Christian Speculative Fiction In A Postmodern World
Painting of Design Futura group on Piotrkowska Street in Łódź by Ralf Lotys
Merrick goes on to describe the early evidences of postmodernism in art as “deliberately indiscriminate weirdness: the ordinary was made to seem in some way excessively other, like stage props for a chaotic rather than reasoned reality. It was almost pose-modern.”
I have to admit, I couldn’t help but think of Lady Gaga when I read that, but of course “indiscriminate weirdness” isn’t all that defines postmodernism. Merrick adds this: “we seem to crave maximised senses of fractured movement, overlay, ennui and nowness.”
He continued by quoting Paul Greenhalgh, director of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich: “We all confidently celebrated our lack of confidence about things: suddenly, it seemed, none of us knew exactly what was beautiful or everlasting; or if we thought we did, none of us were prepared to say so.”
Merrick further defines postmodernism by saying, “The and/but vibe now suffuses almost everything we think and do. Surface has become more important than depth. Style – or, more accurately, stylee – trumps coordinated articulation; disbelief is more acceptable than belief [emphasis added].”
What does all this mean for Christian speculative fiction? In some respects the genre is caught between two worlds, as many Christian speculative authors feel to be true about themselves.
On one hand, we believe, in contradiction to our culture, that there are absolutes, that belief is essential, that beauty is recognizable, and that now pales in comparison to one day.
And yet “indiscriminate weirdness” has an appeal, and the ordinary does in fact have the potential at least to be quite “other.”
If we’re honest, reality does seem rather chaotic, which is why some of us prefer to write fantasy or science fiction where we can order the world according to a set of rules and principles that have a consistency we desire.
Others of us, to be sure, write fantasy or science fiction or horror to express or examine the chaotic, to try to make sense of it, to try to tame it.
As I think about the culture, it seems to me that dystopian fiction or urban fantasy makes such sense for postmodern thought. Embrace the chaos, live for the now, disdain the ideas of beauty and truth.
But Christian speculative fiction, caught in the in-between as it is, seems like the perfect genre to bridge the gap — the generation gap, the cultural gap.
We embrace the idea of “other,” but we believe in beauty and truth. Rather than articulating these, however, we value showing them.
But here’s the thing. As I perceive the community of Christian speculative writers, many have felt marginalized — squeezed by both sides of who we are. I think that’s short-sighted. We above all others can draw from both camps. We can speak to both sides of the cultural divide. If not us, then who?
Consequently, rather than feeling squeezed out — displaced like lepers outside the city gates — by our place between two worlds, I think a more fitting response would be, YES! We are in the unique position where we can speak for Christ to our culture and at the same time show the culture to the Church.
What a challenge!
I don’t know that postmodernism is the problem right now for Christians. The New Atheists, for instance, are much more favorably disposed to Enlightenment thinking than they are to postmodern relativism (indeed, Sam Harris just came out with a book that, in part, decried pomo relativism as just as bad as religious absolutism). And postmodernism offers up apologetic and artistic lanes that modernism (if we define modernism as the Enlightenment. Literary modernism is actually fairly similar to postmodernism in many respects) closes, by moving people away from empiricist rationalism to a greater focus on community and relationship. Not that the process is perfect. I find pomo writing infuriating and my natural tendency is to prefer the realists and naturalists of the beginning of the century (Jack London, Theodore Dreiser, Frank Norris, etc.). But in postmodernism, Christianity is considerably less under attack than in modernism, which is why many New Atheists hate literary po-mos. Christians can always just answer po-mo’s with “Well, I have a right to see the world the way I want” and the po-mos have to respect that if they are to remain philosophically consistent. Modernists do not (granted I’m giving a very crude depiction of both postmodernism and modernism here). And, personally, I’m not particularly convinced that Reformed style presuppositionalist apologetics is particularly useful as a witnessing tool today, or as a logically thought philosophy. The logic behind many postmodern theories of thought is impeccable, though the conclusions seem unlivable and therefore self-contradictory. But then that’s just me.
