I’ve been troubled by two extremes in the Christian response to Postmodernism. The first “response” I encountered twelve years ago seemed to be saying, “People see truth differently now, so we need to change our beliefs to fit into theirs.” While I recognized a shift of basic paradigms, I couldn’t accept the idea that Jesus’ church ought to embrace all the assumptions of a new world-view.
In the last couple of years, I’ve seen tremendous backlash. Postmodern Christian leaders have been labeled as “liberal” and “not really Christian.” I don’t accept everything I hear under the “Postmodern” banner, but neither do I feel right in excluding from grace those who are working hard to offer Christ to a new generation.
That is why I like the few pages of N.T. Wright’s Paul. As he wraps up an attempt to be true to Jesus, Paul, and current thinking, Wright suggest a third alternative. What if Postmodernism is a gift to the church, exposing the non-Christian assumptions laced throughout modernism? We can accept the critique that Postmoderns offer of modernism without accepting their conclusions. Instead, we can use the shift of cultures to go directly back to the Bible and try to understand what the Spirit is revealing through scripture.