Postmodernism
Mo and Pomo…the Christian Response

There is a sense in which this entire Mo/Pomo discussion is irrelevant to Christians. After all, these movements are of men and have no affect of the Biblical God. God is in control of history and His story is about His covenant faithfulness to Israel and the Church. This story of God is not part of the world rather the world and man in it are part of God’s story. Without God there would be no world. And, of course, there is the rub. Mo and Pomo careen thorough God’s world as if He did not exist, or is at best an irrelevance. There is no concern of God’s creation, providence and redemption in Mo and Pomo. They are, after all, social movements of man.

But, as Christians we must seek to understand where man is, or at least where he thinks he is in history. We can only be effective witnesses of God’s grace and glory if we know the audience. So here in Pomo, how does one proclaim Truth in its propositional and personal dimensions where there are many truths? To begin with, at least Christianity merits a hearing in Pomo. It matters not that it is reasonable and foundationally revelatory. With no universal position as in Mo [reason] all truth claims are open for business. Christianity is relevant once again. But, there is a caveat. The Truth of Christianity can be true but it may be true for one but not another. All truths are true because they are believed, not because they are true. Truth in Pomo is a personal preference, no more no less.

Here, Pomo is vulnerable. To allow that all preferences are true because someone believes it leads to moral irresponsibility. How does a Pomo deal with a Hitler or Stalin or Pol Pot? Together they killed millions because they thought it was right to do so. It was their personal truth. As one who has practiced law for 35 years, it is hard to conceive of justice without discerning truth. I have a revelation: Not everyone who testifies to the truth tells the truth! A life, a society, a world cannot be long sustained without standards or judgment that separate truth from error, truth from tyranny.

Pomo through its spokesmen malign truth and allow that it is merely a tool of repression. But, one must ask, how can they say that? Where is the standard used by them to make such a judgment? They smuggle their principles in the back door. Pomo fails to answer one simple question. Is Pomo true? If it is, why? If it is not, why do we believe it? Pomo affirms what it actually claims it is not…a system of truth preferable to all others.

Pomo gives the Christian a chance to do what Mo did not allow. Mo relegated Christianity to proving Truth by reason alone. Pomo on the other hand grants a hearing to the Truth of Christianity without any limits. There is a dangerous tendency, however, for an accommodation to Pomo as there was to Mo. Those styled as “reformist evangelicals” and the “emerging church movement” tend to be relativistic in Truth claims and without boundaries of belief. Is this not adapting Pomo to the church? One must ask whether the Christian is affecting the culture or the culture is infecting the Christian. The Christian must not miss the opportunity to proclaim the Gospel as Truth both in belief and living, teaching others to be hearers and doers of the Word. The culture, be it Mo or Pomo, must not be shown that the Gospel is intelligible or the best preference available, but that the world and individual lives are not intelligible without the Truth of the Gospel.