Just a short post to tie up my thoughts on the last chapter of Stanley Grenz’s book on postmodernism. The book was informative (for the most part) and with a few exceptions a good review of the characters and players in all this. But coming to the last chapter, I have to confess that my …
The Power of the Cultural Vacuum
“What is now in place is not exactly an alternative system of belief. What is in place is no system of belief at all. It is more like a vacuum into the quiet emptiness of which the self is reaching for meaning – and finding only itself. But this is to put the matter more …
No Matter How Thin You Slice It
One of the standard responses to postmodernism is to point out the self-contradictory nature of it all. Incredulity to the naive belief that truth can be ascertained through words is an incredulity that reached us all via words. And when ordinary people point this out (har, har), the response is usually an urbane and sophisticated …
A Situated Idahoan
In his fifth chapter, Grenz introduces us to the forerunner of postmodernism, to the voice crying in the wilderness — Fredrich Nietzsche. The philosophers of modernity (who bookended that age when rationalistic charismata were still being given to men) were Descartes and Kant (p. 84), and this gives us the approximate dates of 1650 to …
Mark Driscoll and Brian McLaren
Mark Driscoll has a great, straightforward question for Brian McLaren, which can be found here. Some Christians were well-versed enough in the postmodernism/emergent stuff that they could see it coming. Others are clear-thinking enough to see it when it finally arrives. But some, tragically, are still in denial.
All About Sex
Brian McLaren recently posted some comments on, you guessed it, homosexuality, and, as might be expected, he was strong on the need to be what he was pleased to call “pastoral,” and weak on what was known, in another day and time, as “biblical.” He was asked by a young couple what his church’s position …
Isn’t the Prefix “Post” Modern?
There are problems, but reading Stanley Grenz is not at all like reading Brian McLaren. In his book A Primer on Postmodernism, Grenz begins by giving us a general survey of the intellectual landscape, which he does competently. It is when we get to the “and therefore we shoulds” that I start to object. Even …
Humor Is Resistance
Malcolm Muggeridge, who knew his totalitarians (and the liberals who loved them) once said, “To laugh is to criticize . . . Humour, that is to say, is a kind of resistance movement, which is sometimes indulgently tolerated, sometimes barely tolerated, and sometimes not tolerated at all.” George Orwell, who also knew something about the …
Blowing Bubbles At the Moon
The thoughts of man are vain. The thoughts of man are carried around in a bone case, five or six feet above a couple of ground pounders (with ten pink toes splayed on the ends of them) that pack those thoughts around from place to place. In order to keep those thoughts going, a man …
Pomo and Puddleglum
One of my daughters just pointed out a helpful illustration from Narnia on the postmodernism business. A reasonable question that many might ask about the postmodernism jag that I am currently on is, “Why all the fuss?” Okay, already. We agree, for the most part. Why can’t we just keep our distinctives and have a …