I Grow Weary of “Enlightened” Postmoderns

Arrogance is particularly unattractive when it is accompanied by hypocrisy. There’s much about postmodernism that is worth commending. It’s chastening of the arrogance of modernism, for starters. But many of the self-identified postmodernists I run into these days have their own brand of conceit.

Postmodernism as a credible philosophy had a short life-span. It has long since died in philosophy departments across the U.S. (and it had earlier across the pond). But Christians are always late to the party and so many continue to use it to approach the Scriptures and theology in general. Often there is an accompanying attitude that intimates that they have unlocked what centuries of church tradition and theological study could not. In some ways it is the height of hubris.

But to make matters worse, many postmodernists keep insisting that good theology requires humility. I fully agree with the need for humble theology, but I don’t think it begins by asserting my own abilities to deduce what centuries of competent Christians have missed. often this hubris is found in “theologians” with no professional training who are merely parroting what they have read or heard from someone else. It also frequently lacks any Scriptural support for its theology. The truth is I have just grown weary of these “enlightened” postmodernists.

Of course not all postmodernists are this way. Some are genuinely humble, gracious, and attempting to conform their ideals to Scripture. While I may often disagree with their conclusions, I appreciate their attitude. Afterall humility isn’t just important for theology, it’s important for building relationships. Those postmodernists, however, who feel themselves enlightened above all other scholars, particularly above those “backwoods Fundamentalists,” have worn me out. They speak and write as if they personally will be the salvation of the church. They goad you into arguments to reveal that you haven’t read as much Derrida as they have. They throw around words like “ontology” as if the mere use of the word gives them the upper hand in a discussion. They constantly ask you to redefine and reinterpret centuries of defended and well articulated beliefs, but they ask you to do so without any real grounds for such a transformation. And in all of this I have grown weary.

I love my so-called postmodernist brothers and sisters. I think some of them have hoped on the bandwagon and if not careful will find themselves deluded when teh rest of theology realizes how stupid postmodernism is. I fear some of them will become disillusioned with the whole faith, and some will talk themselves out of the faith without even knowing it. Postmodernism has had some limited value, but it’s not healthy long-term. And arrogant postmodernism is doubly deadly. Modernists do need challenged for their arrogance, but they don’t need replaced by arrogant postmodernists. Such an exchange offers theology and theological discussions nothing of value.