Theology for Everybody: RomansSample

The second phase Paul prophesied is postmodern deconstructionism. Postmodernism started as a philosophy in the arts in the 1950s and then became a philosophical system in the 1960s and 70s, primarily in France. One of the things postmodern deconstruction shares with critical theory is the spirit of judgment and the culture of criticism. It sees only faults, flaws, and failures and doesn’t allow itself to be judged.

Postmodern deconstructionism is based on three things. The first is relativism, which means there is no true truth. There is no God who is over all and gives truth. Instead, we all have our perspectives, cultural interpretation, private feelings, and personal experiences. So, we move from facts to feelings—“Well, it’s true for me because this is how I feel.”

Second is the rejection of the metanarrative. The rejection of the metanarrative is the rejection of the Bible. The Bible is the big story; through it, we have the data to interpret the little stories that are our lives. There is a God, and He is the Creator who made us male and female. We have gender, marriage, and sexuality. We’re not here by accident. God made us to obey Him and live in relationship to Him. We’re dependent beings. We sinned against God, and our sin infected the whole world. Everything that’s broken and painful is our fault because we did something wrong. God came down and made it right through His Son, Jesus Christ, who died for our sins and rose again as our Savior. Jesus is coming again to judge the living and the dead, and He will set up a Kingdom that never ends. He’s going to fix the massive mess we’ve all made. We’re the problem, and He’s the solution.

If you reject that metanarrative, then you don’t know why the world is a mess, what you’re supposed to do, or even who you are. So, you create an identity for yourself. You blame everybody else for being part of the problem rather than acknowledging that you, too, are part of the problem. And then you vote for government rather than trusting God to fix all your problems.

The third is deconstruction. Tear down everything—gender, marriage, sexuality, law, politics, economics, etc. Now, this continues up until the point where basically everything has been deconstructed. You can only tear down until there’s nothing left to tear down. And once you tear everything down, you’re homeless.

Today’s Reflection

Why is the concept of absolute truth so important for followers of Christ?