Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a process denoting a movement reacting against modern tendencies. Usually this is done by drawing attention to former conventions.
It is important for the preacher to understand the postmodern world---it is an emerging world that we will be preaching the gospel to increasingly.
Today’s world is nothing like it was centuries ago. We look differently, we think differently and we act differently. We have been moving into what's called Postmodern Age.
The Beginning
How we think can be seen in the writings and other means of communication that we have been given over time.
How we perceive things has drastically changed over the years and this is all due to our society changing as a whole.
This is a natural process which is necessary for our world to grow.
For example, those who lived centuries ago lived knowing only what surrounded them.
They played, worked and lived within their homes and communities. They had simple tools and lived in simple structures.
There was no need for them to wonder what was beyond the horizon.
As time progressed, man experienced more and began to think more. Eventually, man learned that there was more to their world.
Up until the 16th and 17th centuries was the time of "Flat World Thinkers" which is a term that contradicts those of the time who wanted to know more.
With Postmodernism still years away, these individuals began to question many things from mathematics to philosophies.
These inquiries led to ideas and thoughts that were never experienced before and further encouraged how we thought.
Thinkers such as Nicolaus Copernicus and Christopher Columbus are two such individuals whose beliefs were challenged but yet were able to prove their statements.
Mr. Copernicus believed that the sun was stationary and that the Earth was moving around the sun rather than the other way around. Mr. Columbus believed that the Earth was round and not flat. It was a very exciting time in our history.
The Advancement
Several hundred years later, man moved into the "Age of Ideology." As more and more was proven about the world, more people began changing how they thought about their world.
The 19th century brought about a plethora of ideologies. New concepts such as conservatism, liberalism, socialism, communism, Darwinism, Marxism and more emerged.
Immanuel Kant
Imagine, in just several hundred years the thought processes of man drastically changed. Man moved from simple questioning and investigating to the critical thinking as to the "why" something is.
A gentleman by the name of Immanuel Kant, was a German thinker who wanted to know this very thing. Mr. Kant wanted to change a skeptic into a believer.
This is the type of thinking which allowed drastic advances towards Postmodernism in arena's such as science, industrialization, in the political realm, and even in intellectual issues found within society itself.
With such radical changes in thinking, no wonder our world has been drastically reshaped to what we know it today.
There was once simple thinking but with small changes which eventually evolved into extreme critical thinking, there were so many different ways to think.
One now had to consider multiple theories and ideas and then determine what they themselves believed to be true.
On a personal level, many of us feel that life is complicated and it certainly can be, especially if the person one is listening to is very persuasive in their speaking.
Perhaps this is one reason why numerous conflicts between groups of people occurred simply due to their differences in thinking; this can certainly be seen in today's politics.
Postmodernism
We would once get up from where we laid, probably from the ground or off of a bed of straw, and begin our day working in the countryside tending to animals or baking bread to sell at the local market.
Today we throw back our Egyptian thread cotton sheets and designer comforter, grab a specialty coffee and drive to the office where we may use a computer and discuss current events with others via video conferencing.
How else could we have gotten to where we are today without changing our ways of thinking?
We are continuously breaking down the past and redirecting ourselves in the hopes to better our lives socially, economically and in evolutionary terms.
How we think has led us to changes in just about every area of our lives in how we live, work and communicate.
Even the terminology has changed. Terms like "deconstruction", "politically correct" and "cyberspace" all give new meaning to how society thinks about the past, the present and the future.
After years of growing and expanding our minds, we have reached a new plateau of thinking and it's called Postmodernism.
This is a new way of considering alternatives and exploring anything and everything within our universe. Of course, there is nothing saying that we won't be continuing to change how we think either.
Who is the postmodernist? How do they think? What makes them different?
The postmodernist is the one, when over hearded in a conversation with his peers might say, “Whatever”…a term denoting that your truth and my truth is not the same.
It‘s as if truth was a personal acquisition and does not stand on its own. It’s like saying the truth is what “I” say it is. “The ideology of modernity seems irrelvant to some” (D. S. Dockery).
Some of the Earmarks of postmodernism are:
- Thinking characterized by a disbelief in objective truth…
- Morality is completely relative…
- Key issues are decided according to personal taste…
- Human experience is incoherent lacking normative approaches to truth and meaning…
- Life is characterized by tolerance…
- Sharing your faith is viewed as improper behavior or bad manners…
- Postmodernist disregard people who ascribe to to traditionally held worldviews…
- Postmodernist assume there are no rational structures…
- Things do not have intrinsic meaning…
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