A host of factors have fashioned our perspectives on life: how we\u2019ve been raised, what we\u2019ve been taught, and whom we know.\u00a0 Most importantly, the particular community in which we dwell provides a meaningful life story.\u00a0 Stories truly matter.\u00a0 Better: stories matter truly.![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/lalibela_3_162_c1.jpg\")
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Consider the great religious teachers.\u00a0 Moses, Mohammed, Jesus, and Gautama Buddha all lived and taught in ways that caused others to revere them.\u00a0 Communities emerged in their wake.\u00a0 These teachers and their traditions supply some of the grand stories in which we live.<\/p>\n
Narrative postmodernists believe that understanding reality as story overcomes two main problems in modernism.<\/p>\n
One modern tradition claims that the only things worth taking seriously are logical propositions that \u201cpicture\u201d the world.\u00a0 They think the real world is comprised of independent elementary facts capable of empirical investigation.<\/p>\n
Modernism says we can only consider something meaningful if expressed in universally reasonable or factual language.\u00a0 Logic, mathematics, and the natural sciences are the only adequate bricks for building a meaningful worldview.<\/p>\n
The result of this modern view is that theology and spirituality cannot be taken seriously.\u00a0 After all, God cannot be conclusively verified with our five senses. \u201cNo one has seen God,\u201d says the biblical writer. Spirituality is concerned at least in part with the unseen.\u00a0 The heart has reasons that reason cannot fully know.<\/p>\nGod cannot be conclusively verified with our five senses. <\/a><\/span>Share on X<\/a><\/span>\n Theology concerns itself with more than what is logical or sensory. For this reason, atheistic modernists say theology is gibberish. \u00a0The church traffics in nonsense. \u00a0To use the words of the modern philosopher Bertrand Russell, theology is \u201can opponent of progress and improvement in all the ways that diminish suffering in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n The second problem inherent in modernism, say narrative postmodernists, is that each individual is considered entirely autonomous. Modernism champions independence. Among other things, this means that truth is individualistic. We\u2019ve already seen that forms of deconstructive postmodernism have this problem.<\/p>\n Narrative postmodernism argues that meaning is found in, and arises out of, particular communities.\u00a0 Truth is communal, not individualistic.<\/p>\nNarratives postmodernists say truth is communal, not individualistic. <\/a><\/span>Share on X<\/a><\/span>\n Narrative postmodernists agree that there is no objective all-encompassing standard by which to judge truth.\u00a0 Universal reason is an illusion.\u00a0 But they retain a place for reason, meaning, and truth. The community\u2019s language games and forms of life determine what is reasonable, meaningful and true.<\/p>\n Take the word \u201cliberal\u201d as an example.\u00a0 Some communities associate the word with ways of thinking they reject outright.\u00a0 In other communities, the word means generous and openhanded.\u00a0 Some mainly use \u201cliberal\u201d to refer to progressive politics.\u00a0 Still others use the word to mean a wide variety of influences.\u00a0 The context and the community\u2019s forms of life determine the meaning of \u201cliberal.\u201d<\/p>\n George Lindbeck\u2019s book, The Nature of Doctrine<\/em>, is a forerunner for the Christian appropriation of narrative postmodernism.\u00a0 To be a Christian, argues Lindbeck, is to become part of a community formed by the Christian cultural-linguistic system.\u00a0 Converting to Christianity is more about joining a new team than embracing a new set of ideas or beliefs.\u00a0 Team life and vocabulary identify the team\u2019s allegiances.<\/p>\n One of the more powerful forms of Christian narrative postmodernism adopts the label, Radical Orthodoxy.\u00a0 This theological sentiment seeks to rethink the Christian tradition without the constraints of a modernist worldview.\u00a0 According to Radical Orthodox theologians, modernity is a heretical deviation from orthodoxy.<\/p>\n Radical Orthodoxy critically retrieves premodern roots of Christianity \u2013 particularly resources in Augustine and medieval theologians. It especially appreciates what philosophers call, \u201cContinental philosophy.\u201d<\/p>\n Graham Ward describes the Radical Orthodoxy program in this way: \u201cEmploying the tools of critical reflexivity honed by continental thinking, taking on board the full implications of what has been termed the linguistic turn, Radical Orthodoxy reads the contemporary world through the Christian tradition, weaving it into the narrative of that tradition.”<\/p>\n Other Christian narrative theologians call their theological position, \u201cPostliberal.\u201d \u00a0Postliberal theologians are interested in practices and liturgies derived from the classic Christian traditions.\u00a0 They regard the Bible as offering a story arising from a particular form of life and with a unique language.<\/p>\n Narrative postmodernism allows Christians to evade criticism from those outside the Christian community (e.g., modernists, liberals, Muslims). If narrative postmodernism is true, we should not expect an outsider to understand Christianity\u2019s community-derived logic.\u00a0 An outsider\u2019s critique is only valid if it corresponds with some part of the story Christians already affirm.<\/p>\n Narrative postmodernism has its critics, of course. Here is some of what critics say:<\/p>\n While narrative postmodernism rightfully asks Christians to listen attentatively to its own tradition, critics argue it allows no space for genuine criticism from within the community itself.