An Introduction to Postmodernism (and Why It's Not a Bad Word)

by Matt Kelley Maybe you think postmodernism doesnt have anything to do with you and what you do. But guess what? Postmodernism has a lot to do with you and your ministry to teenagers. Those who are truly interested in ministering to youth today have to understand and engage postmodernism, because whether we recognize it or not this generation is highly in luenced by postmodern attitudes. Postmodernism is only going to gain in luence, so we might as well understand what were dealing with. The good news is, postmodernism can be a very positive thing or your students and their aith. Perhaps its not even air to talk about postmodernism as a speci ic movement. !n proper "nglish grammar, one only capitalizes the name o a movement or structure i you can point to a speci ic beginning or central organizing body, such as the #oman $atholic $hurch or the %emocratic Party. There was no single individual who woke up one day and decided to start postmodernism, nor is there one central igure who embodies what it means to be postmodern. !n act, even attempting a de inition o postmodernism is di icult, perhaps even impossible, because so many areas o study have a group that can be called postmodern. Perhaps the place to start is to look at the word itsel . &ince the pre i' post is another way o saying after or beyond, perhaps the irst step to understanding postmodernism is to look at what modernism is.

Modernity
(hile we generally describe something as modern i its the newest thing on the block, modernism itsel is several hundred years old. Modernism inds its roots in the "nlightenment o the )*th and )+th centuries with philosophers such as #en, %escartes and !mmanuel -ant. %escartes best.known sound bite, /! think, there ore ! am0 sums up what modernism is all about. The human mind is li ted up as the ape' o evolution because o its capacity to reason. 1ur ability to reason and learn and discover new things would lead us towards the per ect society, our medical advances would end all disease, and our technology would complete our dominance over Mother 2ature. Because each o us has this mental capacity, modernists li ted up the individual as the most important component o a society, rather than the amily or local community. Traditional structures o authority 3like the church4 were challenged because they were considered to be an a ront to peoples ability to think and reason or themselves. 5s a result, the church became more marginalized and society became what we now call secular. $learly, the values o modernism are alive and well in (estern society. 5nd clearly the values o modernism have invaded the church. 5ll o this started to break down in the 67th century. !n "urope, (orld (ar ! was hailed as /the war to end all wars,0 with promises that the troops would be home by $hristmas. !nstead, the our.year bloodbath killed a whole bunch o young men and displayed an evil side to technological progress. (orld (ar !! drove the point home even urther with the systematic genocide o si' million 8ews and the advent o nuclear weapons. Technology and progress clearly have their dark sides. !n the 9nited &tates the stock market crash o ):6: and the ensuing ;reat %epression displayed the limits o humanitys ingenuity and will to succeed. !t was at this time that the phenomenon we now call postmodernism began to arise.

Tenets of Postmodernism
Postmodernism isnt an outright re<ection o modernism in the way that modernism re<ected what had come be ore it. People who are postmodern seek to preserve modern attitudes and philosophies that they ind help ul, as well as rediscovering older traditions and ways o thinking. !n his book, Postmodern Youth Ministry, Tony 8ones identi ies several attitudes present within our postmodern culture. Subjectivity Postmoderns recognize that its almost impossible to be ob<ective about anything. 1ur socio.economic backgrounds, our upbringings, our riends, our educational levels, and everything else about us in luence the way we perceive every situation. "ven when we simply observe a situation, we interact with it and change it to some degree. =uman beings simply cannot be totally ob<ective>and thats okay. Postmoderns seek to understand more ully what it is that a ects the way we see things. 1nly by recognizing this inherent and inescapable sub<ectivity can we see more clearly. The result? postmodernism is all about sel . awareness. Truth Postmoderns also have a nuanced view o truth. &ome go as ar as to say /there is no Truth with a capital @T.0

