A Taste pt III

The photo comes from an interesting link. A fancy meal, at a fancy restaurant, served to blind-folded diners...

...what a provocative parable!

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...with that image in mind we turn to 'Postmodern' thought.

Many leaders in the Church have spoken with skepticism about the postmodern elements within our culture. They call it relativism, or 'liberalism,' and claim that it is incompatible with Christian faith. Postmodern thought looks with skepticism upon universal truth claims, and it is this attribute that leads many Church leaders to push against it. The postmodern assertion is that all truth claims are ultimately attempts to gain control over others. But the reason for the skepticism of universal truth claims is fundamentally about mistrusting the people making the claims, not so much the claims themselves. To put this in 'Christianese;' postmodern thought is saying 'human beings are fallen, and so their claims about the universe are untrustworthy.'

Postmodernism ultimately becomes a way of speaking about 'the Fall' to the arrogant way in which Modernism has approached the universe.

Postmodern thought has many strengths, primarily the emphasis on the value of individual humans, and the validity of personal experience. A friend of mine always wants to validate the stories, beliefs, and values that I hold as a Christian, while simultaneously validating those of her friend the Spiritualist. This is the great strength of postmodern thought. Personal stories are immensely valued, experiences of beauty, emotion, connection, or even leaps of intuition, are given premium. There is the sense that life is happening, and we must enjoy it; we need to experience all of the subtle flavors, delightful harmonies, powerful rhythms, and riotous hues of life in our universe. We must be sure to safeguard the sanctity of experience, and with that aim in mind, we must not threaten it with questions about the accuracy or universality of that experience.

...the emphasis on personal experience is so heavy that the ability to talk about shared experience (universal knowledge) becomes lost. The weakness of postmodern thought is the apparent lack of language to describe how personal experience might point to something beyond personal experience; postmodern thought often fails to make the connection that my experience of the world might actually give insight about the world irrespective of my experience of it...

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This approach is brought directly to spiritual truth: my friend has told me that 'spiritual truth is like the taste of the apple, for you it is sweet, for me it is bitter. The same apple can taste different to different people. It is sweet, and it is bitter; they are both true. And so, for you Christianity is true, for them Spiritualism is true, and for me neither is true.'

This is a common postmodern approach to truth.

We take the journey, eat the fruit, and heed the voice, but we do not know where we are going, what we are eating, or who we are following! ...nor do we care to!