism?” (p. 17). To wit:
“Medieval Protestantism is not a call to a movement, another one of those tiresome modern constructs of strategies and polemics. It is a call for meditation and living out the good life one family at a time” (p. 24).
“The Enlightenment experiment, with all its actions and reaction, may perhaps be described as several centuries on the Hegelian Tilt-a-Whirl” (p. 172).
“Learning to know poetically is at the heart of any true defiance of modernity . . .” (p. 181).
“Or modern man can seek a God-like knowledge in his demand for what the philosophers call epistemic certainty . . .” (p. 184).
But we wanted none of it, and the book was an assault on modernity, front page to back. We did this because we serve a God who has made all things new. He has established a new heaven and new earth. He has set the new cornerstone, and all that exists will eventually be in alignment with Him. The trees grow on both sides of the river, and the leaves are for the healing of the nations. The earth will be as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the water covers the sea, and that is pretty wet. All the ends of the earth will turn to Him, and will stream to the standard of Jesse. Christ was lifted up from the earth, and is drawing all men to Himself. All the families of the earth will be blessed through Abraham’s faith, and it is not through
law that Abraham inherits the world. From the rising of the sun to its going down, the name of the Lord will be praised. The day is coming when
all the traffic heliocopters will have to be dispatched on Sunday morning to help manage the worship traffic. “You Presbyterians need to think about taking Exit 94.” The wilderness will be a garden, and the children will have to be made to stop hassling the cobras. In short, we need to be done with the chintzy prayers.
“Jesus did not teach us to pray, saying, ‘Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in heaven if and when we get there.’ In His commission He told us to disciple nations. Empowered by the Spirit, this is done with the water of baptism and the rigorous teaching of the Word. In our prayers, Jesus told us to pray for the heavenly commonwealth to have an earthly manifestation. In short, we are to pray for Christendom” (p. 205).
Like I said, this book was published in 98 and it was the culmination of a run-up of many years before that of study and labor in community — seeking to practice and live out what we believe Christians are called to practice and live out. And this is the context of saying that the the current academosity presents no challenge whatever to modernity. The problem with this version of postmodernism, falsely so-called, is not that it rejects modernity, but rather that it does
not. It refuses to. Mention the Lordship of Christ needing to be publicly recognized over every human activity and they shy like a startled pony. Modernity is an idol that goes all the way up, out of our sight anyway. Modernity is a tree, the roots of which go deep into the soil of the secularized academy. Nebuchadnezzar’s statue has got his head in the clouds in more ways than one. The only thing that can topple this kind of idol is the
gospel, and it needs to be the
whole gospel for the
whole world.
Marching around in a circle does not constitute any departure from modernity — it is more like Pooh tracking himself in the snow, which would make this dawning era the post-first-time-around-the-spinney era. The second circle cannot be described as a post-circle. The reason I want nothing to do with postmodernism (in all its current forms) is because they are pretending to be at odds with modernity. They are pretending to run away from home. They are pretending that having a spat with a fellow priest of Baal is the same thing as razing the temple.
You want something to describe a full-throated rejection of modernity and all its idols? Do you want to reject modernity, and its cheap knock-offs, like postmodernity? Tired of rejecting the idol of Britney Spears in the name of Christine Aguilera? Tired of casting out the demons of Mammon with the devils of Money? Tired of rejecting this kind of secular neutrality for that kind of secular neutrality? Tired of banishing Howdy on the authority of Doody?
Then you don’t want postmodernism; you want Christendom. And if you want Christendom, you should pray for Christendom, as the Lord taught us to pray, saying — “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
