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“Telling the Big Story” (or how not to engage culture with theology)

May 4th, 2014 by Matt

One thing that tends to make my eyes glaze over is the mantra, expressed so frequently by some evangelicals in New Zealand,  that we live in a post-modern society and so theology should, instead of involving the rational defense of truth, be focused on “telling the big story” or “sharing the narrative”, and we should invite others to partake and find meaning.

William Lane Craig, expresses well some of the reservations I have with this position in the video below.

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7 responses so far ↓

  • WLC makes some good points here. However, his critique does not cover all of post-modernism. The fact is that modernism is a discredited worldview, and we would do well to be aware of its failings.

    WLC is partially correct that we do not live in post-modernist society because our society is made up of many modernists. However it is also made up of many who recognize that modernism is a failed system and these can rightly be called post-modernists, even if they do not fit into the stereotyped description of relativistic deniers of objective truth that WLC described.

    I think that what are considered the successful post-modern critiques of modernism are actually existentialist critiques of rationalism (after all, is modernism not simply a particular manifestation of rationalism?) and that history will not talk about post-modernism, but rather the battle between rationalist and existential philosophy, which has gone on now for several centuries.

  • Karl
    I am not sure your comments here are coherent.
    First you state:

    WLC is partially correct that we do not live in post-modernist society because our society is made up of many modernists. However it is also made up of many who recognize that modernism is a failed system and these can rightly be called post-modernists, even if they do not fit into the stereotyped description of relativistic deniers of objective truth that WLC described.

    Here you seem to be equating “post-modernist” with anyone who recognises that modernism is false. However latter you say:

    I think that what are considered the successful post-modern critiques of modernism are actually existentialist critiques of rationalism (after all, is modernism not simply a particular manifestation of rationalism?) and that history will not talk about post-modernism, but rather the battle between rationalist and existential philosophy, which has gone on now for several centuries

    Here you seem to be equating post modernism with a particular form of existentialism and the rejection of rationalism.
    Now while it might be plausible to claim that many people recognise that modernism. Its simply not true that these people embrace existentialist critiques of rationalism. You seem to be trying to slip from the trivial claim that some people reject enlightenment epistemologies are mistaken to a more substantive claim that certain existentialist ways of thinking have been established. That’s simply not true

  • Matt,
    I probably could have put my thoughts more coherently. The problem is largely that post-modernism has more that one meaning.

    In my view the best use of the term is as a critique of modernism. I believe this is the original use of the term. (How else did it get so named?) I think that you (and probably WLC also) would agree with me that modernism is a failed system and the critique that post-modernism brings is welcome and necessary. Insofar as illuminating the failures of positivism, scientism, inexorable progress, etc is called post-modernism then it is of this type and is actually a friend as opposed to an enemy of the church. I also believe that this position is held by many even if they are not able to elucidate their thinking.

    However, within the church, this is not the common understanding of post-modernism. Within the church, most people tend to associate post-modernism with denial of absolutes (whether truth, morality, etc), relativism, etc. Obviously such viewpoints are no friend to the church. I affirm WLC’s critique of the acceptance of such views within the church. Moreover, I think that although the tropes of such a view (eg “that’s true for you”, etc) although are common, are used more often as convenient defense mechanisms as opposed to genuinely held beliefs. I do understand that some of the more extreme post-modernist thinkers such as Baudrillard have advanced such views, (although I suspect that he may be playing devil’s advocate with some of his claims.)

    My last point was perhaps the most confusing for you to read and that is my fault as I didn’t explain all of my thinking. It was simply a postscript that my belief (loosely held, by the way) is that modernism and post-modernism will eventually be seen as particular historical manifestations of rationalism and existentialism. Modernism was a time when an optimistic rationalism was the dominant view, and the erosion of that dominance by existentialism is called post-modernism.

    I hope I have expressed myself more coherently this time.

  • I posted this elsewhere with regards to the video, so I figured it would be worth posting it here. Hopeful to hear people’s thoughts.

