This post first appeared as a comment at Emerging Africa to a post titled, "the over-reaction of postmodernism (the basis of emergent thinking)". The author states,

Post modernism rejects:
All metanarratives (metanarrative: overarching truth). This is a metanarrative in itself.

This seems to be a common misunderstanding - that postmodernism rejects truth. And so, here is my (edited, and quite long) comment (awards are presented to those who make it to the end!):

Technorati Tags: Apartheid, Brian McLaren, Change Agents, Emerging Church, Holocaust, metanarratives, Michael Polanyi, N.T. Wright, postapartheid, postcolonial, postmodernism, Africa, South Africa, theology, Thomas Resane

swaziopolous makes some assumptions in his post here and I'd like to comment on them. First is that postmodernism is the basis of emerging thinking ("emergent" is the American network of some emerging churches, "emerging" is the global conversation, "emerging missional church" is my preferred (longer) term because it gets to the heart of what the conversation is about). So let's recognise that

Postmodernism is a Western phenomenon.

Emerging missional churches are attempting to create Christian community in the culture in which they find themselves much like going to Paraguay and starting a church - the missionary has to understand things like language, culture and symbolism, and then incarnate community in that context. Except that instead of going to Paraguay and figuring how to live in a foreign culture, we get to do that in our homes and own communities.

In non-Western contexts (like South America, Asia and most of Africa) postmodernism makes no sense. Seriously, have a conversation with a black pastor from Soweto about how excited you are about epistemology and hermeneutics and how postmodern philosophy has given you a new lease on being a Christian in a postal world, and see what happens (::yawn::). That guy is just trying to figure out what the best way is for him to lead his church in his community, and your big words mean nothing to him (by saying this I'm not implying that he's not educated or intelligent, just that postmodernism is a Western framework of seeing the world, and he doesn't think in a Western way). Trevor Ntola, who was part of the South African team at Amahoro this year said exactly this - that the emerging conversation means nothing to said black pastor in Soweto, because it was too much in the head.

But there's a part of the conversation which, for non-Western people, makes much more sense, and that's post-colonialism. In South Africa, post-apartheid is where it's at. Thomas Resane (head of Youth for Christ in South Africa) gave a great presentation at Change Agents on the history of youth ministry in South Africa. He spoke about the good things modernism gave us, as well as the bad. Not once did he mention "post-anything" - and he didn't need to. The thing is, post-colonialism ends up at the same place as postmodernism - it just has a different way of getting there.

By the way, this is the challenge for us in South Africa, to not only approach the emerging conversation from a Western worldview, but a post-apartheid one - and to include those for whom big philosophical words have no interest (like talking to a Dutch Reformed pastor at Change Agents who does a lot of work in schools, and who is coming up against the (natural) suspicion and anger towards the church by the students because of the church's role in supporting Apartheid).

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My second problem with the post is that swaziopoulos says that postmodernism rejects all metanarratives. Nope, it doesn't. Rejecting all metanarratives says that there is no framing story which we live in (we do). Brian McLaren talks about this affirmatively in his new book "Everything must Change" and N.T. Wright places us firmly within God's story of restoration - and a lot of emerging types like these guys!

A better way of articulating postmodernism's stance towards metanarratives is incredulity towards them (thanks Jean-François Lyotard). This is not dismissal, it is suspicion. See it one the ground in this example: suspicion towards authority. In the "good old days" wearing a priestly collar often guaranteed respect by the wider community. I've heard of priests getting things for free at grocery stores, for instance (silly example, I know!). Now, people tend to be suspicious towards priests for a number of reasons (stories of child abuse, general suspicion towards the church, etc). So the narrative of "I'm a priest and therefore trustworthy" finds itself under suspicion in both a postmodern and postcolonial culture. This is why generational gurus talk of young people's relation towards authority as, "Trust must be earned, it doesn't reside in a badge."

In the late 20th century, many thoughtful people of a postmodern attitude looked back at regimes like Stalin's and Hitler's. (One must never forget how the postmodern attitude developed in the aftermath of the Holocaust and colonialism, as deeply ethical European intellectuals like Michael Polanyi reflected on the atrocities their peers had perpetuated or acquiesced to.) They realized that these megalomaniacs used grand systems of belief to justify their atrocities. Those totalitarian systems of belief – which these people sometimes called "metanarratives," but which also could have been called "world views" or "ideologies" – were so powerful they could transform good European intellectuals into killers or accomplices. They thought back over European history and realized (as C. S. Lewis did) that those who have passionate commitment to a system of belief will be most willing, not only to die for it, but to kill for it.

- Brian McLaren

So postmodernism warns us of the danger of metanarratives, because we've seen the evil committed because of them. In fact, incredulity is the only sensible stance. McLaren again:

Incredulity toward metanarratives, then, can be understood as common sense: after you've seen millions of people killed by other people who felt they had a right, based on their metanarrative, to do so, not to maintain some degree of incredulity would be - wouldn't it? - stupid.

So now what? We have people who read the world through a lens of suspicion, not trusting anything outside of their own experience of truth, or upon their community's agreed-upon definition of truth. This is a problem!

Meanwhile, that incredulity created problems of its own, not the least of which is this: if one doubts all systems of belief, all ideologies, all universal stories, what does one live by - self interest? If big stories are dangerous to live by, are small stories better, or no stories? Is that possible? Won't the absence of big stories and big ideas and comprehensive belief systems leave people vulnerable to relativism and narcissism and consumerism?