Just please note, I’m not a po-mo. I believe in objective truths.
Hi, John, thanks for your comment. I agree with you that the new atheists are more connected with the Enlightenment, but that’s the very reason their views are not spreading, despite the popularity of some of their books. In fact, I just heard a radio talk this morning that gave some statistics to that effect. If you’re interested, it was “When Atheists Would Be Angry” by Dr. David Jeremiah.
The typical postmodern thinker is “spiritual,” though that could mean finding the power from within as much as it could mean panentheism, Buddhism, Mormonism, Scientology, or Christianity. Some, in fact, will tell you that it doesn’t matter which you believe, just that you do with all your heart.
This is the line of thinking that is spreading. Even some professing Christians like Rob Bell (Love Wins) and Paul Young (The Shack) espouse these views. I guess there are several postmodern tendencies I see becoming more and more popular. One is deconstruction of the Bible, which leads some to “re-imagine” Jesus, and the other is relativism which undermines the authority of God’s Word, too.
So a Christian believing the Bible to be the infallible, unchanging, authoritative Word of God is automatically in conflict with this postmodern culture. But the speculative writer who can identify with the postmodernists’ value of story and interest in seeing the Other in the ordinary has a huge opportunity to speak into that relativistic outlook like few other Christians can.
Becky
I don’t really know what you mean by infallible here. I think Rob Bell and co. would probably say the Bible is inspired, but not inerrant (not that I’m neccessarily saying I agree with Mr. Bell). I agree that postmodernism probably undermines the reliability of the Bible, but not because it questions the historical veracity of it. Rather, postmodernism questions the linguistic assumptions upon which the Bible is based. John 1:1 comes into mind in particular here. If someone, for instance, says that “I ask Jesus into my heart and believe that He is the Son of God.”, a deconstructionist is going to get pedantic on you, and ask you to define “I” and “believe” and “God”. There point is twofold: No one can believe in God exactly as He is, so in that sense we are most likely all damned (Christ saves no one, cause no one can fully comprehend Him, or accept Him into their heart). Secondly, the deconstructionist would ask who is this “I” that you talk about. How can you be sure you have a singular identity as an organism; perhaps you are multiple organisms throughout your life, an infinity of slightly different “I’s”, some of whom are saved and some of whom are not. I think there argument here is pretty strong, and therefore does not require them to question the historical veracity of the Scriptures, which some in fact may accept.
And all the while, the “deconstructionist” would expect everyone to accept concrete definitions for all the terms of his question, only just long enough to ask it; he himself would not apply his own postmodern relativism to his own assertions!
John, in using “infallible” I have in mind “incapable of being wrong.”
I’ve never heard Rob Bell’s view on the Bible. He might say the Bible is inerrant, but it would be his deconstructed version of the Bible.
No, I don’t think the postmodern issues with the Bible have to do with its historicity. That’s definitely something a modern thinker would address, not a postmodernist. The latter is more apt to believe the Bible but see it as relevant in one way to the culture of its writers and in another way to people today — if it is relevant at all.
And yes, language has a huge part to play in how they view these matters — primarily because they believe that our language limits our thought and that our language shapes our thought.
And that plays perfectly into the “disbelief is more acceptable than belief” part of their thinking.
None of this, I don’t think, contradicts the idea that I’m postulating, that Christian speculative fiction writers are in a unique position to show Christ to the postmodern culture and to show at least aspects of postmodern culture to the Church.
Thanks for the dialogue, John.
Becky
I’m too dumb for this kind of discussion. I finished reading the article and my brain exploded. :-p
To me, Modernism is the bank downtown. All cold stone, sharp angles, marble pillars. Stately, grand, and absolutely heartless.
Post-modernism is the bank in the burbs. Low ceiling, wood paneling, carpet, potted plants, comfy chairs.
I have no idea how that applies to writing.
