Last Saturday night my home group discussed definitions of Postmodernism and its relationship to religion. I thought I would try to expand my views here even though I feel this topic has been beat to death. Most people define Postmodern thought as a rejection or reaction to modern scientific thinking. It is commonly viewed as a skeptical view of truth or a view that all truth is relative. I disagree with this popular definition.

First, we should note that modernism was the way people had come to think since the age of enlightenment/reason. It is a scientific view of the world. Modernity had a dramatic effect on religion since it was a time when science and religion fought for the truth about everything. Religion felt it was loosing its hold on truth (and therefore losing the battle for power) so it fought back with its own laws (doctrines) that looked and smelled just like science with all the trappings of rigid authoritative systems and theological claims. The modern mind thinks in terms of experiments, laws and repeatable patterns so the modern minds of religion in the last few centuries tried their best to build a case for religion on the same principles. The result was fundamentalist apologetics and that fatal flaw has led to wars, distrust, abuse, and may yet destroy religion completely.

In my mind, postmodernism is not the rejection of absolute truth. Instead, it is the full embrace of everything we learned during the modern era about truth. We have absorbed all of modernity's lessons about how to do science and how not to do religion. Both insights have been valuable and we learned from our mistakes. Rather than reacting to science with a fight for truth, postmodern people of faith no longer see science as something new, dangerous, or destructive to faith. A scientific understanding of the universe is now a normal part of how we think and operate. We’ve accepted modern science and its love of skepticism and questioning, and now we have moved on with the idea of finding a new place for religion. We realize now that every great discovery in life begins with the question "Is the current way really the best way?" The battle between religion and science for absolute unchanging truth is over and science has won! Science won precisely because it never claims to have the final answer. Science always questions itself and continues to learn while religions are built on the celebration of the way things were. Religion will never again be the holder of truth about how the universe works and God will never again be the unexplainable and shrinking gap in our current understanding of the universe. We may not have all the answers but science is the best tool for that job. Religion was destined to fail when placed in that role and during the modern era, religion lost its ancient job of holding truth. Now in a postmodern world, religion will no longer have any claim to knowledge of the creation of the world, the origin or man, or the ability to predict the future.

Does that mean that religions are finished and God is dead in post modernity? I don't think so. It does mean that we finally have a chance to put religion into a role where it can succeed and God is no longer held in a human box of understanding. In the postmodern world, religion is no longer where we look for truth about the universe but where we look for inspiration, critique, transformation, and motivation. That is where it has always served mankind well. In this place, religion is a big winner. In this place, God is not a shrinking set of truths but instead God is a growing source of transformation.