**Revisiting** Generation Gaps and the Moral Imperative of Totalitarian Niceness

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 25Jan09

The following list describes the desired traits that non-Christian young people desire to see in Christians, particularly among their elders as compiled by the authors of “unChristian: What A New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity....And Why It Matters.” When I presented quotes from this book on my blog last year, I suggested that we as believers should extend the same considerations to those who follow patriarchy as well as to young unbelievers. I would like to use this list (from pp 194-5 of the book) as a point of departure for relating to young adults in general. Those interviewed suggested that these considerations would improve their receptivity to the Gospel message from Christians, both young and old.

1. Listen to me.
2. Don't label me.
3. Don't be so smart.
4. Put yourself in my place.
5. Be genuine.
6. Be my friend with no other motives.

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The Postmodern Decay of Language: Why People Talk More and Say Less

"Paul Preaching In Athens" by Raphael

In response to several inquiries, I posted some information postmodernism which has opened up into more questions people have asked me about exactly how language has degraded within our culture. Now, more than ever, a growing number of people speak and use eloquent-sounding language, but their messages demonstrate a gross lack of content. Cults and spiritually abusive groups capitalize upon this process. One astute reader asked me how it is that more and more speakers and ministers can offer content-free speeches and sermons but how few people can recognize that their messages actually lack content. People “sound good,” offering “feel good” rhetoric, but they essentially say nothing and are rewarded for it. This reader asked me about possible sources of information to help them understand more about exactly how communicators manipulate language in order to say nothing.

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Problems with Viewing History and Truth through a Postmodern Lens

A week ago, I watched video of President Obama’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery where he paid his respects at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I recalled my own visit there, my first one, in 1987. I wept uncontrollably as I stood there for the changing of the guard, imagining and empathizing with all the mothers, wives, daughters and sisters that had stood and would ever come to stand where I was standing then. “But for grace, there go I,” always floods through my mind as I ponder those who suffer.

And on Monday of last week, I recalled my childhood tradition of watching the Martin Luther King, Jr. speeches on Channel 17 in Philadelphia every year. I would ponder why God put me in the family that He did in the day and time that He did, as I surely differ little from all of those who have seen greater tragedies and had fewer comforts. When history presents itself to me and gets my attention, it becomes a deeply personal experience. I see myself as some character in most every narrative I read, because “but for grace,” I might have been them. I have something to learn from those people, particularly those who have lived through something that I find to be very different from my own experience.

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Geniuses Are Leading Our World Astray..... "I have a strong sense that the Son of God weeps at the loss and misplacement of such genius."

Ravi Zacharias - Postmodernism Philosophy

The original post featured embedded video clips that are now no longer available to post here on this website.   They can be viewed directly at You Tube, courtesy of the Henry Center.  Click on the links below.  All but the final video can be viewed via a single playlist at the Henry Center Channel on YouTube by following this LINK.

Ravi Zacharias: An Evangelical Understanding of Postmodernism 

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5

Q and A following the lecture  (An Evangelical Understanding of Postmodernism)

• Part I
• Part II

Post Lecture Interview

• Part I
• Part II
• Part III

What Are the Effects of Postmodernism and Modernism?

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Evaluating Deconstructionism Using Responsible Hermeneutics

Five years ago on this very date, I sat with a now deceased laptop computer in the University of Texas Library, writing an essay. I'd been asked to present how thought reform played into the Vision Forum mindset from the vantage of one who attended a Presbyterian church with the followers of Doug Phillips and, on rare occasion, with Phillips himself.

I believe that I watch the world from an interesting and unique vantage. Though I was born in the first year of Generation X, I don’t bear all of the same qualities as most Xers. Perhaps because my parents missed the hippie mentality by what probably amounts to a few months and owing to slower life in a rural community, both my parents and I think much differently than our peers of the same age. I identify more strongly with Baby Boomers born later in that generation, as though there is a bridge period between Boomers and Gen X that theorists never define or capture. My most comfortable niche places me in an category with those born roughly somewhere between the early fifties and mid-sixties. I tend to march in tune to that drum rather than the drum of my same-aged peers. Though I am Christian first, I think like and communicate best with a modernist and tend to relate to others like a postmodernist living in a postmodern world.