Kessie, I doubt very seriously that you are dumb at all! 🙂 I think you have modern architecture nailed perfectly. Postmodern architecture has less structure than what you described, however. The best visual I can give you is Lady Gaga, but I couldn’t put a picture of her up without having to pay for it, I’m pretty sure. Here are the pictures that accompanied the article I linked to, and that will show you even more than the building I posted.
The idea is, ordinary objects are just as viable subjects as mountains or cathedrals. Note the painting of the shopping cart for example. Also, there is the idea of chaos, which you could see in the mural in the picture I posted, and in the woman’s dress in the top picture on the page I linked to above. With the chaos is collage — cut and paste art without rhyme or reason. This is probably the issue that applies to literature more than the others.
The ideas in postmodern stories can be as relativistic as real life. In addition, the dystopian stories reflect the belief in chaos, as does much of the angst that is so popular in YA lit right now. There is no rhyme or reason, everything is random (a logical conclusion from modern thought, to be sure), there is no greater purpose than survival. Enter the Christian and you can see there might be a teensy collision of ideas. 😉
Becky
I think literature, especially with market trends and readability being the guiding principles that they are, is going to remain a stronghold of modernism. One of the hallmarks of postmodern art is its ability to break the fourth wall to interact with it’s audience. Literature, on the other hand, has done this for centuries through first-person perspective and narrator intrusion. Other aspects of postmodernism are usually what we would call sloppy writing. As a whole, I believe that literature is going to remain fairly rigid.
Modernism was thought to be dangerous in it’s day, and it’s easy to see why. Modernism gave us systematic theology, and the belief that we can observe and describe any aspect of God, religion, the afterlife, the soul, etc. It can tip into arrogance very easily. Post-modernism simply says that some things are too big to systematize, but the danger there is that it allows uneducated and uniformed would-be philosophers to discount proven, legitimate arguments, beliefs, and systems of belief, with the wave of the hand. Sometimes it’s good to question what we think we know, but unfortunately, post-modernism tends to question the things we don’t like.
Jeremy, you said
I think that’s a valid point. Rob Bell questioning whether people go to hell in Love Wins comes to mind.
I also agree that the form of literature probably won’t change too much. There are experiments being done with interactive books and the melding of books and games. These have elements of postmodernism, but I don’t see them dominating reading.
Rather, I see stories more and more reflecting postmodern thought, not mimicking postmodern form. Consequently characters will have a more random approach to life — what they want will be all the motivation they need and their great epiphany might be that they realize there are no answers. These ideas not only reflect postmodern thought, they propagate postmodern thought.
And who’s going to stand up and say, wait a minute, there actually is a future and a hope; there actually is a constant; and love, beauty and truth really do exist. In fact, I’ve met Him. That’s the kind of “Other” the postmodernist can grasp.
Becky
That may be, but I think most people read for reasons that reside in their subconscious. They want answers. They want closure. Post-modernism can only tell them they can’t have either. I think we’ll see those books fail in the market after a while. You can only shove a person’s questions off to the side for so long.
You might be right, Jeremy. In some ways Lost was a postmodern story, and a good many people were unhappy with how it ended. But not everyone.
The jury is still out as far as the scope and depth of postmodern thinking, but I see it reaching farther than I expected.
Becky
Actually, Stephen, no. My point is the deconstructionist would say concrete definitions for some terms, particularly ideological and non-material terms (God, ethics, I) is impossible. That’s hardly an illogical position, just because it does not agree with your worldview.
John, I think you maybe misunderstood Stephen’s point. Deconstructionists themselves use language as if it has fixed meaning. The idea that they get to pick which words have concrete definitions and which don’t is illogical. What validates their views over anyone elses? That’s part of their problem and they freely admit it. There is no “better” view, only different ones. That’s why they are relativists.
Becky
John, one problem with the view that says, that it’s impossible to formulate concrete definitions for ideological and non-material terms, is that such definitions have already been formulated. Not only that, but this was accomplished long before the modern era, let alone the postmodern.
