Postmodernity is not a permanent fixture. It is not a place to land. There is no real estate to build on, no viewpoint stationary enough to camp out on. It is a world in transition, a tunnel to the next global metaphysic, a vehicle that will transport its party to another way of thinking; one that will resonnate with the new realities. Any theology we create in this time of chaotic evolution must be located to the minute and the day as well as to the piece of ground we walk on.

I keep saying these things and yet many people are convinced that postmodernity is the enemy territory, the new Jerico to march around and

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blow trumpets at in the hopes that its walls will collapse inward and crush its Rahab-esque inhabitants with righteous judgement. In this skinny on global worldviews, I really just want to locate the postmodern mindset in relation to the other worldviews, showing its place as a transitional, seasonal worldview, and necessary step to the next dominant metaphysic. A good place to start is in the oldest book of the Bible, the Book of Job.

Job and and Three Unhelpful Friends.
The Book of Job is now back in popularity thanks to its postmodern allowance of mystery, suffering, paradox and unanswered questions. Young people find that Job's account resonnates with their own experience of life. I find even more. That in the account of the righteous man Job and his odyssey to discover the cause of his suffering and loss, this old man with the peeling scabs encounters the basic global worldviews that have dominated history since the beginning.

Towards the beginning of Job's suffering, just when his scabs were calling for attention, three friends sit with him and help him think through what the cause might be. These friends are Bildad, Zophar and Elipahaz. In their explanations for why God is allowing disease and death, I find the basic metaphysical efforts of people around the world, despite geography, history and religion.

Basically, I see three major worldviews, three ways of thinking that may have always dominated eras of history. Here they are:
1. Traditional. Bildad responds to Job by asking what the fathers have said about the situation because there was nothing new to be learned. He is a traditionalist and he looks back in history to find what others have already said. He has a high regard for truth and sees it as inherited, not to be messed with, something wrestled over by the elders, handed down to those eager for wisdom, and eventually passed on to the next generation.

2. Rational. Zophar appeals to rational wisdom and hints that Job is "witless" or stupid. He also gives a formula that "if" Job does certain things, then a favorable outcome will result. His approach would be considered "modern" in todays understanding of the world. Modern thinkers see truth as something available to those who are willing to work hard to find it. Truth gives itself to diligent study, methodical inquiry, unbiased interrogation. Truth evades the foolish and cannot be passed on through good breeding. It responds to scientific methods of discovery and can be proved on scientific grounds. Here we have the basic Enlightenment paradigm and the dominant western worldview for the past 200 years.

3. Mystical. Eliphaz appeals to his experiences to prove his point. He had a dream and his hair stood on end. A spirit appeared. This was proof enough. He sees God as one who "performs wonders that cannot be fathomed". He sees truth as something elusive, beyond the reach of mortal men who are bound in the material world, limited by the senses and the boundaries of existance. Truth to Eliphaz, and to millions around the world, is available only in short glimpses and at special times when the dimensions meet, in the time between times, in the gap moments of revelation and enlightenment.

A funny thing about the Book of Job is that each guy, with such radically differing thought processes, comes to the same conclusion - Job has sinned and is therefore suffering. Even funnier is the fact that all three men are wrong. The truth in this case is something more complicated and mysterious. But watching them think is worth the exercise since they represent how people think in general.

Back to Eliphaz.

I believe that Elipahaz represents the worldview that is becoming predominant around the world and will one day become the leading global metaphysic. Eliphaz is somewhat of a Mystic and represents a mindset that is more common in eastern thinking than in western, although our world is becomming post-western by the minute. He is occupied with the power encounters of God (4:9), God's activity in the natural world (4:10) and the need of justice for the poor (4:15-16) Understanding Eliphaz is a key to understanding how people in Western world are beginning to think. The new mindset represents a sea change in the way we approach knowledge, truth, and how we explain things to people with a differing value system.

Is Eliphaz postmodern? I say no. He represents something of where we are going rather than where we are now. I will explain in a few minutes but I need to flesh out the three worldviews first.

