Postmodernity, Skepticism, and Celtic Evangelism
Postmodernism is “skepticism toward metanarratives.”[1]
In an interview with clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson, Stephen Hicks attributed this perspective to the French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard. I recall a seminary professor once describing a metanarrative as a “grand and expansive account of truth and meaning,” something postmodernism rejects.
In Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault, Hicks refers to postmodernism – this skepticism toward ultimate explanations – as a movement. In fact, Hicks believes that it “is a comprehensive philosophical and cultural movement. It identifies its target – modernism…and it mounts powerful arguments against all of the essential elements of modernism.”[2] Whereas modernism is defined more by the likes of naturalism, science and reason, objectivism, or liberal capitalism, postmodernism pushes back against these, promoting subjectivism, collectivism, socialism, and social constructionism.[3] If postmodernism is as comprehensive as Hicks says it is, then leaders and the institutions they serve need to at least be familiar with the movement’s implications.
Yascha Mounk addresses this movement’s varied components in The Identity Trap. In fact, it is postmodernism, according to Mounk, that forms the foundation for what he refers to as the “identity synthesis.”[4] Mounk writes, “The principal roots of the identity synthesis lie in the postmodern rejection of grand narratives, including Marxism.”[5] Where Hicks describes the philosophy,[6] Mounk outlines a strategy, or at the very least some suggestions, for engaging with those caught in the identity trap. His suggestions include “Don’t Vilify Those Who Disagree” and “Remember That Today’s Adversaries Can Become Tomorrow’s Allies.”[7] This posture could be translated anywhere, and it is instructive for those who disagree with postmodernism’s premises.
Explaining Postmodernism is a book that I would have enjoyed reading and referring to decades ago when I first began exploring the subject. Years later, I think about and interact with the subject from a different seat on the bus, so to speak. Just take the seat of leadership, for example.
The weight of leadership
All of us, especially those of us in this doctoral program, know that leadership is already hard. There are so many issues a leader has to consider. Governance issues. Boards of directors. Budgets. Stakeholders. Staffing issues. Performance reviews. Deliverables and deadlines. Finite resources. Environmental care. Clarity around vision, mission, values, and goals. The list is endless. Additionally, if someone is leading others toward a common cause, there’s no doubt the stakeholders have been affected by SOME philosophical framework. Modernism. Postmodernism. SOME ism. Every stakeholder is trying to make sense of the world in some way as she or he goes about life and work. Therefore, leaders need to be familiar with the cultural waters – alas, the isms – we swim in. For most of us in the West, those waters include postmodernism. I know I’ve been trying to wrap my head around it for many years. This particular journey started in my twenties…
Postmodernism and the church
In the late 1990’s, if you were a pastor or church planter (I realize not everyone reading this will have experienced this), to use the term postmodern was to explain everything. It was code for “I want to ‘do church’ or plant a church in a way that connects with this generation, and I don’t want to do things the way my parents’ generation did.” Like Patrick Mahomes flinging the rock all over the football field, the term postmodern was flung all over the church and church planting landscapes of Gen-Xers starting somewhere in the mid ‘90’s, lasting for a decade or so. I certainly used the term WAYYYY too much, not really knowing exactly what I was talking about. But I thought it sounded like I did – Ha! How did I get into these waters?
This reminds me of another book…
Few books impacted me in my twenties and early thirties like George Hunter’s The Celtic Way of Evangelism. I say that because not only did Hunter’s little book factor into my decision to enter the world of church planting, the book’s content (and sometimes the book itself) still makes its way to our family dinner table every St. Patrick’s Day just as it has for nearly two and a half decades. We love to retell the story of St. Patrick every 17th of March.[8]
But how does this relate to the subject of postmodernism?
