AM I POSTMODERN?

I am postmodern in a way. But I suppose I need to begin this blog by addressing those of you who immediately think of the philosophical category of postmodernism from that point of view I'm certainly not a postmodernist. A genuine postmodernist might think of me as a reactionary traditionalist. I certainly believe in absolute truth, and that separates me from that philosophical category. However, there is a sense in which I do tend in that direction. Stated simply, I have some distrust for the thinking that what is new is always best. Some years ago I told the London taxi driver things looked more modern than when I was there in the 1970s. He took it as a huge compliment. I did not necessarily mean it so.

In fact, I am uncomfortable with those who always love the next new thing. I have receive some writing advice from a successful writer who tends to call certain techniques out of date. I want to know if they are poor communication, or if they will offend readers. But he does not seem to be able to think in those terms.

I once wrote our denomination’s publishing house about something that bothered me in a student Sunday School lesson. I quoted The Keil and Delitzsch Commentary that said the position presented in the Sunday School book was held only by those who did not believe the Bible. The author wrote me back quite graciously saying I had forced him to go to the library. But his answer was that he found commentaries written before 1900 tended to agree with me and newer commentaries agreed with him. He did not think he needed to give their reasons or what they knew that the older commentators did not. He simply thought the new trumped the old.

Some of you may immediately think of technology. You like your newer car and your new phone. But I suspect most of you do not like them better because they are new. You like your car because it is not worn out like a 1954 Cadillac. And you like your phone because it will do so more things than even last year’s model. You like new technology because it is better, not because it is new.

But what about morals or values? Are they better because they are newer? New values may be better, because we have learned more. They may be better because we have seen results of older thinking. But as often as not, our thinking has changed because we have forgotten what another generation understood.

I have the same attitude toward holding to traditional thinking. Whether an idea is old or new has no bearing upon whether it is true or false.

I fear my own position leans toward pragmatism. I want what will accomplish what is needed. But I know what I want to accomplish may be short sighted. In the long run what is right will be best. What is true will be continually contemporary. We need to draw our values from God Himself. He is the same in every generation. We must seek what is Biblical, righteous, helpful, and good.