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Teens and Judgementalism In Our Message (from "unChristian")

Considering “Unchristian: What A New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity ...An Why It Matters” Groundbreaking research from the Barna Group by Dave Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons

My training as a Christian focused on my ability to be able to declare the truth, not to become the Holy Spirit in the life of those to whom I witness. My mother carried a bookmark in her Bible that had a Native American saying on it: “Never judge a man until you've walked a mile in his moccasins.” I am grateful for both of these influences and that I was not taught an economy-sized Bible or flame-thrower approach to sharing the Gospel. (My dear Jewish friend calls such people "God's Squad.") That does not mean that I compromise the message, but I do not focus on doing the convicting work of the Holy Spirit. That's God's job. Sharing my faith has never been a matter of putting on a sales presentation, nor has it been about closing a sale. It's about speaking the truth so that the Holy Spirit can make use of what comes through me as a vessel of communication.

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Rising to the "Sheltered" Challenge (from "unChristian")

Considering “Unchristian: What A New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity ...An Why It Matters” Groundbreaking research from the Barna Group by Dave Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons

How should the church go about correcting its “unChristian” response of the sheltered life in order to reach a desperate and dying world with the saving message of Jesus Christ. Those outside of the practice of the Christian faith perceive Christianity as a whole to be antiquated and out of touch with the rest of the world. We use language that means little to the world. We live in our own sheltered communities and faith in Jesus Christ is viewed much like “joining a social club.” That is the only distinction that the world sees in us.

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THE BIG THREE: Why People Leave Churches

Excerpt from “Life After Church: God’s Call to Disillusioned Christians”

By Brian Sanders

(From pages 70-73)

Generally, if you break down why leavers have left or should leave churches, it can come down to one of these areas:

(1.) God is not honored

(2.) People aren’t in community with each other

(3.) They aren’t reaching anyone

Leavers rarely recognize their reasons in these terms… But more reasons originate in a church’s deficiency in one of these areas…

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May the Lord Alone Rise Again (Neither North nor South)

I believe that truth emerges and vindicates itself, especially for those who have faith in God. In that sense, not much if anything can ultimately work against truth. As a Christian, that is my first and foremost desire – to know the truth and be set free, more and more. But perception is a tricky thing, whenever it appears contradictory and paradoxical, and from different perspectives, the truth can look very different. 

I drove through a bank the other day, and noted how different the bank looked from the front and from the back. To hear a man in the front of the bank describe the entrance and then to hear another man describe the drive through teller lanes, one might be confused or believe that both men could not be speaking of the same building. 

Is either man wrong? Is either man a “tale bearer”? The wise one would say not. Without self assurance or trust in the truth, one man might easily call another a liar and be completely truthful based on his own understanding.

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Exposing Error Results in Virtual Assasination?

A few months ago, a para church organization called a few critics "internet assassins" and threw around all sorts of other connotative terms. (I'm assuming that the term "internet assassin" refers to one who makes unfavorable comments about another on the internet.)


Perhaps I'm naive, or getting old, but I remember a day when you could passionately debate with someone without the debate becoming personal in nature. I suppose this is more of the way Modernists confronted controversy, and now those rules don't work in our postmodern world.

James Sire in "The Universe Next Door" states that for the existentialist, because truth is grounded in one's experience, "knowledge becomes inextricably bound to the knower." Criticize my knowledge and you've criticized me. Push me towards the logical conclusion of my argument, and if I lose the argument, I've been mortally wounded somehow - literally. Because knowledge is based in my experience, then truth is based in my experience. If my experience is insufficient, then I lose worth and value on a very personal level. The inexperience of a novice becomes a personal flaw and a shameful thing rather than an opportunity to come into greater understanding of truth and maturity. Nihilism is the only logical and ultimate end.

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Tragically Misplaced Love of the Ideal Family

Excerpt from

"Confronting the Idolatry of Family"

by Janet Fishburn

The loyalty of church members to visions of an ideal family is a tragically misplaced love. Where love of parents, children, or spouse commands more commitment than love to God, the one who loves is bound to be disappointed. Love to family members and spouse can be an expression of love to God. But that is different from the kind of faith in the family found in many congregations.

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"Biblical" Modifiers and Discernment

Of the many oddities of post-Christian culture, many in the church seem to have also inherited a tendency towards a type of postmodern discernment (or lack thereof). Postmodernism prefers intuitive reasoning and many Christians who have been raised in the era of postmodernism prefer it as well. "Heart knowledge" is preferred to "head knowledge" in many denominations, thus many Christian leaders actually teach this kind of subjective reasoning and validation of truth. Also consider that we are now bombarded with considerably more information that we can reasonably consider, and ideology is now marketed right along with goods and services. If we possess adequate discernment skills, we may have no time or opportunity to objectively evaluate things, especially ideas.

