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By Jim Leffel and Dennis McCallum,
contributors | posted 7/16/2001
Religion
has sustained over a century of attack from modernists. Yet,
people today are as interested in spiritual things as ever.
Recently, sociologists have shown that 95% of adults believe
in God or a Universal Spirit. Books on angels, near death
experiences, New Age, Christianity and the occult top the
best seller lists. While people are still interested in spiritual
things today, the kind of spirituality commanding interest
has changed vastly in recent years.
Today
spirituality means mystical experience, not truth.
We can seek and savor any experience we please, as long as
we remain inclusive and tolerant.
The Two
Cardinal Sins of Postmodern Religious Culture
Sin #1.
Intolerance
Not too
long ago, intolerance meant rejecting or even persecuting
practitioners of other religions. Not any more. Now, intolerance
means questioning the validity of any aspect of another's
religion. To the majority of Americans below fifty today,
questioning the truthfulness of another's religious views
is intolerant and morally offensive. This prohibition
against differing with other's viewpoints is postmodern.
One Exception
Strangely,
it turns out that one exception is allowed to this universal
prohibition against intolerance. For some reason, it's okay
to question and even denounce religious views when dealing
with what is pejoratively labeled "fundamentalism."
Today, when people refer to "fundamentalists" they
no longer mean just religious extremists like the Shiites
waging holy war against the West. Today, fundamentalism
may refer to anyone who claims to know truth or who charges
another religion with falsehood. Fundamentalists are in
the wrong because they subscribe to universal truth claims
(metanarratives), and are therefore "totalistic,"
or "logocentric," in their thinking.
Sin #2.
Objectivity
Postmodernists
argue that modernists use reason to exclude people. When people
apply reason to religion, before long, someone's reality is
being branded "false." This is not inclusive, and
it is also harsh and naive, because:
- First,
questioning another's beliefs implies that we can refer
to an external objective reality, when in fact, reality
is a social construct. By trying to apply rationality to
religion, we are really trying to impose enlightenment European
culture onto others.
- Also,
by challenging the truth claims of another's religion, we
devalue the person who is the source of his or her own truth.
Thus,
under the banner of inclusiveness postmodern thinkers actually
include all but one group-- those of us who are committed
to biblical authority. According to postmodernists, fundamentalists
are those who believe religious teachings are true or false,
not just within their own paradigm, but over all paradigms.
"Fundamentalists" view religious truth as objectively
true, and therefore subject to rational scrutiny. Evangelicals
certainly fall within this circle because we believe that
if something is true, its opposite cannot be true at the same
time, regardless of what paradigm a person holds.
Postmodernism
and Eastern Mysticism
Borrowing or Coincidence?
Observers
of religion are aware of an intrinsic relativism in eastern
mystical traditions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism.
As Monistic faiths, these religions teach that everything
is part of one essence. All these traditions not only reject
reason as tool for discovering truth, they even utilize
contradiction on the rational level to drive learners to a
deeper or higher plane of understanding. For instance, Buddhism
describes the Tao as the sound of one hand clapping. The Hindu
Brahman is "always and never." Such paradoxical
thinking, with its rejection of rationality, is naturally
compatible with postmodernism.
Also,
neither eastern religion nor postmodernism accept the reality
of the world we observe in an objective sense. In Hinduism,
the material world is Maya, which means illusion.
What seems real to us (the material world) is an illusion.
We have already seen how postmodernism holds that reality
is a social construct.
Although
it is tempting to think these two outlooks have borrowed,
one from the other, this is apparently not the case. Instead,
they are compatible outlooks which have made common cause
in popular culture, often blended with native spiritualities
and New Age consciousness. Remember, tribal nature religions
also make no use of reason in their paths to knowledge of
the world. These religions rely on tradition and intuition
for know spiritual things, none of which can be tested in
any way by reason.
Other
contemporary movements have proven to be compatible with postmodernism
as well. Some aspects of the recovery movement are strongly
suggestive of postmodern thought.
What do
we suggest when we urge group members to give themselves to
"God as you understand him" or to their "higher
power?" Ultimately such vague and subjective formulas
suggest that the content of belief is irrelevant. A
higher power could be the God of the Bible, but it could also
be anything from the recovery group itself (which is often
encouraged) to a New Age concept of "the god within"
to the gods of Buddhism. [AA's cofounder, Bill W., states,
" . . .the designation 'God' [does not] refer to a particular
being, force or concept, but only to 'God' as each of us understands
that term." AlAnon's Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions,
(New York: Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, 1981) p. ix.
Alcoholics Anonymous doctrine also teaches explicitly that
the support group can act as one's "higher power."
See Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 25.]
People
might have a religious experience with such a higher power,
but one thing is discounted: The importance of propositional
truth. Or, to put it differently, postmodern worshipers
are like postmodern readers; they are the source of
truth, not the discoverers of truth.
The literature
of the recovery movement teaches that it is inappropriate
to question another person's higher power, because recovery
is tied to their belief in the power of the God of their understanding.
When you think about it, Twelve Step spirituality is distinctly
postmodern in the way personal interpretation or experience
and personal empowerment are substituted for truth
about God.
Consciousness
and Reality
Postmodern
thought also dovetails neatly another feature of New Age Consciousness:
The way consciousness can create or alter reality. In New
Age religion, mental imaging can create new realities, not
unlike the way affirmative postmodernists hope to create new
realities. Although New Age thinkers have not thus far demonstrated
the fascination with political power seen in postmodern circles,
they also favor oppressed tribal peoples as more pure than
western culture.
Experience
and Authority in Religion
Of the
several religious leaders we profile in The Death of Truth,
most explicitly say that personal experience is the key
to understanding religion. Most also call for dissociation
as a preface to the religious experience. Dissociation
is the loss of conscious awareness of the real world. Specifically,
postmodern religionists call for people to leave all rational
categories behind before ascending to the godhead. Thus,
they see one thing as the supreme barrier to deep religion:
Reason, and its handmaiden, truth.
Whether
it's Joseph Campbell, John Bradshaw or Fredrick Turner, all
agree that we must first take leave of our senses before trying
to know spiritual things. How similar they are to some calls
within the evangelical church!
The Rest
of the Story
In The
Death of Truth, our chapters on Religion and
Evangelical Imperatives, and Practical Communication Ideas
cover:
- How
specific leading postmodern religionists think in their
own words
- How
postmodernism has also crept into the evangelical church
- Practical
ways we can communicate with our postmodern culture without
losing our grip on truth
Copyright
© 1996 Xenos Christian Fellowship.
All Rights Reserved.
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