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THE CONTOURS OF THE GOSPEL IN THE POSTMODERN CONTEXT

In the twentieth century evangelicals devoted themselves to the task of demonstrating the credibility of the Christian faith to a culture that glorifies reason and deifies science. Evangelical presentations of the gospel have often been accompanied by a rational apologetic that appeals to proofs for the existence of God, for the trustworthiness of the Bible, and for the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection. And evangelical systematic theologies have generally focused on the propositional content of the faith.

Now, however, the Western world—from ‘pop” culture to academia—seems to be jettisoning the Enlightenment principles that formed the foundation for modernity. We are entering what many observers call “the postmodern era.” The shift from the familiar territory of modernity to the uncharted terrain of postmodernity has grave implications for us as we seek to live as Christ’s disciples. We must think through the ramifications of the phenomenal changes occurring in Western society for our understanding of the Christian faith and our presentation of the gospel to the postmodern generation. Specifically, we must ask, What would be the contours of the gospel that could reach the emerging postmodern generation?

First, a postmodern articulation of the Christian gospel will be “post-individualistic.”

One of the great gains of modernity has been the elevation of the individual. This modern focus corresponds with certain central dimensions of scriptural teaching. Consequently, we dare not lose the emphasis on the importance of the individual human person, indicative of modernity. Indeed, we must always keep in view the biblical themes of God’s concern for each person, the responsibility of every human before God, and the individual orientation of the salvation message.

While maintaining the individual forces of the gospel, we must nevertheless shake ourselves loose of the radical individualism that has come to characterize the modern mindset. We must affirm with postmodern thinkers that knowledge— including knowledge of God—is not merely objective, not simply discovered by the neutral knowing self.

Here we can learn from contemporary communitarian scholars who have joined the postmodern assault on the modern epistemological fortress. They reject the modern paradigm with its focus on the self-reflective, autonomous subject. And they deny the modern ideal of the selfdetermining individual who exists outside any tradition or community. In its place the new communitarians offer a constructive alternative: the individual-within-community.

Communitarians point out the unavoidable role of the community or social network in the life of the human person. For example, the community is integral to the process of knowing. Crucial to the knowing process is a cognitive framework mediated to the individual by the community in which he or she participates. Similarly, the community of participation is crucial to identity formation. A sense of personal identity develops through the telling of a personal narrative which is always embedded in the story of the communities in which we participate. The community mediates to its members a transcendent story which includes traditions of virtue, common good, and ultimate meaning. In all of this, contemporary communitarians are actually echoing a great biblical theme, namely, that the goal of God’s program is the establishment of community in the highest sense.

In the postmodern world, therefore, we can no longer follow the lead of modernity and elevate the individual to center stage. Instead, we must remind ourselves that our faith is highly social. Just as God is the social Trinity—the fellowship of the trinitarian persons—so also the divine purpose for creation is directed toward the individual-in-relationship. Consequently, our gospel must address the human person within the context of the communities in which people are embedded.

The focus on community means that the postmodern world will draw us to recognize the importance of the community of faith in our evangelistic efforts. Members of the postmodern generation are often left unimpressed by our verbal presentations of the gospel. What they desire to see is a people who live out the gospel in wholesome, authentic, and healing relationships. Indeed, following the example of Jesus and the apostles, a Christian gospel for the postmodern age invites others to become participants in the community of those whose highest loyalty is to the God revealed in Christ. And participants in the inviting community will seek to draw others to Christ by embodying that gospel in the fellowship they share.

In addition to being post-individualistic, a postmodern embodiment of the Christian gospel will be post-rationalistic.

A significant gain of modernity has been the elevation of reason. The focus on logical argumentation and the scientific method has freed us from a host of superstitions that plagued pre-modern peoples. This focus has also provided us with the tools to construct the modern society, which offers so many benefits to its citizens.

Despite the challenges to faith that plagued Christians in the age of reason, Christianity was able to find a home in the modern world. Modern evangelicals contributed to this process. They painstakingly demonstrated that the Christian faith is not necessarily unreasonable. And in response to modern skeptics they boldly claimed that no one needs to commit “intellectual suicide” to be a Christian.

A postmodern embodiment of the gospel dare not become anti-intellectual and thereby give up the gains of the Enlightenment. Yet the postmodern critique of modernity stands as a needed reminder that the cognitive dimension does not exhaust the human person. Although we are intellectual beings, the human person is more than Aristotle’s “rational animal.” Nor can intellectual reflection and the scientific enterprise put us in touch with every dimension of reality or lead us to discover every aspect of God’s truth.

This means that we cannot simply collapse truth into the categories of rational certainty that typify modernity. Rather, in understanding and articulating the Christian faith, we must give place to the concept of “mystery”—not as an irrational aspect which we set alongside the rational, but as a reminder that the fundamental reality of God transcends human rationality. While remaining reasonable, therefore, the appeal of our gospel must not be limited to the intellectual aspect of the human person. It must encompass other dimensions of our being as well.

Central to our task in thinking through the faith in a postmodern context is the rethinking of the function of assertions or propositions. We must continue to acknowledge the fundamental importance of rational discourse, of course. Yet, our understanding of the faith cannot remain fixated on the propositionalist approach that views Christian truth simply as correct doctrine.

We can gain assistance in this task from postmodern social theorists. These thinkers are attempting to replace the individualistic foundational rationalism of modern Western thinking with an understanding of knowledge and belief that views them as socially and linguistically constituted. In so doing, they offer a helpful understanding of the role of propositions to human life.