Becky, I liked your post–talk to you another time! Talk to you later, John and everyone! I didn’t mark everything I liked, didn’t even read everything. To me examining minds that think this way (that deconstruct language, believing we can’t know, define, communicate) is like looking into “an abyss of madness.” (These are the words of Irenaeus about Gnosticism.) The only thing that can help such minds is the Word of God illuminated by the Spirit of God. We can prepare the soil–right, Becky?–but the seed is eternal, not something we can fabricate.
Maria
Also, the poststructuralist’s tactic here is not much different from Christians who argue atheists are hypocritcal for judging the Bible on its own morality, saying how can the atheists have morality without the Bible. As soon as the atheist attempts a moral assertion, the Christian just changes the terms of the debate, till the atheist gets sick of talking to him (I’m not an atheist, but I get rather tired of seeing Christians use this tactic, instead of simply dealing with the hard passages of the Scriptures).
John
Not sure about atheists getting sick of the argument, but as it is actually applied, it’s valid. It’s not changing the terms of the debate to assert that an atheist who makes a statement that religion is immoral must have some explanation about the nature of morality.
Becky
Atheists might be sick of the argument because Christians make it obnoxiously and without winsome, gracious demeanors in the context of personal relationships.
Or they may be sick of it because it keeps whuppin’ ’em.
Making them think about things they’d rather ignore, starting with the fact that there is no such things as “neutral” philosophical or religious ground.
Your atheist may vary.
This is why I subscribe to the “do not answer a fool according to his folly / answer a fool according to his folly” style of issue engagement.
In other words, I believe the Christian should respond to such moral-relativistic or atheistic assertions: I don’t accept your belief, and can prove so actively. However, if we do assume you’re right, that doesn’t fit with your own claimed assumptions; here’s how.
Here is different. Unless someone like that comes along, I can simply note an irony. 🙂
They’re not fools, nor is their question foolish, simply because it does not conform to your worldview. Christians have asked the same questions as the postmodernists did, even deeply moral Christians. Indeed, the philosopher Wittgenstein, who though not a Christian, was deeply sympathetic to Christians, formulated the basic questions I posed at the beginning here, and those questions were later taken up by Catholic philosopher G.E.M. Anscombe, who was smart enough to beat even C.S. Lewis in a debate (to Lewis’s partial admission). That hardly sounds like folly to me. The word “believe” for instance, means ten million different things, even among just evangelical Christians. It is therefore hardly illogical for poststructuralists to ask whether the term can mean anything, when its numerous definitions are so varied.
I’m not saying I totally disagree with you Steve. I just think you’re discounting poststructuralist thought too easily. I think the questions Wittgenstein and early precursors to poststructuralism posed were deeply valid ones, but I do think when one gets to Derrida deconstructing an orange, it gets to be a bit much! (I hate Derrida by the way, or dislike him with a Christian dislike!).
John
John, I’m thinking you may have misunderstood Stephen here, too. I took him to be referring to Scripture: “The fool has said in his heart there is no god” (Psalm 14:1). It’s not the same idea as saying atheists are ignorant. But to arrive at the idea that there is no god, no matter how intelligent or logical or consistent, they’re missing a vital truth, I’d even say, willfully so, though I wouldn’t be adamant about that. Therefore, they can’t be called wise. And we can’t talk to them as if they are wise. Intelligent, yes, of course. But not wise.
Becky
Most of my understanding of postmodernism comes from textbooks. My study of its influence in the church has been mostly one of reading everything I could on the subject and a Saturday Seminar series found here.
Anyway.
Becky said:
What postmodernism did do, however, was ask questions modernism didn’t. Modernism had it’s own list of problems; it was hardly the pinnacle of wisdom. It just maintained its absolutes, be those absolutes good or bad. Modernism insisted the cosmos and the divine nature could be reduced to math problems and analytical processes. The downside of rationalism, naturalism, and the Enlightenment is that they praised the prowess of Man’s mind rather than the glory of God’s wholly otherness. Modernism is, at its core, severely humanistic and places the human will, nature, and mind above all else. It’s anthropocentric by nature. Postmodernism was born out of frustration, more or less.
