On Story: Postmodernism, Modernism, and the Enlightenment

So here’s the thing. We’re beginning to — finally! — get comfortable with reading the Bible as narrative.

And we’re beginning to see how the Bible further provides a metanarrative that establishes the worldview and values of the Christian.

I know that’s  a mouthful, but think about it. It’s popular for preachers to condemn the Postmodern worldview from their pulpits. And there is much in Postmodernism that merits condemnation — although, as is nearly always true, there are a few things in Postmodernism that are of value.

Wisdom is knowing the difference. Responsible preaching is bothering to know enough about the topic to discern the good from the bad. (Well, I can wish, can’t I?)

Anyway, as wrong as much of Postmodernism is as a worldview, the Enlightenment (sometimes inaccurately called “Modernism” in Christian literature[1]) is also a false worldview — and there aren’t many in our tribe (the Churches of Christ) preaching against the Enlightenment worldview. You see, it’s easy to condemn the new; not so easy to condemn the familiar and accepted.

But the Enlightenment is a story just like Postmodernism is a story, and because both represent worldviews, most people are unaware of the extent to which their thinking is impacted by these non-Christian worldviews.

The goal, of course, is to get to the True Story — the one found in scripture — without accidentally drawing either the Enlightenment or Postmodernism into the scriptures while we have the pages spread open to read. And yet we do that.

So the Enlightenment story goes something like this: Once upon a time, mankind lived in darkness and ignorance, constantly at war with one another. Man used religion — Christianity most especially — to impose power on weaker men. Sometimes it was one nation at war with another. Sometimes it was a king claiming Divine Right to rule his subjects. Sometimes it was the Pope claiming to have authority over the kings.

But then Isaac Newton discovered science. He found that the sun, moon, and planets move in accordance with laws of nature, easily described mathematically. There was no “God” telling the planets where to be when. It’s impersonal laws governing everything.

Just so, Pasteur disproved spontaneous generation of life from non-life, and Darwin showed that no Divinity is needed to explain biology or geology.

As a result, the world has enjoyed unprecedented gains in medicine and technology, sanitation and prosperity. Science has brought us all these marvelous good things, and science is ultimately the rejection of God as an explanation.

In short, Reason replaces Revelation, and Revelation, such as it is, must submit itself to Reason.

There are, admittedly, certain parts of human existence perhaps not fully governed by Reason, but these are personal matters — individual spirituality. But because these things are not testable by Reason, to the extent they genuinely exist at all, they must not intrude into the Public Square, that is, they can’t be a basis for governmental or community decision making. Otherwise we risk submitting ourselves to the same irrational impulses that we escaped centuries ago.

The Enlightenment therefore leads to —

* Humanist optimism. Mankind either has or soon will figure out the problem and solve it, whatever it is.

* Oppression of the “ignorant” by the “wise.” We the educated, the ones with Reason, know better. Therefore, we know what form of government you should have, what foods you should eat and drink, and how much you should pay your employees. Because we answer only to Reason, it’s okay for us to force you to comply with how we see things.

* Warfare to repair broken nations. See above.

* Reliance on government to make the world a better place, because government can be counted on to faithfully impose Reason against the ignorant masses.

Now,  if I set this up correctly, Republicans should see Democrats in this list, and Democrats should see Republicans. Both are products of the Enlightenment, but in different ways.

Republicans have been the more hawkish party and more willing to engage in nation building, as though the Western wise ones could tell Iraqis and Afghanis what will make them happy — being presumably what would make us happy.

While Democrats are more likely to use government to impose their views on gay or transgender rights, Republicans very happily use government to subsidize farm prices contrary to free enterprise principles — and to subsidize business exports. The idea seems to be that “free enterprise” means “what’s good for business” means “corporate welfare” — even when farm subsidies impoverish nations across the world.

When Republicans become concerned about pornography, they are just as quick to seek governmental solutions as the Democrats are to take control of school lunch programs.

Among the most conservative Christian denominations are the Churches of Christ — and yet we reflect very Enlightenment attitudes on lots of issues. For example —

* Miracles. In the Churches, we believe in miracles. As doctrine but not as present reality. In fact, very elaborate arguments are constructed to insist that the Spirit is no longer active directly on the hearts of Christians and hasn’t been for nearly 2,000 years. And this is exactly the Enlightenment agenda.

