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Note: This piece was originally published in CRUX 30, no. 1 (March 1994) and reprinted in Evangelical Review of Theology 18, no. 4 (October 1994), 322–35. The argument and references below retain their 1994 context.

Evangelical theology cannot acquiesce in the radical scepticism of postmodernism. In contrast to the postmodern philosophers, we believe that there is a unifying centre to reality and that this centre has appeared in Jesus of Nazareth. Until the eschaton we may witness the struggle among conflicting interpretations of reality. But although all interpretations are in some sense invalid, they are not all equally invalid. On the basis of the Incarnation, evangelicals assert that conflicting interpretations can be evaluated according to a criterion which in some sense transcends them all and that the Christian worldview is superior to all other claimants.

As necessary as it is, however, we dare not allow our cautious stance toward the radical scepticism of Derrida and Rorty to blind us to the significance of the broader postmodern phenomenon. On the contrary, we ought to find ourselves in fundamental agreement with the postmodern critique of the modern mind¹⁸ and its underlying Enlightenment epistemology.

Postmodernism questions the Enlightenment assumption that knowledge is certain, and that the criterion for certainty rests with our human rational capabilities. In a similar manner, many evangelicals have continually argued that the rational, scientific method is not the sole measure of truth, for aspects of truth lie beyond reason and cannot be fathomed by reason. As Pascal declared, “The heart has its reasons which reason knows not of” (Pensées, iv, 277).

Similarly, evangelicals can commend the postmodern questioning of the Enlightenment assumption that knowledge is objective and hence dispassionate. We simply cannot stand outside the historical process or gain universal, culturally neutral knowledge as unconditioned specialists, for we are conditioned participants in our historical and cultural context. Postmodern epistemologists seem to echo Augustine when they assert that our personal convictions and commitments not only colour our search for knowledge, they also facilitate the process of understanding.

Likewise, evangelicals can applaud the postmodern rejection of the Enlightenment assumption that knowledge is inherently good. Events of the twentieth century bear poignant witness that the knowledge explosion cannot guarantee utopia, for technological advances bring not only the possibility of good but also the potential for evil. Evangelicals understand the theological reality that necessitates this critique: the human problem is not merely ignorance, but also a misdirected will.

2. Contours of a Postmodern Evangelical Theology

The ongoing mandate of the Church means that we are called to proclaim the gospel to the next generation and to live out the gospel in the midst of a culture that is increasingly postmodern in its thinking. This mandate challenges evangelical theologians to assist the Church by exploring how we can embody the gospel in the categories of our emerging social context. The postmodern rejection of the Enlightenment epistemology suggests several contours that ought to shape a future evangelical theology.

First, a postmodern evangelical theology must be “post-individual.”

One of the great gains of modernity has been the elevation of the individual. Consequently, our theology dare not lose the importance of the individual human person, indicative of modernity. We must always keep in view the biblical focus on the God who is concerned about each person, the individual as personally responsible to God, and a salvation message that is directed to every human being. The lessons of totalitarianism remind us that we must continually stand against the tyranny of the collective in all its various forms.

While maintaining the individual focus of the Bible, however, we must shake ourselves loose of the radical individualism that characterizes the modern mindset. We must affirm with postmodernism that knowledge—including knowledge of God—is not merely objective, not simply discovered by the neutral knowing self.

Here we can learn from contemporary communitarian scholars who have joined the postmodern assault on the modern epistemological fortress. In place of the modern paradigm with its focus on the self-reflective, autonomous subject and the modern ideal of the self-determining self who exists outside any tradition or community, they offer a constructive alternative: the individual within community.

Community is integral to the process of knowing, communitarians argue, for crucial to the knowing process is a cognitive framework mediated to the individual by the community in which he or she participates. Similarly, the community of participation is crucial to identity formation. A sense of personal identity develops through the telling of a personal narrative¹⁹ which is always embedded in the story of the communities in which we participate.²⁰ The community mediates to its members a transcending story which includes traditions of virtue, common good, and ultimate meaning.²¹ Rather than requiring a neutral, objective stance, therefore, knowing occurs within a community and the position of personal commitment that presence in a community entails.

Evangelical theologians must take seriously the discoveries of contemporary communitarians,²² in so far as they are in a sense echoing a great biblical theme, namely, that the goal of God’s programme is the establishment of community in the highest sense. Instead of elevating the individual to the centre, therefore, postmodern evangelicals must carve out a theology that integrates the human person into community, acknowledging as well the importance of the believing community and our presence within it for our knowledge of God. In short, in our theologizing we must take seriously the reality of community as the context in which the individual is necessarily embedded.

In addition to being post-individual, a postmodern evangelical theology must be post-rational.

Another significant gain of the Enlightenment has been the elevation of reason. Consequently, a postmodern evangelical theology dare not become anti-intellectual. Yet it must embody the biblical understanding that the cognitive dimension does not exhaust either the human person, reality as a whole, or the truth of God. Nor can we continue to collapse truth into the categories of rational certainty that typify modernity. Rather, our theology must give place to the concept of “mystery”—not as an irrational aspect alongside the rational, but as a reminder of the fundamentally non-rational or supra-rational reality of God. This means that while remaining reasonable, our theology must jettison the unwarranted rationalistic bent of all modern theologies.