No experience occurs in a vacuum; no transformation comes to us apart from an interpretation facilitated by the concepts—the “web of belief—we bring to it. On the contrary, experience and interpretive concepts are reciprocally related. Our concepts facilitate the experiences we have in life; at the same time, our experience determines the interpretive concepts we employ to speak about our lives.

At the heart of being a Christian is a personal encounter with God in Christ which shapes and molds us. On the basis on this encounter, we seek to bring into an understandable whole the diverse strands of our personal lives by appeal to certain categories. Prominent among these are “sin” and “grace,” “alienation” and “reconciliation,” “helplessness” and “divine power,” “having been lost” but “now being saved.” It is in this context of making sense out of life by means of recounting the story of a transformative religious experience that doctrinal propositions find their importance. The encounter with God in Christ, therefore, is both facilitated by, and expresses itself in categories that are propositional in nature. The categories that form the cradle for this experience, in turn, constitute the grid by means of which the believer now views all of life.

Propositions, therefore, carry “second-order” importance. They both serve the conversion experience and arise out of our new status as believers. Consequently, the goal of the gospel proclamation is not to bring others to affirm a list of correct propositions. Rather, we employ theological propositions such as “sin” and “grace” in order that others might encounter God in Christ and then join us on the grand journey of understanding the meaning of that encounter for all of life.

A postmodern articulation of the gospel is post-rationalistic. It no longer focuses on propositions as the central content of Christian faith. Instead it takes seriously this dynamic understanding of the role of the intellectual dimension to human experience and to our making sense out of life.

Third, a postmodern articulation of the gospel will be post-dualistic. It must draw courage from the postmodern critique of modern dualism to develop a biblical wholism.

The Enlightenment project was built on the division of reality into “mind” and “matter.” This fundamental dualism affected the Enlightenment view of the human person as “soul” (i.e., thinking substance) and “body” (i.e., the physical substance). Christians who are imbued with the Enlightenment outlook often articulate a dualistic gospel. Their primary, if not sole concern is that of saving “souls.” They may possibly entertain a secondary concern for “bodies,” but they are convinced that the physical dimension of the human person is of no eternal importance.

If we would minister in the postmodern context, however, we must realize that the “next generation” is increasingly interested in the human person as a unified whole. The gospel we proclaim, therefore, must exercise an impact on humans in their entirety.

This does not mean merely giving greater place to human emotion or the affective aspects of life alongside the rational. Rather, it involves integrating the emotional-affective, as well as the bodily-sensual, with the intellectual-rational within the one human person. But postmodern Christian wholism must go beyond putting together the soul and body torn asunder in the Enlightenment. Our gospel must also put the human person back into the social and environmental context which forms and nourishes us. We must not merely speak of the individual in isolation, but also as the person-in-relationships. We must take seriously the biblical truth that our identity includes being in relationship to nature, in relationship with others, in relationship with God, and as a consequence in true relationship with ourselves. In so doing, we are merely following the example of our Lord who spoke about, and ministered to people as whole persons and as persons-in-relationship.

Finally, a postmodern articulation of the gospel will be post-noeticentric.

Our gospel must move beyond the focus on the accumulation of knowledge as the goal of our existence. Rather, we must realize that the purpose of correct doctrine is to serve the attainment of wisdom.

The Enlightenment handed to humankind a great legacy through its elevation of knowledge. It focused human efforts on the quest for knowledge, which came to be viewed as inherently good.

Indeed, knowledge is a good. And as Christian heirs of the Enlightenment, we ought to center our intellectual efforts on the discovery of knowledge about God in its various forms. We likewise affirm that a crucial goal of Christian sanctification ought to be right thinking, for we are convinced that right beliefs or correct doctrines are vital to Christian living. However, our goal can never merely be the amassing of a wealth of knowledge for its own sake. Nor should we be under any illusion that the possession of knowledge-even biblical knowledge or correct doctrine-is inherently good. Paul adamantly dispelled the Corinthian belief of this faulty accent (1 Cor 8:1). Knowledge is only good when it facilitates a good result, specifically, when it fosters wisdom (or spirituality) in the knower.

A post-noeticentric Christian gospel declares the relevance of faith for every dimension of life. It refuses to allow commitment to Christ to remain merely an intellectual endeavor, that is, a matter of assent to orthodox propositions. Rather, commitment to Christ must also take its lodging in the “heart” and then move to the “hand.” The Christian gospel is concerned not only with the reformulation of our intellectual commitments, but also with the transformation of our character and the renewal of the entire life and conduct of the believer.

This focus returns us to the ancillary role of knowledge. Beliefs are important because they shape conduct. Our fundamental belief structure is reflected in our actions. As Christians, therefore, we should be concerned to gain knowledge and to hold to correct doctrine, in order that we might attain wisdom for living so that we might please God with our lives.

Our society is in the throes of a monumental transition. In every era the gospel of Jesus Christ has gone forth with power to convert the hearts of humans. So today, that gospel is the answer to the longings of the postmodern generation. Our task as Christ’s disciples is to embody and articulate the never-changing good news of available salvation in a manner that the emerging generation can understand. Only then can we become the vehicles of the Holy Spirit in bringing them to experience the same life-changing encounter with the triune God from whom our entire lives derive their meaning.

By Stanley J. Grenz, Carey Theological College, Regent College, and Northern Baptist Theological Seminary. This article is adapted from A Primer on Postmodernism (Wm.B. Eerdmans, 1996), with permission from the publisher.