\u00a0 The community cannot hear the voice of the prophets \u2013 both inside and outside \u2013 if it accepts without question the old, old story passed down.<\/p>\n For instance, if Christian practices or ancient Christian worldviews promote patriarchy, anti-Semitism, or ecological recklessness, narrative postmodernism provides no standard beyond the community\u2019s own narrative by which to seek change.\u00a0 There can be no reference to a universal authority that transcends the community\u2019s particular language game.<\/p>\n Critics of narrative postmodernism are also often dissatisfied with the narrative model, or lack thereof, for how one should understand the person, human self, soul, or individual.\u00a0 While modernity wrongly deemed individuals unrelated and essentially autonomous, narrative postmodernism seems not to allow persons authentic independence.\u00a0 Authoritarian communities can be just as devastating as isolated individualism.<\/p>\n Authoritarian communities can be just as devastating as isolated individualism. <\/a><\/span>Share on X<\/a><\/span>\n Critics question narrative postmodernism\u2019s grounding of truth in the community.\u00a0 While narrative postmodernists overcome radical individual relativism, they shift to a relativism of communities.\u00a0 What is true is relative to a community and its way of life.\u00a0 There is no over-arching or universal standard by which to judge the adequacy of diverse truth-claims offered by communities that disagree with one another.\u00a0 One cannot appeal to ultimate truth, for instance, when seeking to convert nonChristians.<\/p>\n Some critics argue, finally, that the Christian story itself requires us to embrace the possibility that truth and meaning exists outside the Christian community.\u00a0 If God is present to all creation, Christians must listen for truth outside Christendom\u2019s conceptual walls.\u00a0 Evangelism and interfaith dialogue requires one to remain open to transformation by those outside one\u2019s own linguistic community.\u00a0 Christians ought to seek a grand narrative, say critics of narrative postmodernism, that accounts for truth wherever it emerges.<\/p>\nIf God is present to all creation, Christians must listen for truth outside Christendom. <\/a><\/span>Share on X<\/a><\/span>\n I find narrative postmodernism helpful in many ways. It rightly calls us away from radical individualism and radical relativism.\u00a0 It reminds us that the community has a wisdom that transcends its individual parts.<\/p>\n Narrative postmodernism rightly reminds us that truth is bigger than what we can condense in logical propositions and perceive through our sensory organs.<\/p>\n But I join the critics who seek an overarching narrative. I think God\u2019s truth transcends the Christian community \u2013 although I also think the broad Christian tradition does a better job than other religious traditions telling us about God.<\/p>\n I also think that an adequate postmodern theology provides a balance between individual and community. Modernity surely swung the balance too far toward individualism. Narrative postmodernism overcompensates, however, by overly privileging the community. We need a healthy balance.<\/p>\n While I don’t think deconstructive postmodernism serves well as the primary framework for contemporary Christian theologians, I also don\u2019t think narrative postmodernism functions well as the primary framework.\u00a0 There is much in narrative postmodernism to which I say \u201cyes.\u201d However, the tradition still prompts me to say \u201cbut.\u201d<\/p>\n I recommend that postmodern Christian theologians draw from narrative postmodernism. But I also recommend that Christians seek an overarching narrative in which to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n Or, perhaps better put, the gospel of Jesus Christ points to an overarching narrative about God and creation that transcends all individual and communal narratives.<\/p>\n We may never grasp that overarching narrative in its entirety. But settling for what we know is only part of the story — as important a part as that may be — is ultimately unsatisfying.<\/p>\nThe gospel points to an overarching narrative that transcends individual and communal narratives. <\/a><\/span>Share on X<\/a><\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If language is too slippery and we have no certain foundation upon which to build a worldview, are Christians lost? Is there any way to find meaning in a postmodern world?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[324,336,335,334,333,332,331,330,329,328,327,326,325,15,323,322,321,320,319,318,317,316,280,87,34,23],"yst_prominent_words":[1582,1591,1590,1589,1588,1587,1586,1585,1584,1583,1021,1581,1580,1579,1578,1577,1576,1575,1574,1345],"class_list":["post-1870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-postmodern_philosophy_theology_and_culture","tag-augustine","tag-james-ka-smith","tag-graham-ward","tag-jamie-smith","tag-james-k-a-smith","tag-bertrand-russell","tag-alasdair-macintyre","tag-macintyre","tag-linguistic","tag-communal","tag-liberal","tag-wittgenstein","tag-continential-philosophy","tag-thomasjayoord","tag-narrative-postmodernism","tag-nature-of-doctrine","tag-sotry","tag-george-lindbeck","tag-postliberal","tag-radical-orthodoxy","tag-neoorthodoxy","tag-narrative","tag-postmodern","tag-community","tag-thomas-oord","tag-oord"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1870\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1870"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=1870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/andee_lake_lowell_0051.jpg\")
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