In the book, Hunter declares, “The Church, in the Western world, faces populations who are increasingly ‘secular’ – people with no Christian memory, who don’t know what we Christians are talking about.”[9] He compared the new “postmodern” populations in the West with the pre-Christian populations in 4th and 5th century Ireland. He believed that to “reach the West,” in the twenty-first century, Christians would need to make evangelistic considerations not unlike those of the early Celtic missionaries (e.g., Patrick and company). For Hunter, like the unreached “barbarians” of 4th – 5th century Ireland, a people with no Christian memory, the postmodern/post-Enlightenment people of the West are “suspicious of people and institutions that claim Authority, and…increasingly dubious of Ultimate Explanations.”[10]
Hunter’s book, along with other authors and practitioners who at the time were trying to navigate the uncharted waters of postmodernity, certainly influenced my life and ministry at an early stage in my career. Stephen Hicks and his book have resurrected many of those memories.
Conclusion
I recall another professor once referring to postmodernism as “nihilism with a smile.” I’ll never forget that reference. Is postmodernism anti-meaning? At the very least, according to Hicks, “postmodernism is anti-realist, holding that it is impossible to speak meaningfully about an independently existing reality.”[11]
Postmodernism. Oh, how fun (and challenging) it was to talk about this philosophical position many, many years ago. That conversation is obviously still not over.
[1] I listened to Stephen Hicks attribute this position to Lyotard in a 2019 podcast interview with Jordan Peterson. The podcast episode can be found here: https://www.stephenhicks.org/2022/04/07/in-case-you-missed-it-8/.
[2] Stephen R. C. Hicks, Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault, Ockham’s Razor; Expanded edition, December 19, 2013, Kindle version, 31 of 307.
[3] The charts in Chapter One on pages 18 and 24 (Kindle version) are helpful for comparing pre-modernism, modernism, and postmodernism. (Stephen R. C. Hicks, Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault, Ockham’s Razor; Expanded edition, December 19, 2013, Kindle version, 18 – 24 of 307)
[4] “The identity synthesis is concerned with many different kinds of groups, including (but not limited to) those based on race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and disability. It is the product of a rich set of intellectual influences, including postmodernism, postcolonialism, and critical race theory. It can be pressed into the service of diverse political causes from a radical rejection of capitalism to a tacit alliance with corporate America.” (Yascha Mounk, The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time, New York: Penguin Press, 2023, 9)
[5] Yascha Mounk, The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time, New York: Penguin Press, 2023, 278.
[6] Postmodernism, as articulated by Hicks, asserts that humans are “all constructed into competing groups by our racial, economic, ethnic, and gender circumstances.” (Hicks, 269 of 307)
[7] Mounk, 274.
[8] When I say the book had an impact, I mean…I emailed Dr. Hunter immediately after I read it and asked him if I could join him over lunch at Asbury Seminary where he taught. He said yes. I drove from Louisville, KY where we lived at the time, met him for lunch, and asked him about the book’s implications. Soon after that conversation, my wife and I started a small “church” that met in different homes around the community.
[9] George G. Hunter, III, The Celtic Way of Evangelism: How Christianity Can Reach the West…Again, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2000, 9.
[10] Ibid., 97.
[11] Hicks, 16 of 307.
About the Author
Travis Vaughn
16 responses to “Postmodernity, Skepticism, and Celtic Evangelism”
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I too, used the word “postmodern” like I knew what I was talking about though I had to look it up every time I used it to remind myself of its definition! Ha!
I was intrigued by the Celtic Way of Evangelism and how George Hunter says those with “no Christian memory today” are much like those of the “pre-Christian populations” and that to “reach the West” we need to consider how the Celtic missionaries did things. I’d love to explore this book, you know, in all my free reading time. But seriously, it sounds interesting and…wait for it…enlightening. (get it?)
YES — I do get it. 🙂 It WAS enlightening — so much so that I drove to meet Dr. Hunter for lunch after I read the book (we lived in Louisville, KY at the time and Hunter taught at Asbury near Lexington, KY)…to basically ask him if what he was writing about truly applied to current missiological challenges. Hunter’s book was also helpful in that he seemed to capture the angst of Gen Xer’s and where they diverged (or at least thought/hoped they diverged) from Baby Boomers and prior generations. Explaining Postmodernism would have been a good, albeit much more academic complement to Hunter’s exegesis of the culture at the time.
Travis, I think you are onto something important in your conclusion. Perhaps the answer isn’t a full-throated defense of modernism (like Hicks seems to be making) and tearing down postmodernism (like Hicks seems to be doing) but a full-hearted gospel engagement of where people are right now, reaching a postmodern people who are very much like a premodern people with the timeless Gospel.
