INTRODUCTION
A recently-aired television commercial captures perfectly a scene which speaks volumes concerning the age in which we live. It is set in a quaint rural European village where there is an old cobblestone bridge raised high above the quickly flowing current of a rushing river below. The people of the village have gathered on the bridge with their attention focused upon a man standing on the guardrail of the bridge. As the view sweeps up from the man’s feet to his head, it becomes apparent that he has created and attached wings to his arms and is fully arraigned and ready to “fly.” In one act he leaps from the bridge, extends his “wings,” and begins to soar through the air, slowly losing altitude as he distances himself from the bridge and swoops toward the water. The people are amazed and express their satisfaction with “ooh’s” and “aah’s” of exultation. The camera then scrolls over the top of this throng to show a single man walking back to the village shaking his head in dissatisfaction. As he walks, he says these words: “He can fly, but he can’t swim.”
This scene captures the difference between the modern age, with all its inventions and answers, and the postmodern age, with its dissatisfaction with modernity. Modernity brought many inventions and brand new ideas on how life ought to be. The age to follow it has become one in which people see these advances but see rampant failures in almost every area of society. This overwhelming dissatisfaction is the spirit of the postmodern philosophy. David Wells says, “Postmodern thinkers are the vanguard of a profound reaction to the failure of the Enlightenment project, giving expression to a deeply held suspicion that modernity is in fact the enemy of human life.”1 Each generation has unique
philosophies that define its working, values, and characteristics. For the present generation, there cannot be an intelligent conversation of the philosophies affecting society without discussing the philosophy of postmodernism. For the Christian, it is evident that postmodernism is the philosophy of the age and that it has already begun to act as an erosive force against biblical truth and practice. For this reason, it is important for Christians to have a thorough understanding of what postmodernism is, what significance it has on key positions of Christian faith, and how this philosophical undercurrent has affected the ministry of churches.
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CHAPTER ONE
WHAT IS POSTMODERNISM?
Postmodernism Defined
Postmodernism in its very essence makes it hard to define. It contains within its own philosophy one of distrust for truth and definition. Gertrude Himmelfarb vividly demonstrates this with the following description: “Postmodernism is the denial of the very idea of truth, reality, objectivity, reason or facts – all words which postmodernists now actually put in quotation marks! It’s a totally permissive philosophy – anything goes – and it’s extraordinary how far it has gone.”2 Postmodernism takes on the characteristic of rebellion to modernity and questions any answers or findings of modernity. Os Guinness says, “In sum, postmodernism is a total repudiation of modernism and an extreme form of relativism. Paradoxically, it is almost an absolute relativism.”3 Whatever postmodernists feel helped bring resolution in the past is now put into question. They prefer to “experience” life and come to their own conclusions, though they may only be conclusions for a moment. Elmer Towns summarizes the trade off in a postmodernist philosophy with the following shifts: “relationship over task, journey over destination, authenticity over excellence, experience over proposition, mystery over solution and diversity over uniformity.” #p#分頁標題#e#
 
It is helpful to understand postmodernism in its relation to modernism. It is a reactionary way of thinking and living in light of modernism’s failing. Because it is reactionary, it cannot in all aspects be its total opposite, though that seems to occur in many of its characteristics. There seem to be characteristics in postmodernism of both its adding to modernism and characteristics of anti-modernism, much the way a rebellious child deplores his parent, yet, unknown to him, has glaring similarities. Regarding this characteristic, D.A. Carson writes, “It is difficult to imagine postmodernism without modernism. Postmodernism begins with many of the assumptions of modernism, but heads off in a different direction. Reacting against the worst evils of modernism, it turns around and devours its parent, refusing to recognize its own origin.”5 Ihab Hassan captures perfectly the contrasting characteristics of modernism and postmodernism stating:
Modernists believe in determinacy; postmodernists believe in indeterminacy. Whereas modernism emphasizes purpose and design, postmodernism emphasizes play and chance. Modernism establishes a hierarchy; postmodernism cultivates anarchy. Modernism values the type; postmodernism values the mutant. Modernism seeks the logos, the underlying meaning of the universe expressed in language.  www.ttc-switch.com