5s with sub<ectivity, postmodernism recognizes that what we hold to be true is anchored in undamental assumptions that vary rom person to person. This scares many $hristians, because it sounds suspiciously like moral relativism? the idea that theres no absolute truth. (hile many secular postmoderns certainly all into the camp o moral relativism, thats not the case with all postmoderns. Postmodern $hristians dont necessarily believe that theres no absolute truth, but many believe that its very hard to understand and even harder to articulate. The 8ewish philosopher Martin Buber believed that truth is the very essence o ;od, and that ;od cannot be contained by human language. To be able to understand and articulate something is to e'ercise a degree o control over it, and we certainly cannot control ;od. Postmodern $hristians believe that truth, like ;od, is transcendent and can only be encountered through being, not through intellectual understanding. Questioning 5s a result o these attitudes about sub<ectivity and truth, postmoderns believe that everything must be Auestioned. This can be another scary thing or $hristians, because Auestioning basic assumptions and things weve taken or granted all our lives can seem to border on heresy. =owever, postmoderns believe that people cant truly believe something unless theyve honestly considered that the alternative might be true. This is very di erent rom the type o apologetics ound in Bee &trobels The Case for Christ, or 8osh Mc%owells More Evidence that Demands a Verdict, which are based on the modern idea o reason and rationaleCconvincing ourselves beyond any doubt. Paul Tillich, one o the most important theologians o the 67th century, maintained that doubt is an essential element o true aith. &uper icial aith is that which holds on to supposed truths or the sake o security. Tillich said that /this element o uncertainty in aith cannot be removed, it must be accepted.0 Tillich articulated a postmodern attitude by recognizing that an element o doubt or uncertainty is an integral part o aith precisely because o the radical transcendence o ;od and ;ods truth. Because the mortal mind can never /possess0 ;od, the li e o aith always involves an'iety.

Postmodernism and Youth Ministry

(hile its ine to understand that these are some, though certainly not all, o the attitudes o postmodernism, the Auestion still remains? what does this have to do with me and my work in youth ministry? !n his book, Purpose Driven Youth Ministry, %oug Dields identi ies ive essential purposes or youth ministry? ministry, ellowship, worship, discipleship, and evangelism. (hile Dields himsel insists that this model isnt the end.all and be.all o youth ministry, its a help ul structure to e'amine how Postmodernism a ects your youth group. Ministry Dields de ines ministry as /meeting needs with love.0 Ministry is also about helping kids ind their passion and their calling rom ;od. 1ne o the most e ective ways that many youth ministries do this is to take mission trips. Many o you have vivid memories o loading up vans ull o teenagers, very brave adult volunteers, tools, and piles o luggage, going out to the middle o nowhere to serve people you dont even know, being tired and sweaty, having no sleep and bad oodCand loving itE Teenagers come back rom mission trips with a deeper aith commitment and a strong desire to serve ;od in their own communities. This its in per ectly with postmodern attitudes. #emember, postmodernism is all about sel .awareness. Postmodern teenagers pre er to e'perience something rather than <ust hearing about it. 5 youth worker can preach servanthood and sel lessness all he or she wants, but it takes an e'perience o servanthood to drive those words home. Postmodernism encourages kids to be introspective and ind the meaning behind the ministry. !t both challenges and deepens their aith. Fellowship Dellowship is a ancy word or community building. #emember, one o the chie values o modernism is the individual. Modernism also preaches that technology is the way o the uture. The last decade has seen the rise o the !nternet, cell phones, and other communication technologies that were supposed to bring us all closer together. !nstead they have isolated us rom actual human contact. =owever, our desires or contact and community drive us to !nternet chat rooms, instant messaging, !nternet dating services, and an ever.growing voyeuristic ascination with reality TF. This is what modernism has brought us. Postmodernism, on the other hand, re<ects the alse claims that technology will bring us together. Many postmodern $hristians are involved in intentional communities where people get away rom their computers, turn o their cell phones, and share openly and honestly about whats going on in their lives. Postmodernism embraces the old ashioned idea o community and emphasizes the value o ellowship and authentic relationships. Worship Bike ellowship and community, modernism tells us that worship isnt necessary because we can igure it all out or ourselves through reason. ! we absolutely have to believe in ;od, we can encounter ;od <ust ine by ourselves. (hile postmodernism doesnt deny that one can and should have signi icant individual encounters with the Bord, having those encounters in a community setting is eAually as important. Postmodern $hristians