So, some people are worried that "postmoderns" will embrace relativism as an excuse to do anything they want. But other people are still worried that "moderns" will use their absolutism as an excuse to do anything they want - and the "moderns" tend to have more and bigger weapons. One side is against the other's supposed denial of truth in the interest of self-indulgence, and the other side is against its opposite's apparent monopolization of truth in the interest of political or religious domination. Many of us are convinced that both sides are right about each other's danger. We are seeking a way to be faithful Christians while taking both dangers seriously. We may not have all the details worked out yet. But these things take time.

Ibid

The challenge put to postmodernism is to move from a hermeneutic of suspicion to one of trust.

And so, based on this post, I will not allow anybody to claim that "Postmodernism rejects truth" or "Postmodernism rejects all metanarratives."

Small example in South Africa: the church provided the theological underpinnings of Apartheid. Now, after Apartheid is over, do you seriously expect non-Christians to be open to the message of the Church when that same church (without much apology, if we're honest) helped the other side? To just claim, "We're just preaching the Bible, we didn't have anything to do with Apartheid," is a serious - and dangerous - underestimation of culture and history - as well as an unsympathetic dismissal of the pain caused to people by the Church. Part of what the Gospel is calling us in South Africa to do is to face Apartheid head-on, not just from a repentance perspective but also a theological one: how we (I'm talking white South African Christians here) were happy with an evil system which we believed was the Gospel, and how we preached good sermons and read Scripture and did all of the good things in the name of Jesus, and missed the truth. Those mistakes don't just evaporate because someone said, "Sorry." Those are questions of authority, and hermeneutics, and epistemology, and Scripture, and faith itself. To reduce postmodernism to, "It rejects truth," and to reduce the emerging church conversation to, "It uncritically embraces the rejection of truth," is an uninformed, naive mistake (I'm writing this with Tim Cantrell in mind - sorry Tim!).

And I'd add - from Ashley Visagie's thesis - http://www.ashleyvisagie.co.za/thesis.pdf... - where he quotes Stanley Grenz - It is not the duty of the Church to be modern or postmodern, but to be the community of faith in the best way it can in each new age that comes.

reply to this comment

Posted by: Roger Saner 01 Nov, 2007 - 00:06:11

Roger this statement confuses me, something generally not difficult to achieve
- And so, based on this post, I will not allow anybody to claim that "Postmodernism rejects truth" or "Postmodernism rejects all metanarratives." -
Does this mean that Postmodernism accepts all truth and all metanarratives? Or is it the generalizing that you will not allow?

reply to this comment

Posted by: Me 05 Nov, 2007 - 21:39:50

No, postmodernism does not *accept* all metanarratives. The converse claim (which is what the alarmists claim) is that postmodernism *rejects* all metanarratives. To prove that this claim is logically incorrect, all I have to do is cite a single instance of a postmodern Christianity which affirms a metanarrative - and I've given two examples: Brian McLaren and N.T. Wright.

THIS is why I won't let anyone claim the opposite. The same with truth. Allow me to say: "I am postmodern. This statement is true."

Either the statement is true, or it is false. It is it false I'm not a postmodernist. But...
I am a postmodernist (in the sense that I affirm the postmodernist position as a valid one). AND I affirm the second half of that claim "This statement is true" to be true.

Therefore, postmodernism does not deny all truth (and neither does it accept all truth). Conversely, the statement attributed to postmodernists - "Postmodernism denies truth" - is a logical impossibility (and try to find *anyone* who adhere to it...or maybe just a straw man!) because if it's true then it immediately cannot be true. You cannot say, "There is no such thing as truth," because if that statement is true - and there is no truth - then the statement claims to be saying something true about reality (that there is no truth) and if there's no truth then the statement can't be true.

Make sense?!

reply to this comment

Posted by: Roger Saner 06 Nov, 2007 - 00:54:33

Makes sense. Thanks for the lengthy explanation but I was not making an attack on postmodernism, rather clarifying what you are saying.

So then your opinion is that postmodernism does not reject or accept all metanarratives and truth.

Am I then right to assume that a statement or comment that would say *postmodernism rejects metanarratives and truth is not allowed or *postmodernism rejects all metanarratives and truth * is not allowed, but one that *postmodernism rejects some metanarratives and truth* is open for debate.

Because making an all encompassing statement that puts everyone into the same frame of reference and ignores the exceptions, who might well be the majority, will always be a problem. Yes?

This is the reason I asked the second question *Or is it the generalizing that you will not allow?* which you either missed or was not able to get to.

reply to this comment

Posted by: Me 08 Nov, 2007 - 22:35:09

Hi Me

I must be misunderstanding you, because I think what I've already written answers you, so I must be missing something. Maybe I left out an "all" in my post above, and should've phrased it as:

'And so, based on this post, I will not allow anybody to claim that "Postmodernism rejects all truth" or "Postmodernism rejects all metanarratives."'

Is that where I'm missing you?

reply to this comment

Posted by: Roger Saner 09 Nov, 2007 - 00:03:35

And to clarify the above, postmodernism doesn't reject absolute truth (or absolute anything) - but it does say that we can't get "outside" of truth and look on it from an objective place so as to give it a prefix of "absolute".

reply to this comment

Posted by: Roger Saner 09 Nov, 2007 - 00:07:32

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