“The autonomy of the individual that the Enlightenment championed has, in the postmodern spirituality, been retained, but also radicalized.” [David Wells, Above All Earthly Pow’rs (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), p. 115]
Salt and Light
“Parents us this [the salt and light argument] as a reason, but they acknowledge the need for preparation to be salt and light in other settings. Who sends their kids to Vacation Bible Schools run by Mormons in order that they might be salt and light? Who sends their eight-year-old to India to be a …
High Capitalism
“It is quite striking, then, to note the parallels between postmodern habits of mind and the realities which have come to mark our highly formed capitalism: volatility, obsolescence, the rapid passing of fashions and ideas, the disappearance of stability, constant innovation, constant revision, repackaging, the new look, the newer than new product, the future always …
No Standby Lord
“We do not understand that our academic slide has occurred because it had to. We cannot reject the tree and continue to demand the fruit. The universe coheres because Christ is Lord — and there is no alternative center, no other arche on standy in case He fails” (The Case for Classical Christian Education, pp. …
Circling the Drain
“What greatly complicates the quest of those who are attempting to walk a more constructive path which is also postmodern, however, is the fact that in the aftermath of the Enlightenment, there is a gravitational pull toward the death of all worldviews. Not every postmodern thinker moves consistently in these directions but every postmodern thinker …
The Temples Still Standing
“In the ancient pagan world, belief in the gods usually died long before a willingness to dispense with the forms of worship. It is the same here. We no longer believe in the gods of education, but our commitment to their temples is still religious and deep” (The Case for Classical Christian Education, p. 54).
But Not Even Rorty Can Explain the “Left Behind” Movie
“Intellectuals like Foucault and Derrida are undoubtedly contributors to postmodern thinking, but what is often left unexplained is how we get from Foucault to MTV, from Derrida to the centerless young people whose canopy of meaning in life has collapsed, from Fish and Rorty to our movies.” [David Wells, Above All Earthly Pow’rs (Grand Rapids, …
But They Both Have the Same Kind of Hammer
“If two men were building a house together, but they both held tightly to differing sets of blueprints, it would not be to the point to say that they still had much in common. They both own hammers, saws, nails, carpenter’s belts, and so on, and let us say that both of them were of …
A Really Creative Judgment
“Indeed, it has led those who are heady with triumph to speak of this moment as being postmodern. It is, to say the least, a galling epithet to those still enamored with Enlightenment beliefs, for, to those who still believe in progress, to be called passé is a thunderclap of judgment more dreadful, it would …
This Should Actually Be “Lokism,” Prejudice Against Norse Trickster Gods
“At Smith College, a brochure is distributed to incoming students rehearsing a long list of politically incorrect attitudes and prejudices that will not be tolerated, including the sin of ‘lookism,’ i.e. the prejudice of believing that some people are more attractive than others” (Tenured Radicals, p. 9).