So here’s a question: As one who was steeped in the conversation in the 90’s like I was, are you finding ways to engage the cultural reality that pre-christians (and many christians) are living in without trying to evangelize them back into modernistic, enlightenment thinking, or do you think it’s imperative that we “disciple” them into things like objectivism and liberal capitalism in order to also help them grasp things like absolute truth? In other words, can we avoid throwing out the modern baby when tossing the bathwater?
Tim, that is such a great question. I think that the big challenge for engaging with pre/post Christians is something that the late David Bosch wrote in Transforming Mission: “The gospel always comes to people in cultural robes.” I take that to mean at the very least that we are always communicating / living out the gospel of Jesus in and through our own cultural limitations, even when we think we are communicating supra-culturally. The gospel, of course, isn’t limited to a particular context, but it is a hard (and good) work to translate the gospel into all sorts of settings — What is that we can say is good/helpful with postmodern ways of making sense of the world? At the same time, what is broken / NOT helpful? What does the gospel of Jesus have to say about that? These are the questions we have to wrestle with. I also think that ministries of hospitality and listening are crucial for engaging with multiple “isms.” My wife and I used to open our home to our neighbors and friends and people we met at the YMCA on Friday evenings to talk with people, in our home and over a meal/refreshments, about a number of topics (particularly the subject of marriage), and we would connect the gospel, but we also did a lot of listening and learning (we are still learning, in fact) how to share life with others. I’m sure, even then, that I/we was/were carrying a lot of modernity when trying to connect with what I thought to be “postmodern” ears (who also carried more modernity that they probably thought). Such a great question, Tim!
Wow.
Such a great post. I am surrounded by deep thinkers. Sadly I surf over the turbulent currents of modernism giving birth to Post modernism.
Am I a pre-modernist without the Spanish Inquistion tendencies? I came away from the book feeling out of place but then you mentioned Celtics. Where there ever Chinese Celtics? I not I want to form a club.
I also enjoyed your footnotes. I am discovering them as a place to put solid thoughts/ideas without busting the 1,000 Word limit.
Shalom…
Russell, I would think that you could probably ask chatGPT to compare / contrast a Chinese equivalent to the Celtic tribes to Western Europe of the 400’s and 500’s, maybe?? I wonder what that answer would look like. (Sort of like a question one would might answer on the old MAT test — “The Celtic peoples were to the British Isles or ancient Western Europe as were the _______ people to ancient China / East Asia)
And amen regarding the ability to footnote! There have been several blog posts where I wanted to say more…and I found that I could get away with doing so by simply footnoting (even if no one read it — ha!). Explaining Postmodernism brought back so many memories of trying to engage the topic back in my twenties and thirties…thus the extra content in footnotes this week. I’m glad you enjoyed reading them!
Okay, I had to ask!
The Celtic peoples were to the British Isles or ancient Western Europe as were the Han people to ancient China / East Asia.
User
Who were the Han people of China?
ChatGPT
The Han people, or Han Chinese, are the majority ethnic group in China and the largest single ethnic group in the world. They are named after the Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE), which was a period of significant expansion, cultural flourishing, and consolidation in Chinese history. The Han Dynasty is considered a golden age in Chinese civilization, setting many of the cultural and social norms that would define China for centuries to come.
Hmmm…I think this is WRONG, but it was fun asking.
Selah…
Thanks Travis….I’d be curious to know what the Celtic way of reaching the ‘barbarians’ was? In my post, I suggested that one possible positive outcome of postmodernism is that Christians can be free from the pressure of arguing/convincing people into the Kingdom and, instead, share ‘their story’ of transformation as they met Jesus–thus more autobiographical and emphasizing the good outcomes of the good news. So I wonder…how did the Celtics do it?
