Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 57:2 (Fall 1995)
Article: No News Is Good News: Modernity, The Postmodern, and Apologetics
Author: William Edgar

WTJ 57:2 (Fall 1995) p. 359

No News Is Good News: Modernity, The Postmodern, and Apologetics

William Edgar

I would argue that the project of modernity (the realization of universality)
has not been forsaken or forgotten but destroyed, “liquidated.”
There are several modes of destruction, several names or symbols for them.
“Auschwitz” can be taken as a paradigmatic name
for the tragic “incompletion” of modernity.1

These words were written by the French intellectual who more than anyone else made the West conscious of what he called “the postmodern condition.”2 Today Jean-François Lyotard is only one of a host of thinkers who use the term as a characterization of our contemporary culture. There are so many, in fact, and each has a different slant on exactly what the postmodern is, that it is easy to become confused, if not cynical. After all, the term itself is on one level a senseless oxymoron (how can anything be postmodern?). On another level, the term is meant to be strange and ironical, as if to tear down the pretense of monopolizing all history after a certain date (how else could one challenge the concept of the modern?). Is it possible to make any sense of the discussions surrounding the idea of the postmodern? How seriously should we take the issues? How should Christians assess these discussions? What is the appropriate apologetic strategy in view of the so-called postmodern condition?

On the surface, it may appear to be a good thing that many are standing up to denounce the proud claims of modernity. Has not modernity, however beneficial some of its aspects may be, produced a culture that is highly secular and that has turned on itself, giving us the tragedies and upheavals of our twentieth century? A number of theologians applaud the disillusionment with modernity, and proclaim ours to be a time of great

WTJ 57:2 (Fall 1995) p. 360

opportunity for the gospel.3 But are matters so simple? What kind of ally is the prophet of the postmodern? Do those who propose a radical rejection of modernity and lay claims at the same time to “the postmodern condition” have a convincing program? They tend vastly to reduce the aspirations and hopes of believers in the modern, but at the same time, do they have any reason for living? What should Christians believe? Is the postmodern an encouraging new opportunity for apologetics? Or is it another, more gloomy notion, hostile to the gospel?

I. What Is Modernity?

The answer to this question must come from a careful study of th...