recognize that they can learn rom other peoples e'periences and insights into the divine, and they actively seek out that knowledge rom others. Postmoderns also recognize the value o tradition. Many youth groups have abandoned spotlights, Power Point presentations, and electric guitars 3not that theyre not cool, too4 in avor o candlelight, contemplative music or pure silence, and ancient spiritual disciplines such as lectio divina, !gnatian prayer, and Taiz,.style worship. Postmodernism encourages us to e'plore worship as an e'periential and participatory act. !t takes seriously 8esus words in Matthew )+?67? /Dor where two or three are gathered in my name, ! am there among them.0 Discipleship Dields calls discipleship the /building up or strengthening o believers in their Auest to be like $hrist.0 9n ortunately, the way discipleship is sometimes practiced is tainted by modernist values. Modernity values e iciency and is results.oriented. Modernists say that i we can <ust get a kid not to drink, smoke, or have premarital se', then weve done our <ob. Thats ine until we remember that 8esus said i we even look at someone lust ully weve committed adultery in our hearts 3Matthew G?6+4. Dields use o the word quest to describe discipleship is actually a per ect metaphor rom a postmodern perspective. Postmoderns tend to think o their aith in terms o journey rather than event. Through this lens, $hristian discipleship is truly a Auest, an adventure. Postmodern discipleship cares more about the condition o our kids hearts than about their actions. 1bviously, postmodern youth workers arent going to tell teenagers that its a good idea to drink, smoke, and have casual se'H what they do is eAuip teenagers with insights, knowledge about the possible conseAuences o their actions, and Auestions to ask themselves when aced with a moral decision. The postmodern method o discipleship gives kids the tools they need to know why they should make moral decisionsH it doesnt <ust tell them what they must do. Thus, their behavior will re lect whats in their hearts, which is, a ter all, what ;od really cares about. Evangelism "vangelism is probably the area where postmodernism is most scary to $hristians. Postmodernism calls us not only to Auestion how we do evangelism, but also whether or not we should ollow the traditional evangelical paradigm. 5s already stated, Modernism values reason, e iciency, and results. The prime e'ample o modernist evangelism is ound in the Dour &piritual Baws. The booklet backs up each o its propositions with Bible verses. This /proo .te'ting,0 as some biblical scholars call it, ollows the classic steps o a reasoned argument? proposition and proo , proposition and proo . The Dour &piritual Baws are e icient, because they sum up an interpretation o the gospel message in simple, easy.to.understand terms. Iouth workers can train students to share this booklet in less than an hour. The booklet is the epitome o evangelical e iciency. The Dour &piritual Baws are also results oriented. The entire presentation is designed to get the listener to pray the &inners Prayer and to be /saved.0 Postmodernism calls into Auestion the assumptions lying behind this strategy o evangelism. The biggest assumption behind the Dour &piritual Baws booklet is that both the listener and the sharer believe the same things about the Bible. The $hristian sharing the Dour Baws believes the Bible to be the authoritative (ord o ;od. The problem is that the listener is unsaved. 31therwise, why would you be sharing with them? #esults oriented, remember?4 &o they dont necessarily consider the Bible to be authoritative, much less in allible. They wont necessarily be convinced by the proo o ered to back up the intellectual propositions. 1ne could always use the 6 Timothy J?)K argument that all &cripture is inspired by ;od, but to say that one should believe that the Bible is per ectly true because the Bible says so is circular reasoning, which wouldnt be accepted by any rational modernist. Postmodernism calls into Auestion our sub<ective assumptions. To a postmodern $hristian, evangelism doesnt begin with the assertion o certain acts, but a re lection upon how an individual has e'perienced the =oly in her own li e. &he then searches or points o connection in someone elses li e. Postmodernism seriously Auestions whether or not true evangelism happens on street corners or brie encounters on the beach. !t suggests that true evangelism happens in homes, co ee houses, and late.night talks in dorm rooms. Postmodern evangelism is the sharing o souls rather than the imparting o doctrine. (hether or not we recognize it, we all have the inherent sub<ectivity o postmodern thought in our own lives. Postmodernism encourages us to have the sel .awareness to be honest about whats already there. (hile some may see this as an a ront to aith, others see postmodernism as a return to aith. !ts a willingness to engage the mystery thats an implicit part o the $hristian aith. Postmodernism is here to stay, and i youth workers can recognize what it is and how to engage it, it can be an ally in helping students deepen their personal aith. 5 ter all, =ebrews ))?) tells us that / aith is the assurance o things hoped or, the conviction o things not seen.0