* God of the Gaps. We love arguments about faith and science in which God is only found in the gaps, that is, in the areas where science hasn’t yet pushed God entirely out. And over the years, there are fewer and fewer gaps for God to fit in.

The scriptures claim,

(Col 1:16-17 ESV) 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things were created through him and for him.  17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

God’s creative activity did not end with the creation of the heavens and the earth. He holds it all together — the tense is continuous. It’s an ongoing work of God. Every atom, every molecule, every quark exists and acts as it does by the will of God. That anything exists demonstrates the presence and desire of God.

(Heb 1:3a ESV) He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

Again, “upholds” is in a continuous voice.

This Lord is not like the god of the deists, who having created the world then proceeded to let it run on its own. He is personally and continually involved in sustaining it. The verb used here, pherō, has the primary sense of ‘sustain or uphold’. The immediate context, however, suggests the additional nuance of the Son’s ‘carrying’ all things to their appointed end or goal. The notion of direction or purpose seems to be included. The author, then, is not referring to the passive support of a  burden like the Greek god Atlas bearing the dead weight of the world on his shoulders. Rather, the language implies a ‘bearing’ that includes movement and progress towards an objective. Montefiore comments: ‘What is here being ascribed to the Son is the providential government of the universe, which is the function of God himself’. Moreover, if this nuance of direction is present, then the Son’s bearing all things (i.e., time and space) to their appointed end looks forward to his work of redemption which is described in the next line (v. 3c). The Son’s sustaining all things is not simply the backdrop to or the precursor of his redemptive work. His cleansing of sins is an important objective of Christ’s providential work.

Peter T. O’Brien, The Letter to the Hebrews (Pillar NTC; Accordance electronic ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 56-57.

Now, obviously in a world where the hands of Jesus are on every single molecule for every single moment, evolution is not antithetical to the nature of God. That doesn’t make evolution true, just not inherently atheistic because evolution need not push God into the cracks of our existence.

We in the Churches of Christ are deeply uncomfortable talking about a “personal relationship” with Jesus because it implies something beyond the merely natural. It’s kind of miracle-ish. And we are so eaten up with the Enlightenment worldview, there’s no room in our thinking for something so very un-scientific. You see, we figure science is the ultimate test of truth … .

Just so, we read the Bible as a book of rules. We want the Bible to be reduced to certain easy to find laws, just as Newton reduced planetary motion to a few immutable laws. We want to Newton-ize the Bible. (Newton was actually a deeply devout Christian.)

And it was Enlightenment scholars who attempted to extract from the Bible the important rules, leaving behind all the uncomfortable, un-scientific stuff about a Holy Spirit and personal experience with God.

Thus, when we begin with the assumption that the scriptures are a collection of laws, we are showing our worldview, not our excellent hermeneutics. When we toss out the Spirit, grace, and personal relationship, we are presuming that our worldview (Reason!) is more important that Revelation. We might scream “INERRANCY!!” across the void, but we’re really just claiming that that Bible gets the laws right, not that the Bible itself is right. If we really thought that, we wouldn’t edit so much of it away.

But one thing Postmodernism has done for us is plainly point out the inadequacy, indeed, the outright foolishness of many Enlightenment claims. Postmodernism doesn’t have much in the way of answers, but it’s critique of the Enlightenment is, well, enlightening.

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[1] “Modernism” is a largely late 19th Century and 20th Century philosophical phenomenon between the Enlightenment and Postmodernism. Francis Schaeffer wrote a brilliant series of critiques of Modernism in his three books, The God Who Is There, He Is There and He Is Not Silent, and Escape from Reason (The Francis A. Schaeffer Trilogy: Three Essential Books in One Volume).

Conservative Christian denominations have largely stood outside the Modernist world for a century, ignoring it by and large, and then only lately have begun to recognize and confront the Postmodern worldview — shocked that it should have appeared so suddenly. Hence, the worldview battle in conservative churches tends to be between an Enlightenment worldview and a Postmodern worldview — with little consideration given to the need to flee both. Well, “flee” is a little harsh because there are true elements of both worldviews. The trick is discerning the good from the bad rather than letting the tides of the times overwhelm us.