Note: this was written by a fellow author when I used to pot to the Atheism is Dead blog:
A little shameless plug. I was listening to William Lane Craig’s Reasonable Faith podcast today, and he mentioned something that shook me. Now, this particular podcast is generally fairly simple; Craig discusses his recent article in Christianity Today about the renaissance of academic Christianity. The host brings up a few questions aimed at the current attitude of the world’s laymen, and lobs a few remarks about postmodernism. Craig’s answer surprised me. Contrary to popular opinion (especially in Christian circles) the world is not postmodern. To him, we are so incredibly modernistic as to recycle a very old demon (more on that below).
Now, if you are an atheist this may not be of much interest to you. However, it is a current fad (dare I say, an orthodox fad) for Christians to talk about combating the evils of postmodernism that is so pervasive in our society. Whatever postmodernism means (there could be a whole blog dedicated to that), in the context of conservative Christianity postmodernism implies a dislike of truth or objectivity. See these relatively late, popular works that have such a focus:
*Truth Decay: Defending Christianity Against the Challenges of Postmodernism
*Time for Truth: Living Free in a World of Lies, Hype and Spin
*Reclaiming the Center: Confronting Evangelical Accommodation in Postmodern Times
*The Challenge of Postmodernism: An Evangelical Engagement
*Christian Apologetics in the Postmodern World
In fact, the more I think of it, the majority of so-called postmodernists either reside in France or in the pulpit, not in society. Let’s take atheists for example. How many atheists do you know that would claim that evolution is “true for them but not for you”? I can’t think of any. When do we hear this statement? As Craig points out, it is always in the context of ethics or religion. Now, if you haven’t listened to his podcast yet, what position allows matters of fact in science but not in areas of values or religion?
…
Give up?
…
For those not in the know, that handsome man is Alfred Ayer, popularizer of the verificationist philosophy. Now, while logical postivism has long passed into the nether regions of rejected ideas in intellectual circles, it has been passed down into society. And this isn’t really surprising, considering that there really is a trickle down effect in intellegenista down towards the bulk of a social group. It goes from visionaries to teachers to students and out of the ivory towers into the herd. But back to the point.
According to Craig, postmodernism remains a (waning?) force in religion, art and literature departments but has made no real inroads to philosophy, history or science. I’m curious as to what the AiD community thinks about Craig’s claims about the failures of postmodernism to impact even though so many people claim that it does. In any case, after listening to Craig repeat those words for the dozenth time, I think I’m ready to agree with him- we are generally verificationists, not postmodernists. A quick jog over to the Rational Response Squad or Richard Dawkins’s website strengthens this thesis with the further stipulation that atheists tend towards a kind of hardline logical positivism. (As an aside, the Secular Web does not appear to succumb to those problems.)
What do y’all say? Is the postmodern onslaught a fanciful fiction of “youth pastors”? Do we tend towards verificationism?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A plea: I have to pay for server usage and have made all content on this website free and always will. I support my family on one income and do research, writing, videos, etc. as a hobby. If you can even spare $1.00 as a donation, please do so: it may not seem like much but if each person reading this would do so, even every now and then, it would add up and really, really help out. Here is my donate/paypal page.
Due to robo-spaming, I had to close the comment sections. However, you can comment on my Twitter page, on my Facebook page and/or on my Google+ page.
Twitter: #Christianity, #Apologetics, #Theology
Facebook: #Christianity, #Apologetics, #Theology