Scott, I like your autobiographical approach / suggestion! I think one of the things that many Christians fear is indeed arguing with / convincing (and not having the “right” answer!) others of the truth of the gospel. Here’s Hunter’s “Celtic Way” – “(1) You first establish community with people, or bring them into the fellowship of your community of faith. (2) Within fellowship, you engage in conversation, ministry, prayer, and worship. (3) In time, as they discover that they now believe, you invite them to commit.” (Hunter, Celtic Way of Evangelism, 53). Of course, Hunter was comparing this to the “Roman Way” of doing things, which at the time involved “civilizing” the Celtic peoples before sharing the gospel.
Thanks for answering my question Travis (I don’t often have the bandwidth to answer people’s good questions in response to my blog). The answer you (or the Celtics) provided sounds very similar to the language we began to use in the church during the rise of postmodernity: “The model used to be, convert people to Christ and then they join the community. Increasingly we will convert (welcome) people to community and then they will convert to Christ.”
Or the follow up saying that I began to hear a decade later: “It used to be, believe (in Jesus) to belong (in the church)….and now it’s belong and (eventually) believe.”
In classic (arrogant?) fashion, we postmodern evangelicals thought we were being innovative and current with this new way of thinking. Turns out that ‘new way’ of thinking is a few millennial old! Another good endorsement for us to know our history/story.
Ps. as a somewhat tangent: I haven’t found the evangelical church does the Celtic way particularly well. It’s a tough middle ground that we fail to navigate with great success. Either we welcome everyone into community and never address necessary life change (often a more liberal challenge) or we fail to welcome broken people because of our judgmental attitude (often a more conservative challenge). It seems being genuinely welcoming and gracious while also inviting commitment/sacrifice/growth is a difficult third (gospel) way.
Thanks for the further info!
p.s. I included the “Roman model,” as explained by Hunter, below in my response to Jen.
Travis, I would love to read the book you mention, The Celtic Way of Evangelism. Let’s say you HAD read Explaining Postmodernism in the early 90s (I realize Hicks didn’t publish it until 2004), how might you have talked about Postmodernism differently?
Pam, thanks for your question. I really didn’t start thinking or talking too much about postmodernism until the late 1990s. Had I read Explaining Postmodernism back then, I think I would have used it to solidify my definitions, and probably as a reference book when reading other authors, like Hunter. OR, it would have been helpful when reading about names like Jacques Derrida. That being said, I don’t think I would have changed how I talked about postmodernity, too much. I think I remember first starting to talk about the subject at about the time Leonard Sweet came out with Soultsunami or Brian McLaren published A New Kind of Christian.
Hi Travis-
Great post. I really am interested (as others have commented) on strategies Hunter suggested in reaching those modern-day “barbarians?” I would bet that he would suggest NOT calling them barbarians, for start!
Also, I would like to hear more about how your new understanding impacts you today as an experienced leader- what would you go back and tell your previous self as you were referring to postmodernism in the 90’s?
Thanks, Jen. NO DOUBT Hunter would have used another term for barbarians.
In terms of the strategy, he compared / contrasted the “Celtic Way” with the “Roman Way.” I quoted Hunter’s Celtic Way in my response to Scott, above. Here’s the Roman model, as outlined by Hunter: “Bluntly stated, the Roman model for reaching people (who are “civilized” enough) is: (1) Present the Christian message; (2) Invite them to decide to believe in Christ and become Christians; and (3) If they decide positively, welcome them into the church and its fellowship. The Roman model seems very logical to us because most American evangelicals are scripted by it! We explain the gospel, they accept Christ, we welcome them into the church! Presentation, Decision, Assimilation. What could be more logical than that?” (Hunter, The Celtic Way of Evangelism, 53).
And…I’d go back and tell myself to spend even more time with friends and neighbors who were processing their faith…listen more…continue partnering with my wife with her gift of hospitality and evangelism…and take more risks to connect the gospel in word and deed in our community, even as we were planting a simple/house/non-traditional church at the time and experimenting with some of Hunter’s suggestions.
So I’ve been on a Celtic Pilgrimage to Iona, Scotland where St. Columba arrived and built a beautiful church on Celtic land. In the old convent ruins are carved druid sculptures that were embraced into their beliefs without losing their beliefs. I feel Celtic understanding is a great bridge between Christianity and almost any other world tradition. Thanks for talking about this book, I’m going to have to look it up!