    I think the problem is that Craig tends to take an extreme form of postmodernism and say that just is postmodernism. However, just like there are varieties of modernism (logical positivism, evidentialism, empiricism, rationalism, Cartesianism, neo-Aristotelianism, etc.), so there are different types of post-modernism.

    Thus, I think it would be safe to say that most post-modernists do not reject logic or reason and thus wouldn’t necessarily reject those arguments. A certain form of post-modernism can then be a good thing for the church as it looks for the best of both worlds: reason and narrative. And how can that be a bad thing when the Gospels are stories after all?

    Maybe we could take a form of Jamesian pragmatism as an example of postmodernism and compare thoughts on that.

  • Brett and Karl

    To Brett: I am not sure I would call neo-Aristotelian “modernist”.

    But, to your main argument, the problem with this response to Craig’s comments is that if you define post modernism broadly so that it does not “reject logic or reason and thus wouldn’t necessarily reject those arguments.” then the objection Craig is responding to no longer stands, the fact we are in a post modern society does not mean we can discount those arguments or engage in the kind of apologetic enterprise Craig is defending and it certainly does not entail that evangelism reduces to “sharing the narrative”.

    On the other hand if the objection is to stand then you have to define post modernism narrowly.

    A certain form of post-modernism can then be a good thing for the church as it looks for the best of both worlds: reason and narrative. And how can that be a bad thing when the Gospels are stories after all?

    Actually, I think the gospels are “ancient biographies” to simply call them stories is ambiguous and likely to mislead, after all Harry Potter and the Philosophers stone is also a “story”.

    But more to the point, Craig’s objection is not to using the narrative form of scripture alongside reason and concern for truth. His objection is to the claim that we should replace defences of truth with telling the “big story” and inviting others to “partake of it” and that involves doing the latter to the exclusion of the former.

    Karl,
    Would say similar things, you seem to want to define post modernism as simply a rejection of modernism. That seems to me false.

    But even if it were true, then not much follows from that, certainly it does not follow that specifically existentialist critiques of modernism are correct, or existentialist ways of thinking are correct. There are plenty of critiques of modernism which have nothing to do with existentialism. And more importantly, it does not follow from the claim that modernism is false that the kinds of rejections of rational argument in theology Craig is referring to and its replacement with vague slogans about “telling the meta narrative” are correct. So, again to motivate the kind of objection Craig responds to you have to define post modernism much more narrowly.

  • Matthew,

    As to neo-Aristotelianism, it’s definitely hard to categorize so we can set that aside.

    Sure, but my objection is that he is misrepresenting post-modernism. Craig seems to say that holding both “we live in a post-modern culture” and “the use of Craig’s arguments can work effectively in our culture” are inconsistent with one another. However, that’s not what post-modernism is, it’s simply a subset. That’s my simple point.

    Agreed, they are ancient biographies (Burridge and all that) and all speech is ambiguous but maybe you would be more inclined if I called them “narratives”. Anyway, I don’t think we really disagree on anything here.

    And I agree that the particular solution Craig expounded is misguided. That’s why my criticism is merely of his definition of post-modernism.

    Now, if we take what I think is a broad understanding of post-modernism instead of equating it with some form of extreme relativism, then we can discuss whether we really live in a post-modern culture (Craig seems to do this around the 2:58 mark), but that is a different subject.

  • Matt,
    I agree that the main issue here is about the definition of post-modernism. The fact is that WLC speaks about a certain type of post-modernism as if it were representative when that is not the case. I suspect that the reason for this may be that he is responding to a question where the questioner defined post-modernism in such a way.

    The reason I think it is important to highlight this is that there is a widespread misunderstanding that post-modernism is simply how it is described in this video, and the plain fact is that it is not.

    This has led WLC to make some statements that are either erroneous or likely to mislead (and in particular be used by those Christians who are steeped in modernism to defend modernism by demonizing post-modernism). The fact that the vast majority of people today do not reject reason outright does not mean that we are not living in a post-modern society.

    His response also seems to buy into the idea that we must choose to respond with either reason or narrative, which is quite simply false. What is true is that reason without narrative is much less easily digestible in this generation. We must not abandon truth, but we also must not abandon narrative or be ignorant of the big story.