Postmodernism Versus Truth

In the book Whatever Happened To Truth, there are a series of essays which discuss the issue of truth in our postmodern society. Each of the articles are well written, although one of the essays uses so much technical language that I feel like I'm reading a foreign language. One of the essays was written by one of my favorite cultural observers, Al Mohler, Jr.

The essay is simply titled, Truth and Contemporary Culture. In it, Dr. Mohler discusses how the rise of postmodern thought is challenging today's western culture. I offer you this list of challenges faced by the church makes to help you pick-up on where the struggles are occurring in our culture today.

• A deconstruction of truth (the notion that there is no absolute truth, rather, truth is up to the individual) p. 58
  
• The death of the meta-narrative (the idea that there is not a over-arching story [or transcendent truth] that defines our existence) p. 59
  
• The demise of the text (any given text gains meaning from the reader not the author of the text) p. 60
  
• The dominion of therapy (people are concerned about what makes them feel good, rather than truth) p.61
  
• The decline of authority (rejection of all authority since authority is designed to keep the people in subjection) p. 62
  
• The displacement of morality (if there is no truth or authority, then there is no anchor on which to base morality) p. 63
  

This list above gives you a very basic foundation as to what is at stake in this struggle against postmodernism. As Christians, we must cling to truth as if our life (and eternity) depended upon it, because it does. It is no accident that the world is crying out that there is no truth, when the words of Jesus declare that He is truth (John 14:7).

I would challenge you to think about each of these points. Now that you have an idea of where the struggle lies between Christianity and culture, you should be able to see how postmodernity is being promoted/accommodate within society. An example, how a show like Oprah is more concerned about making people feel good about a subject, rather than exposing the truth about the subject.