And, in that vein, so was the emergent/emerging church movement. Many of them may have wound up well off the deep end, but some of the fundamental questions are legitimate and deserve answers. It’s like any other variant of rebellion: You can dismiss, punish, or blindly condemn the action/attitude, or you can slow and and address what’s really going on behind the scenes. For most post-modernists, it’s a rejection of the cold, immovable mandates that didn’t answer their very real questions.
And I had someone define and explain emerging v. emergent to me, so here’s what I got:
Sorry for all the definitions. Six years as a mod taught me most arguments can be avoided if all terms are defined immediately.
Kick someone’s dog and you’ll see the true meaning of ‘absolute.’ Most people use that particular argument to deflect. The real question is what they’re deflecting…and why.
That said,while I’m not a fan of postmodern art myself (and I won’t try to get into music or art because I really only understand books), novels are more about questions than answers anyway. There’s a difference between purposefully asking questions and asserting there are no answers (which is itself an answer).
In the end, I think people really do have some sense of beauty or else an entire line of business would go bankrupt; and they appreciate beliefs but don’t tolerate proselytizing. Without some kind of belief, we have no sense of identity, and Americans are very much about identity.
John – I have to say I agree with your first comment, just for the record.
Kessie said-
Great way to put it. I’d just add that your postmodern bank would have everything asymmetrical and not a thing in there would match. You’d probably mistake it for a hooka bar or something.
Becky said:
Art reflects culture; culture reflects art. Real life people are frequently random, so I’m not sure what you mean there. Moreover, haven’t people been following their own desires since Adam and Eve? Just saying, it’s not really a postmodern thing.
And sometimes…the true answer isn’t that there is no answer, but that we have no idea what that answer is. Even the Bible records God sometimes saying “Just trust me.”
Besides, have you seen/read modernistic fiction? Good lords, that is some of the most depressing, nihilistic junk I have ever been witness to. And I read all kinds of madness for my lit classes. Yeesh. Makes Eeyore look chipper.
But like John said, first you’ll have to define love, truth, and beauty and convince the person your version is the absolute. That’s a long series of questions to go down. You know the saying, “Opinions are like noses; everyone’s got one.”
Most postmodernists are agnostic, not atheist, so you’re not up against “There is no God,” you’re up against “I have no tangible way of knowing if there’s a God or not, much less which one is the ‘correct’ one.”
John said:
Well, I could probably argue the logic of it, just because it assumes “God” and “I” are not people. (Okay, so we could get into ‘what’s a person?’ but even if we’re going to say ‘people are bipedal, living lumps of bone, meat, and skin’ we’re still looking at something tangible. I’d give you God, but to do so assumes God is not a person and is incapable of revealing himself to the rest of us. ) As for ‘ethics,’ we might disagree on what actions fall under what categories, but most cultures, regardless of time and geography, believe murder is wrong, even if they don’t count honor killings as murder.
But hey, I’m also the person who insists that just because something is logical doesn’t mean it’s right, so….there you go. 😛
I think I know what you mean here, but would you mind giving me an example? (I’m really just curious on this point.) I’ll give you that an atheist can still have a set of morals, but those morals are grounded on…what? Himself?
I dunno. I’m me, and there’s plenty of things I thought were okay five years ago that I don’t think are okay now. Know what I mean?
Depends on the subject and the question. 😛
I’ll be the first to admit I can’t find a logical mental process for atheism anymore than some atheists apparently can theism, but once you’ve done away with anything supernatural (which naturalism & nihilism did), it’s not much of a stretch to dismiss God’s existence, particularly if you’ve never seen him break the fourth wall, so to speak.
Hey, Kaci, thanks for entering the discussion.
I hope you didn’t think I’m somehow advocating for modernism. Horrors, no. Certainly rational thought has a place, but I have to believe people thought logically long before modernism. The big difference was that the modernists dismissed anything outside the narrow scope of what can be verified by our physical senses.
