Postmodernism. by Dean Gotcher

Postmodernism.

Dean Gotcher

Postmodernism is the rejection of a pre-established standard or condition in directing the thoughts and actions of a person or a group of people. That there are no fixed reference points for directing a persons actions other than his own sense experience with his current surroundings in the "moment." It is the "here-and-now" which 'drives' and directs a persons thoughts and actions, shaping his perception or understanding of the "there-and-then." Apart from human "sense perception," life has no real 'purpose' or meaning. It is therefore the yin-yang of life, the 'changingness' of the "moment" (man's active participation with his current social setting, shaping his thoughts and actions in regards to how others are feeling and what they are thinking, 'discovered' through the dialoging of opinions to the creation of a consensus, i.e. to a "feeling" or sensation of "oneness") which man must attend to, if he is to know what is right and what is wrong thinking and acting in the "moment." Therefore praxis, social action (the desiring and the acquiring of socialist harmony), is not only the 'drive,' i.e. the motivation, i.e. the dynamo behind his thoughts and actions but also the 'purpose,' i.e. the reason for his thoughts and actions. Therefore, apart from social action, apart from life in the process of 'change' (unity in the praxis of compromise), life has no 'drive' or 'purpose,' i.e. no meaning.

"'Postmodernity ... describes a world where people have to make their way without fixed referents and traditional anchoring points. It is a world of rapid change, of bewildering instability...' (Usher, Edwards, 1996, 10)

When the church becomes emergent new aspects of faith are discovered in the light of cultural exchange (man perceives God's Word through "human eyes and human ears," Karl Marx). It is the taking of Jesus into the 21st century, i.e. a defining of the needs of the 21st century in the light of a Jesus redefined according to the needs of the 21st century. The duality of dark and light, black and white, above and below are 'changing' into the plurality of gray, where above and below become "equal," where all are becoming one in the process of 'change,' without a "guilty conscience" before God, the Father.

The "postmodern church" is the apostate ("enlightened") church interpreting the word of God in the "light" of "human nature" and then applying it to augment ('justify') "human nature" (in theory and in practice). "The ideas of the Enlightenment taught man that he could trust his own reason as a guide to establishing valid ethical norms and that he could rely on himself [rely upon his own feelings, thoughts, and actions], needing neither revelation [the Word of God] nor that authority of the church [Jesus Christ in obedience to His Heavenly Father in all things, calling all to follow him in the same, denying themselves (mortifying the deeds of the flesh), picking up their cross (mortifying "the approval of men")] in order to know good and evil." (Stephen Eric Bronner Of Critical Theory and Its Theorists)

The "postmodern church" is the so called "church" looking at the world and itself through a neo-Marxist lens. It is a "church" identifying itself, not according to the Word of God (which is not of man), but according man's own carnal nature, according to that which it has is common with all men, i.e. where man's consciousness is fixed upon social (socialist) needs and not upon man's need to repent, i.e. repent of his sins against God above, his need to be redeemed from God's judgment upon his carnal "human nature," by the only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ, and reconciled to His Heavenly Father, doing his Father's will in all things, being in the world but not of the world, i.e. living by faith in God and His word alone, and not according to sight, i.e. controlled by the thoughts and actions (opinions) of carnal men. Though the "postmodern church" might speak of Jesus Christ, it does not know Jesus Christ, having only the "Christ" of its own making, i.e. a "Christ" who 'justifies' "human nature," in the name of "unity," 'justifying' the praxis of man's deceitful and wicked heart (man 'justifying' himself) in the "name of the Lord."

    "Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
    I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
    Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities." Jude 1:3-8

''And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God." Luke 16: 15