Central to this task is the rethinking of the function of theological propositions. We must continue to acknowledge the fundamental importance of rational discourse, of course, and hence of propositions. Yet, our theology cannot remain fixated on the propositionalist approach of the older evangelical theologies, which viewed Christian truth simply as correct doctrine.

In their attempt to replace the individualistic foundational rationalism of modern Western thinking with an understanding of knowledge and belief that views them as socially and linguistically constituted,²³ postmodern social theorists provide helpful assistance in understanding the role of propositions. At the heart of being a Christian is a personal encounter with God in Christ which shapes and moulds us and which unites us with the community of believers. On the basis of this encounter, we seek to bring into an understandable whole the diverse strands of our personal lives and the incorporation of our lives in that of the faith community by appeal to categories such as “sin” and “grace,” “alienation” and “reconciliation,” “helplessness” and “divine power,” “having been lost” but “now being saved.” It is in this context of making sense out of life by means of recounting the story of a transformative religious experience that theological propositions find their importance. No experience occurs in a vacuum; no transformation comes to us apart from an interpretation facilitated by the concepts—the “web of belief”—we bring to it. On the contrary, experience and interpretive concepts are reciprocally related. Our concepts facilitate the experiences we have in life; at the same time, our experience determines the interpretive concepts we employ to speak about our lives.

So also the encounter with God in Christ is both facilitated by and expresses itself in theological categories which are propositional in nature. These categories which form the cradle for this experience, in turn, constitute the grid by means of which we now view all of life.

A post-rational evangelical theology will be “holistic.” The Enlightenment project was built on the division of reality into the dualism of mind and matter, which was expressed anthropologically through the distinction between soul and body. Evangelicals imbued with the Enlightenment outlook are concerned about saving souls, with at best a secondary concern for bodies which, however, has no eternal theological importance. If we would minister in the postmodern world, we must realize that the human person is a unified whole, and the gospel must exercise an impact on humans in their entirety. This does not mean merely giving greater place to human emotion or the affective aspects of life alongside the rational, but integrating the emotional-affective, as well as the bodily-sensual, with the intellectual-rational within the one human person. In other words, we must be willing to acknowledge the “Counsellor Troi” in each of us.

But postmodern evangelical holism must go beyond putting together the soul and body torn asunder in the Enlightenment. In a post-individualist theology, the human person will also be put back into the social and environmental context which forms and nourishes us. We must not merely speak of the human person in isolation, but also as the person-in-relationships. Our anthropology must take seriously that our identity includes being in relationship to nature, in relationship with God, and, in this manner, in relationship with ourselves.

Finally, a postmodern evangelical theology must be focused on spirituality.

A final gain of the Enlightenment was the quest for knowledge, which was viewed as good. Indeed, knowledge is a good, and hence evangelical theory is concerned to discover the truth of God. Consequently, the goal of theologizing includes right thinking, acknowledging that right beliefs or correct doctrine are important. However, our goal can never merely be the amassing of a wealth of knowledge for its own sake. Nor should we be under any illusion that the possession of knowledge—even theological knowledge—is inherently good (1 Cor. 8:1). Knowledge is good only when it facilitates a good result, specifically, when it fosters spirituality in the knower.

A theology that is “focused on spirituality,” therefore, views itself as immensely practical. In the postmodern world we must reappropriate the older pietist discovery that a “right heart” takes primacy over a “right head.” Theology must take its lodging in the heart, for it is concerned with the transformation of not only the intellectual commitments, but also the character and the life of the believer (as well as of the faith community).

To this end, a theology that is “focused on spirituality” fosters a proper ordering of activism and quietism. No longer can we follow the modern outlook which looks to overt activity, conduct, or specific decisions as the sole measure of spirituality. Rather, the postmodern world correctly understands that activism must be born from inner resource. Theology, in turn, contributes to this inner resource, for it seeks to clarify the foundational belief structure which shapes our responses to the situations of life and which structure is reflected in the acts we choose to do.

Conclusion

Our society is in the throes of a monumental transition, the movement from modernity to postmodernity. The emerging generation—those who were raised on Star Trek: The Next Generation—is already imbued with many aspects of the postmodern mind. Confronted by this new context, we dare not fall into the trap of wistfully longing for a return to the modernity that gave evangelicalism its birth—indeed, we simply cannot turn back the clock—for we are not called to minister in the past, but in the contemporary context, influenced as it is by postmodern ideas.

Postmodernism does pose dangers. Nevertheless, it would be ironic and tragic if evangelicals ended up being the last defenders of the now dying modernity. Rather, imbued with the vision of God’s programme for his world, we must claim the new postmodern context for Christ by embodying the Christian faith in ways that the new generation can understand. In short, under the banner of the cross, we must “boldly go where no one has gone before.”