We Christians fall prey to this all the time. It’s very easy to assume that when someone uses the same type of religious language that we are talking about the same religious concepts. This is increasingly not the case in our information-driven world. Christians even capitalize on this, using the emotional connotation of certain words and concepts to package their beliefs. Trusting the language of the heart can pull us into subjective reasoning if we are not discerning. Also, if we trust the source of the information, we also let our guard down, assuming that we don’t have to critically evaluate new messages. When we trust language, even when we have great confidence in the source, we make ourselves vulnerable.

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A Mini Postmodern Primer

Postmodernity:

• Originally a term coined in 1949 to describe architectural style, specifically dissatifaction with modern architecture. It grew into a derivative meaning used to describe culture and history as a reaction to modernism.
• It is halmarked by deconstructionism and a rejection of the hegemonic and elitist aspects of the culture and characteristics of modernism.
• Commercialism stemming from the capitalism of the elitist and bourgeous Western Culture is often associated with postmodernity.
• Some argue that postmodernism represents an accumulated disillusionment with the promises of the Enlightenment project and its progress of science, so central to modern thinking.

Deconstructionism:

• A philosophical movement and theory of literary criticism that questions traditional assumptions about certainty, identity, and truth;
• Asserts that words can only refer to other words; and attempts to demonstrate how statements about any text subvert their own meanings: "In deconstruction, the critic claims there is no meaning to be found in the actual text, but only in the various, often mutually irreconcilable, 'virtual texts' constructed by readers in their search for meaning" (Rebecca Goldstein). (dictionary definition);
• The more common use of the term is the more general process of pointing to contradictions between the intent and surface of a work and the assumptions about it. A work then "deconstructs" assumptions when it places them in context.
• For example, someone who can pass as the opposite sex may be said to "deconstruct" gender identity, because there is a conflict between the superficial appearance and the reality of the person's gender. (from Wikipedia on postmodernism)

Hyperreal:

• An artistic style characterized by highly realistic graphic representation. (dictionary definition);
• Postmodern concept that the real, everyday aspects of the objective world are somehow less real than perceived hyperreality.
• (The hyperrealist says: “There’s got to be more to life than this, and there is a place or some mechanism in this world that will help me realize the really real – the hyperreal.”)
• Symbolism becomes drastically important as a mechanism of communication.

Simulacra:

• An image or representation that is actually not real or “unreal” by connotation.
• Can be used as another postmodern synonym for the “hyperreal.”

Kitsch:

• Sentimentality or vulgar, often pretentious bad taste, especially in the arts: "When money tries to buy beauty it tends to purchase a kind of courteous kitsch" (William H. Gass) (dictionary definition);

A term of German origin that has been used to categorize art that is considered an inferior copy of an existing style. The term is also used more loosely in referring to any art that is pretentious to the point of being in bad taste, and also commercially produced items that are considered trite or crass. (from Wikipedia)

In other words, we don’t buy products or services based on their own merit and true, objective value a logical person would expect. We buy kitsch and accept kitsch and want kitsch because good advertising campaigns influence our decision making processes. We allow ourselves to enter altered states of consciousness in response to media which bypasses our critical thought processes.

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Brief Review: On Simulacra and Kitsch of Postmodernism

Postmodernism.

Even if one rejects the concept of the inherent and inevitable decline of civilizations, one cannot reject the overwhelming trend of evidence that chronicles the decay of America and Western culture. Crime, illiteracy, racism and economic volatility document the disintegration of our society. With the dawn of postmodernism, the central ideas of society have been replaced with abstractions and substitutions for meaningful objectivity.

“Meaning implodes” as all contexts are absorbed into the communication medium and the “medium becomes the message.” The simulation replaces the objective context, thus creating simulacra, the “hyper-real,” to which an empty, false metaphysical value is ascribed. With only relative frames of reference for morality and meaning, denial of the objective content of living and the spirit of life produces an underlying metaphysical despair.

