When The Shift Hits The Fan (Part 3)

As changes have occurred at the national level they have also been dispersed throughout the land to individual cities, even small cities. There are several major ways that these ideas, this Postmodern worldview (if that’s what we want to call it), have been spread. Television, music, the Internet, and pop-culture in general are some of the major ways, but one can hardly ignore increased travel (vacationing and school trips), along with generational increases in college education, and simple relays like “word-of-mouth.” The important point is that even a small city like Portsmouth,OH can have the same worldview as the larger culture in this day and age.

Art has always worked as a driving force for philosophical ideas. Francis Schaeffer records how Van Eyck (1380-1441) created the first landscape painting (1410), and was promoting the new view of the primacy of nature. Schaeffer comments on the work:

The theme [of the painting] is Jesus’ baptism, but this takes up only a small section of the area. There is a river in the background, a very real castle, houses, hills and so on – this is a real landscape; nature has become important. After this, such landscapes spread rapidly from the north to the south of Europe.[1]

Other artists have promoted numerous theological and philosophical ideas. Lucas Cranach, Martin Luther’s official painter, was only one of the key artists in Germany who helped to spread the word and the excitement of the Protestant Reformation.[2] Marcel Duchamp with his paint brush, and John Cage with his musical scores both promoted chance and destruction.[3] And while Freud was trying to persuade the academic world about his new ideas concerning psychotherapy, one of his patients, H.D., was writing literature that beautifully and destructively said the same things (perhaps with a bit more sense, though not much more). And perhaps the best known modern artistic representation of an ideology is the film Brokeback Mountain, whose director, Ang Lee, is on a self-professed campaign to promote homosexuality.

Art hasn’t done all bad either, despite what some Fundamentalists might say. Both C.S. Lewis’ and J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy novels are some of the most beautifully written expressions, outside of Scripture, of the Christian faith. The comic book super hero Superman is a fascinating Christ-figure, who in many ways represents the hero that we are all longing for. The 2007 films Waitress and Juno both, if perhaps unintentionally, promote pro-life agendas. The list could go on, but it will suffice for now to say that art promotes ideas and it is as true today as ever. Postmodernism has been dispersed into smaller communities thanks to the ubiquitous nature of art and particularly of mass media and pop-culture.

A young man in a small town, even a town like Portsmouth, who is not exposed to as much ethnic diversity as someone living in a larger city is still learning the basic principles of Postmodernism and Religious Pluralism by means of the shows he watches on television. Oprah tells middle-aged women all over the U.S. about how to incorporate their Christian faith in with New Age Mysticism. Talk show host/model, Tyra Banks reminds young women everywhere that gay or straight, religious or not, Christian or Buddhist, we are all okay. Will and Grace shows us that homosexuality is probably more fun, and certainly less messy than heterosexuality. And movies like Disney’s The Lion King give us all a taste for a blended smoothie of Pantheism and the Power of Positive Thinking (Hakunnah Matata)![4] Religious pluralism and postmodern tolerance weasels its way into the most conservative families in the simplest cities, the results of a recent survey given to college students in Portsmouth reveals much of this.

The survey ranged in questions from personal life, to city awareness, to religious belief. The answers were rather surprising. Portsmouth is a small city, with a population of roughly 21, 000.[5] The median age was about 38, and yet with numerous “Christian” churches religious beliefs are surprisingly diverse. On the question “My Present Religious Belief Is” the answers “Other” and “Evangelical Christian” were tied. What’s more surprising is the number of answers that “Evangelical Christians” gave which did not fall in line with Evangelicalism. On the question “Jesus Christ Is,” almost 99% of both “Evangelical Christian” and “Other” said “Jesus Christ is a Savior among many.” Almost 100% said “Man is basically good,” 80% said homosexuality is “right,” and nearly every single person interviewed said that they got their beliefs from their own studies (which was greater than those who said that got their beliefs solely from the Bible). While less than half said that “All Religions Are Equally Valid,” their other answers show plenty signs of syncretism, both with religious pluralism and with cultural adaptation. Those who worshiped nothing were extremely rare, but of those who worshiped God only one said that Jesus was the only savior of sinners. Of those who admitted to acquiring their faith from the Bible, most added that they also got their convictions from other areas (including: self, college professors, culture, friends, television, and music).

What does all this mean? Multiple interpretations are possible, surely. Perhaps the students did not understand the survey. Perhaps we have not interviewed enough people.[6]Or perhaps, as the diversity of collegiate clubs reveals, Postmodernism has reached this small town.