Postmodernism has allowed for the spiritual once again, but the glitch is that anyone’s spiritual whatever is just as valid as anyone else’s.
As I see it, Christians err if they advocate for the thinking of culture in one era or another, as if those people, whoever they might be, got it all right. The only thing we know that’s got it right is God’s Word.
Regarding the Emergent church and the emerging church, I heard quite different definitions. I’ll have to look into that some more because I don’t remember who I heard it from or what exactly the distinctions were. As I recall it, though, Emergent was more specific and emerging more general, broader reaching. I don’t recall anything about emerging indicating “the way church should be,” however.
Kaci, you said, Moreover, haven’t people been following their own desires since Adam and Eve? Just saying, it’s not really a postmodern thing.
Certainly people have followed their own desires, but in the past that’s not brought applause. People have been held accountable for acting against society. It’s been an expectation that people would not harm others and in other generations would actually give up their own good for the good of the community.
Today the government has to pass laws to get people to stop using plastic or paper shopping bags, to use energy saving light bulbs, to manufacture cars that guzzle less gas. Why? Because the appeal to benefit Mankind is no longer compelling. People want to know what’s in it for them. Relativism and isolation (and greed and commercialism) seem to go hand in hand to a degree.
And I’ll say again, I think Christian speculative fiction writers are in the best position to speak into our postmodern culture and to the Church about that culture — in large part because stories show.
Becky
Emergent is a specific reference. The term comes out of another, established, trademarked entity called The Emergent Village, which is a coalition of churches, teachers and Zondervan Publishing. But since not everyone who believes as the Emergent Village does is actually a member of the Emergent Village, there is a (only slightly) less specific term used. On the other hand, “emerging” is a general term referring to an ideal (as Kaci said). It paints a picture of a church that is “waking up” or “arising,” hence the use of the word “emerging.” But the two terms aren’t referring to the same mindset. I suspect that the last sentence you quoted, the one that says that “emerging” is the way churches should be, is probably commentary. Because I seriously doubt that any believer would not want the church to be waking up and rising for action.
I Corinthians 5:1-2 gives us a specific example of Paul catching a church applauding immorality. He says, “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. 2 And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this?” Sin has, in one way or another, always been praised by the world and by people within the church.
And as one who is acquainted with numerous atheists, I can tell you that I haven’t met one who is post-modern. Atheists, in my experience, like to believe that all questions can and have been answered. Atheists like to be able to label and categorize things. That’s not a bad thing in itself, but it does mean that they would make for terrible post-modernists.
Really mind blowing. I would take the challenge. As a Christian I am proud to share stories about my culture.
Great to hear, Paul. Thanks for weighing in. 😀
Becky
Picking up from Becky‘s comment, replying to John Weaver, above:
That was in the back of my mind. Yet so were two verses from Proverbs:
Here’s how that applies in this circumstance, I think. If a Christian assumes an atheist’s notions or presuppositions about the discussion — that is, that there is “neutral ground,” and the atheist either has it or is right to expect the Christian to assume his assumptions and then prove, say, something like God exists — that Christian would be foolish to go along with it. It would be “answer[ing] a fool according to his folly.” Just like the atheist.
As Becky went on to say:
Moreover, even the most thoughtful, moral atheist considers the Christian a fool (even if a polite, generous, benevolent fool). So the discussion, while best handled under civil constraints, would not be between a “neutral” atheist and the partisan Christian, but between two people who are both convinced the other is a fool to some extent. But only the atheist must borrow just enough from the Christian’s worldview, not his own, to set up things like laws of logic or morality, which his foundation of naturalism can’t allow.
Still, I know there have been plenty of Christians who rudely, in un-Christlike ways condemn atheists as fools and not worth talking to — that is, the same “fool” that a Christian would be apart from Christ’s mercy and grace in saving him. I join you in rebuking those behaviors, and hope for God’s sake never to participate in them.
“Secondly, the deconstructionist would ask who is this “I” that you talk about.”
“Who” wants to know? 🙂