Incarnation and Postmodernism
“Conflict and contradiction are the deepest truths of reality.”[1]
I certainly grappled with inner conflict and contradiction as I read Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault by Stephen Hicks. Plowing through chapter after chapter was laborious, but (to my own great surprise) when I closed the book, I actually felt like I understood (albeit at an amateur level) the journey from pre-modernism through modern philosophy to our current postmodernist society. The inner conflict arose as I read certain aspects of each philosophy that I agreed with or disagreed with. For example, the pre-modernist aspects of tradition, faith and mysticism are all important to me. I also agree with modernist ideas that the individual is important and valuable and has a certain responsibility for his or her own character and who he or she becomes. In addition, I resonate with postmodernists concern for minorities and oppressed people groups.[2]
That said, there is a lot in postmodern philosophy that is problematic for Christ-followers. As we learned from Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott, postmodernism and its offspring, cancel culture, has brought about the weaponization of identity, the normalization of attacking the person instead of the argument and the erosion of civil discourse, none of which seem particularly honoring to God.[3] At the same time, postmodernism is the reality that we live in, so as responsible Christian leaders how do we best incarnate the gospel in a postmodern world?
Firstly, we can rest on the Biblical truth that we do know. Ironically, this was Immanuel Kant’s approach that led him away from modernism via the counter-enlightenment[4] and now I’m applying the same principle to counter post-modernist extremes. But here we are. One theological truth that is not open to negotiation is that “God has endowed us with the ability to know him and to know his world through our relationship with him.”[5] Thus, some certainty is possible.
Secondly, we can flip the postmodern idea of metanarrative as a tool of oppression. Here I defer to Andy Crouch’s analysis: “The Cross is what guarantees the Christian gospel against the critiques of postmodernism, specifically the one that says all metanarratives oppress. The gospel is a metanarrative: it is “the greatest story ever told”; it claims to tell the truth about the world. The problem with most such stories is that they tell the truth in a way that benefits someone. But the Cross is a story in which the other is met by the non-other; God becomes the other and endures the full experience of marginalization…what it means to be excluded, what it means to be crucified on the garbage heap—this is what the central figure in the story, indeed, the Author, the Person with all the power in the story, embraced. And once you have met God at the Cross in the crucified Jesus, then you’ll never again imagine that this God is out to wield his power like a white male, because the Cross is where we discover that love is real and that power and love can go together without coercion.”[6]
Finally, we can lean into post-modernism’s value of each person’s identity and lived experience. Scripture tells us that God knows and values each individual. We see this in such passages as:
Psalm 139:16: Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
Luke 12:7: Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.
In addition, we know that God became incarnate in an individual person, Jesus, who was a Jewish, Aramaic-speaking, male born into a certain time and culture. In fact, if we consider what evangelism and discipleship look like in terms of the incarnation we have to ask ourselves the question, “What would the divine look like if he/she/it were incarnated today in my context?” What would Jesus look like as a minority middle class woman? As a working-class parent trying to make ends meet? As a liberal academic? The more we understand the lived experiences of those around us, the better we can reach them with the gospel.
While Hicks says that postmodernism as a movement is failing[7], it is our current reality. It has become the proverbial water we swim in. We would do well to be aware of it and not only that. Let’s utilize its strengths for the glory of God all while being wary of its excesses.
[1] Heidegger, Martin. “What is Metaphysics?” Lecture presented at the University of Freiburg on July 24, 1929.
[2] Hicks, Stephen Ronald Craig. Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault. Expanded edition. Redland Bay, QLD: Connor Court Publishing Pty, 2019. 7.
[3] Lukianoff, Greg & Rikki Schlott. The Canceling of the American Mind: How Cancel Culture Undermines Trust, Destroys Institutions, and Threatens Us All. NY: Simon and Schuster, 2023. Ch 6.
[4] Hicks, Stephen Ronald Craig. Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault. Expanded edition. Redland Bay, QLD: Connor Court Publishing Pty, 2019. 29.
[5] A forum with Carlos Aguilar Simmons Vincent Bacote, Andy Crouch, Catherine Crouch, Sherri King, and Chris, “The Antimoderns,” ChristianityToday.com, November 13, 2000, https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/november13/7.74.html.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Hicks, Stephen Ronald Craig. Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault. Expanded edition. Redland Bay, QLD: Connor Court Publishing Pty, 2019. 201.
