All I remembered about John Dewey, I thought, was the Dewey Decimal System. If I were going to use the library at school, I had to learn where to find 972.110. However, I had the wrong Dewey in mind. I should have known that by looking up that information up at the school library, since I knew where to look, thanks to Melvil Dewey.
John Dewey was a philosopher, psychologist and educator. He was and is the most representative intellectual proponent of the spirit of modernism in the North American context. His philosophy of education permeated the public school system in our country. Dewey advocated four fundamental changes from pre-modern times to modern times, with which all public school children must be indoctrinated from the earliest possible ages.
First, modernity is no longer preoccupied with the supernatural, but rather delights in the natural, the this-worldly and the secular. There can be no room for the teaching of "intelligent design" in high school biology, simply because the supernatural has been removed from consideration. Matter is eternal, and nothing else matters.
Secondly, instead of the emphasis on submission to authorities, such as those who teach the Word of God, there is a growing belief in the power of the individual mind, guided by man's reason, experience, reflection, and observation to come to truths on his own. No wonder that most of the time those in the clergy are portrayed as buffoons, villains or hypocrites in all fields of the arts.
Thirdly, the modern period is characterized by belief in uninterrupted progress. The best is yet to come, thanks to man's advancements and accomplishments in all realms. The only thing needed is the courage, intelligence and effort to shape man's own fate. This is the era where we celebrate and reward our idols with all sorts of awards, even if they win the Nobel Peace Prize after only nine months of being in office as President. It should not surprise us that many church-going kids may have to scratch their heads trying to think of what rock group Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are members.
Lastly, to achieve all the goals mentioned above, man must use every means to study nature, control nature and subdue her forces for social use. Radical environmentalism is born, and climate change is championed. Man is destroying this planet, and only man can save this planet. (See point #1.)
John Dewey's modern man is self-assured and in control of his own destiny. He has no authority outside himself. He needs no salvation, because he has liberated himself from past traditions and superstitions. He just needs the courage to follow his reason wherever it leads. This is modernism in a nutshell. This is man without God.
But modernism did not live up to its billing, as was explained in last week's article. A high level of disillusionment set in with all this talk about progress and coming to unquestionable truths from man's reasoning abilities. The first signs of this unrest about modernism was the cultural shift in the 1960s. Anti-establishment meant not only the church, but also the government, the sciences, the universities, and other institutions lauded by modern man. Timothy Leary came up with the rally cry of "turn on, tune in, drop out", and modernism began to lose many followers from the Vietnam generation.
This brings us to the present state of postmodernism, the current prevalent approach to life. Trying to define postmodernism is sometimes like nailing jello to the wall, but there are many salient points in postmodernism that distinguishes itself from modernism, and which makes it an even more energetic enemy to authoritative divine revelation.
Postmodernism is generally an understanding that we can have no understanding of anything for certain. A biblical worldview says we understand objective truths because they are revealed first and foremost by God in His Word and in His world. Modernism says "no" to the previous statement, in that we know objective truths by man's intelligence and reason apart from the supernatural. Postmodernism says "no" to both of the previous statements, because the subjectivity of the human mind makes knowledge of objective truth impossible. Everyone then is entitled to his own definition of truth.
Since we can not know anything for certain, then the notion of evil or sin does not fit in the postmodern scheme of things. Anything that smacks of a universal, absolute truth is regarded as a severe case of judgmentalism and dogmatism that must be denied. Postmodernism is a triumph for relativism--the view that truth is not fixed and certain, and that each person determines his or her own reality. All this is a determined attempt to eliminate morality and guilt from human life, because there are no bedrock standards of right and wrong.
Postmodernism elevates tolerance and ambiguity over anything else. It is marked by suspicion and skepticism of anything that makes a clear claim to authoritative truth, whether it be Deity or Darwin, whether it comes from a Bible or a bibliography or a bigwig. In fact, even if we had video and audio recordings of a past historical figure, let's say George Washington, we still can not determine if what he did and said are really factual and true.
Postmodernists reject all metanarratives. A narrative is a story; "meta" means big, overarching, comprehensive. A metanarrative is simply an overarching transcendent view of the world that tries to make sense of how this world works. A biblical worldview has a metanarrative; Darwinists and modernists have a different metanarrative. They try to explain the world on purely materialist and naturalist terms. Postmodernists consider both groups arrogant and wrong in their assumptions that they can know truths about the world. Postmodernists hate all metanarratives (except their own).