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Postmodernism and Deconstructionism

Theorists struggle with the definition of deconstructionism, as it is not easily or well-defined. Supposedly, it does not represent a method or school of philosophy for the purpose of textual criticism. However, the term deconstruction represents a type of textual criticism that attempts to identify the unwritten assumptions, presuppositions of a literary work or ideology, hopefully arriving at understanding of the thought or belief conveyed.

The process complicates the meaning of a work or idea by a sort-of critiquing it through a nihilistic viewpoint or cynicism. In some ways, it may be seen as an attempt to re-infuse metaphysical principles and consideration back into thought and culture that modernism and the age of reason tended to neglect. It could be, perhaps a means of seeking truth within a system that does not recognize or only accepts truth with much distrust and cynicism. Or stated differently, it is an attempt to reason by means of the logical fallacy of circular reasoning. Deconstructionism can never escape it’s own presuppositions of cynical distrust and denial of objective truth, while it dubiously attempts to arrive at truth.

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How did we become “Postmodern?”

Each era of human history presented its unique challenges and benefits, shaping and influencing culture as the culture answered those unique challenges. We ask ourselves and decide as a culture of subcultures just how we will live. Each phase or era has commonalities concerning proper conduct, correct reason and process, the nature of reality and valid knowledge.

Most people recognize the Ancient Greeks and the Hellenistic Period. I’m going to skip forward to more modern day eras, and eras within eras. Modernism, the common thought governing the industrial revolution, science and ethics at the turn of the last century was rather hopeful. The outlook was positive and objectivity became all important. Science and technology as well as acquired knowledge provided man with power to transcend his circumstances. People are seen as basically good and subjective aspects of man became secondary considerations. Science and knowledge would save us, and secular humanism thrived under these conditions.

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Postmodernism and Truth

Excerpt from "On Truth" by Harry G. Frankfurt:

“We live at a time when, strange to say, many quite cultivated individuals consider truth to be unworthy of any particular respect. It is well known of course, that a cavalier attitude toward truth is more or less endemic within the ranks of publicists and politicians, breeds whose exemplars characteristically luxuriate in the production of BS, of lies, and of whatever other modes of fraudulence and fakery they are able to devise. That is old news, and we are accustomed to it.

Recently though, a similar version of this attitude – or indeed, a more extreme version of it – has become disturbingly widespread even within what might naively have been thought to be a more reliable class of people. Numerous unabashed skeptics and cynics about the importance of truth (or about the related importance of long-established strictures against plagiarism) have been found among best-selling and prize-winning authors, among writers for leading newspapers, and among hitherto respected historians, biographers, memoirists, theorists of literature, novelists – and even among philosophers, who of all people might reasonably have been counted upon to know better.

These shameless antagonists of common sense – members of a certain emblematic subgroup of them call themselves “postmodernists” – rebelliously and self-righteously deny that truth has any genuine objective reality at all. They therefore go on to deny that truth is worthy of any obligatory deference or respect. Indeed, they emphatically dismiss a presumption that is not only utterly fundamental to responsible inquiry and thought, but that would seem to be – on the face of it – entirely innocuous: the presumption that “what the facts are” is a useful notion, or that it is, at the very least, a notion with intelligible meaning. As for the entitlements to deference or to respect that we ordinarily assign to fact and to truth, the postmodernists’ view is that in the end the assignment of those entitlements is just up for grabs. It is simply a matter, they insist at how you look at things.”

COMMENTS:

Cindy said...
How pathetic is it to comment on one's own blog????I love this quote, but it does not make a distinction between the value of opinions and/or unique perspective. I'd like to comment.I often defend opinions that I do not embrace as valuable if they demonstrate internal consistency and the purveyor of the opinion shows respect for my own different one. I believe that not one man has a corner on absolute truth, so in the spirit of respect, I seek to find the value in perspectives of others. (We may all be looking at the same object and describing what we see objectively but with different language.) I believe that we become arrogant and ignorant when we fail to listen to others out of prejudice or fear of differing worldview presuppostions.Acknoledgement and respect of differing viewpoints gives one the wisdom of greater understanding when carried out with due credulity. Many people, uncomfortable or easily intimidated by diversity, wrongly perceive my respect as a totalistic condoning of perspectives that may be untrue and unreliable. This practice does not in any way negate or cheapen one's own perspective or anything that represents objective truth. I believe if we are all seeking the best possible understanding of truth, that truth will make itself evident and will refute all falsehoodAugust 4, 2007 8:27 PM

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