About the Author
Kim Sanford
9 responses to “Incarnation and Postmodernism”
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Kim, Great post as usual. I am slogging my way through this book right now – okay, so I am only on chapter 2. It.is.a.SLOG. and I am fighting to keep my eyes open.
That said, I can already feel much of the same inner-conflicts you were feeling as you read.
I really appreciated you pulling in the quote from Andy Crouch about the cross. I want to read that article as I think about how to write my own blog post.
Kim this is fantastic. You say so much of what I was trying to say, but didn’t have the time or bandwidth this week to do so well (and to be clear, you would have said it better even if I had).
I loved this: “Let’s utilize its strengths for the glory of God all while being wary of its excesses.”
That’s my song. I probably over identify with postmodernism and while I recognize the excesses I need to remind myself of them, which is why this book was good for me. But I found there was no counterbalance in this book that admits where “some” of postmodern thought might have been helpful.
I’ve always seem France and my French friends as on the edge of postmodernity, as so many French thinkers made a significant contribution to that philosophy.
In your lived experience, do you see a “next” in France (people getting tired with postmodernity and looking beyond?) or does it still exist as a stronghold of postmodernism?
Thanks for your comment and encouragement, Tim. In some ways, I think France is still solidly in postmodernism. My friends have been taught since childhood to be very skeptical of naivité, simplicity and the like. I also don’t hear a lot of conversations about searching for or making meaning in life. The general attitude seems to be that this is what there is, we live our life on earth and that’s it. I’m generalizing of course, and this is just my interpretation based on conversations and popular-level reading. That said, French culture is still based on a lot of conformity and specifically conformity to the values of the French Republic, so we are not seeing the same anything-goes, create-your-own-truth attitude that I think is happening in the US these days. As far as what’s next, a post-postmodernism, I honestly have no idea but I’ll be interested to see. I have one close friend who runs in academic, philosophical circles so I’ll ask her next time I see her.
Hmmmm…I THINK I am a premodernist without the Spanish Inquisition tendencies. Anyway I am neither a modernist or post modernist.
In the book, truth becomes irrelevant. The authors write, “Post modernism, “seeks not to find the foundation and the conditions of truth but to exercise power for the purpose of social change.”
Why am I reminded of Judges 21:25, which reads: “In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes?
These are the waters we are swimming in and so need to understand the undercurrents of the movement.
John Fehlen spoke to anticipation of the post post modernist.
I pray they have a chance to emerge! Prayerfully this new normal of violent conflict will subside.
Shalom….
Thanks Kim….your blog reflects similar reflections to my own, which essentially argues that all philosophies that are not embedded in the Gospel of Jesus and His Kingdom will be problematic in at least some ways…and also likely somewhat aligned in others. Crouch’s quote is gold…one that I have never read….but it also makes me sad: how have we come to so misrepresent the greatest, most beautiful meta-story ever in such catastrophic ways! May God grant to His people new encounters with the crucified King in this Lent/Easter season that will transform us in new ways to better represent the values of King Jesus!
Hi Kim- Your thought: “What would Jesus look like as a minority middle class woman? As a working-class parent trying to make ends meet? As a liberal academic? The more we understand the lived experiences of those around us, the better we can reach them with the gospel,” is really interesting to me. I am still trying to think through the implications of how those experience-oriented questions can/should impact how I view those around me. Thanks!
Kim, I know others have highlighted this statement but it is gold, “The more we understand the lived experiences of those around us, the better we can reach them with the gospel.” I too see postmodernism and an opportunity, maybe even a gift. When all is stripped away and the arguments become tiresome, many desperately long to have some hope or faith in something. Postmodernism is not an excuse to stop seeing the image of God in all others, it presents a high calling to do so and by entering into the lived experiences of the other we are doing what Jesus did for all. In that act we fulfill God’s command to love our neighbor. A really thoughtful post as usual! Thank you.
Thanks, Jenny, for taking that thought a step further. You’re right, leaning into our neighbors’ shared experience is a way of loving them as Jesus does. Thanks for the encouragement!
Thank Kim! The gospel is “the greatest story ever told”. What good news!