Militant atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris do not realize that they have a real battle on their hands, and it is not coming from those "Bible-believing Christians." Even though Dawkins has said that Darwin has made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist, he is not convincing enough people to his cause. After years and years of intense indoctrination and government-funded propaganda, well over 90% of people still believe in a God (more about this statistic is forthcoming, though). That percentage has remained pretty constant through the years. Sam Harris says that 93% of scientists do not believe in God, but he never cites his source. I have read, for example in the book The End of Reason, that as many as 40% of scientists believe in God, and what's more the statistic doubles when one just counts the scientists that are closer to people interaction, such as medical doctors, and not just those who work only in lab coats. It's also interesting that a higher percentage of Eastern scientists believe in God than do Western scientists. One Chinese scientist remarked that he finds it startling that he can not question the government but he is free to question Darwinian evolution, but in the West while scientists can question the government they are not as free to question Darwin.
The modernist militant atheist has his own metanarrative, which is at odds with the biblical revelation, but it is also at serious odds with postmodernists, who discount all metanarratives, including the highly revered Darwinian evolution theory. So while Dawkins and Harris and Hitchens and others write their books and lecture on college campuses, they are drawing fire from the current growing crop of postmodernists, who deny Darwinian dogma almost as much as they deny the biblical account.
So what does this have to do with us who hold to the absolute certainty of God's revealed truth? We have a challenge on our hands, and we need to be aware of what that challenge consists. We have come to a cultural fork in the road, and as Yogi Berra said, when you see a fork in the road, take it. We as a church are up against the leftovers of a modernist culture and a booming postmodern culture.
It would be a revealing enterprise for anyone of us to evaluate much of Hollywood's latest productions to see how they are commentaries or propaganda pieces on modernism or postmodernism. Do not be fooled into thinking that Hollywood or Broadway or MGM or any entertainment outlet is only there to produce harmless movies, plays or TV shows with no worldview in mind. How do such things as Harry Potter, The Matrix, The Transformers, Twilight, The Mentalist, The Ghost Whisperer, The Vampire Diaries, and many others reveal modernist or postmodernist philosophy? One can make a very strong case that The Truman Show is a movie that has a postmodernist axe to grind against the highly structured, "progressive" yet phony world of modernism.
Postmodernism says there is no ultimate meaning in any text of any piece of literature, and that includes the text of Scripture. The postmodern challenge to the authority of Scripture comes down to this relativist statement: "Isn't it all a matter of interpretation?" Have you not heard on occasion something like this, "You don't mean to say that you take the Bible literally, do you?" If you have ever sat in a Bible study class where the teacher or leader asks each person in the class, "What does this verse or passage mean to you?", then you have witnessed the encroachment of postmodernism in your Bible class. If you have heard from the pulpit constant feel-good dribble without any doctrinal content, then postmodernism has found a welcomed home in that church.
I heard Josh McDowell in person a few years ago quote another troubling statistic. He said twenty years ago the most cited verse of Scripture among young people was John 3:16. Today he said it is now Matthew 7:1, ripped out of context, "Judge not, lest you be judged." Why is that? Non-judgmentalism is the cornerstone of postmodernism. John 3:16 (or John 14:6) is too definite, too certain, too dogmatic, too exclusive. What about those people who never heard the gospel? Postmodern preachers have said that Buddhists can still go to heaven, even if they never believe in Jesus.
When modernism was top banana, much of the evangelical church took the wrong fork in the road. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. As a result, much of the church adopted theistic evolution, and fashioned a social gospel that was more social and less gospel. We accommodated the gospel to the metanarrative of modernism.
Has much of the church today taken the wrong fork in the road now that postmodernism is king of the hill? Just google Emergent Church Movement, and see what you come up with.
We are told to preach the gospel in season and out of season (2 Timothy 4:2). We may be in the "out of season" time period, but even so, we are still to preach the gospel. Modernism and postmodernism are failures that are about to happen. So when a large segment of the church now combats global warming, fights AIDs by joining forces with totalitarian regimes, tries to eliminate world poverty and push for government-controlled health care, ordains homosexuals to the ministry, refuses to preach against sexual deviancy since it is a hate crime, prefers dialogues on Sunday mornings over traditional sermons, placates children and youth with all sorts of postmodern entertainment venues, refuses to make any definitive doctrinal claims, then it is high time for the church to do a gut check.
He who dines with the devil must bring a long spoon.
Yours for the sake of truth,
Chris