3 And No More.

These three worldviews were first brought to my attention by Dr. J. Carl Laney of Western Conservative Baptist Seminary, during my time there as a student in the 1980's. Laney suggested that Bildad was a traditionalist, Zophar a rationalist. Eliphaz, he called a Mystic. He did not present them as global mindsets. Perhaps I took his teaching more seriously than he did. But I have been roadtesting them now for 12 years and still see them as the three primary metaphysics active in todays world. I have also found them in various forms in the teachings of other people I have encountered since Dr. laney.

For example:

Jim Peterson, who had just written "Life Style Evangelism", spent a weekend with us at a retreat in Oregon. He suggested that a major worldview shift was taking place. We have already moved, he claimed, from a "God centered" worldview (pre-modern) to a "man-centered" worldview. We are now moving to an "environment" centered worldview. This would fit with Traditional, Rational and Mystical.

Brother Thomas Wolf, missiologist and teacher, sees Paul ministering to three mindsets in the Book of Acts: The Hebrews [Traditionalists] in Acts 13, whom he addresses in Aramaic and starts with the story of "our" fathers. The Athenians [Rationalists] in Acts 17 who receive from Paul a rational defence of the gospel and appropriate steps to take (repentance). And the Mystical Lystrans Acts 14, to whom Paul has to explain the healing/power-encounter so that they do not worship him. He tells them it is the same God who has already been speaking to them in the past by sending them rain. These would be the Mystics.

Paul Ray, from the Institute of Noetic Studies, came up with three groupings of American people in the mid Nineties. The Traditionals (29%) who are usually older in age, The Moderns (47%), who make up the mainstream and Cultural Creatives (24%) who represent the emerging culture and are the only group that is growing. His studies show that the Traditionals have much in common with the Cultural Creatives.
Ray divides the Cultural Creatives into two groups:
The Greens (13% of US adult population) who focus on social and environmental issues, and The Core Cultural Creatives (11%) who value spiritual integration. This Core group are the leading edge thinkers, says Ray, and twice as many of them are women than men.

The late Willis Harman, in his book "Global Mind Change" was able to simplify metaphysics to three basic ways of seeing reality.

M1 - Materialistic Monism. In this metaphysic, Matter gives rise to mind. The stuff of the universe teaches us about reality.

M2 - Dualism (matter plus mind). Matter-energy stuff and mind-spirit stuff are two complementary knowlege sources.

M3 - Transcendental Monism (mind gives rise to matter). It is this mindset that sees deep intuition and consciousness as preceding any material evolution and products.

Harman's observation is that we are moving from a M-1 mindset to M-3. In the M3 mindset, preference is given to the unconscious and dreams. "Everything you see is the result of your thoughts. " (from "A Course on Miracles")

Again, this fits with the Traditional, Rational and Mystical.

But What About The Postmodern?

OK. This is what I believe. Cultures do not shift immediately from one major paradigm to the next. There is a transitional period that includes a rethinking of the previous paradigm, an acknowledgement of its limitations, a deconstruction, an exploration of new thinking to explain a new reality, an adoption of new ideas, a re:mixing of multiple viewpoints, and eventually a radically different group consenses. This transition period could last a hundred years before the majority of people hold it to be the new dominant paradigm.

I believe we are in such a time as this. Possibly half way through, if this change started in the 1960's. Paul Ray believes that in the early 1960's, only 4% held to the value system of the Cultural Creatives. Today a quarter of Americans would hold to that paradigm and no doubt the number would be much higher among youth, artists, and media influencers. Brian MacLaren says that 80% of young people have already transitioned into a postmodern mindset and 20% of older people. Postmodernity is the water we swim in. It is not a case of whether we like or not. Or agree with it or not. It is here. It exists. It just IS.

However, and this will come as good news to some, I believe that postmodernity is a transitional period and what we are moving into will be different again. Not completely different, since there are elements in postmodern thinking that will be here to stay. But our journey is a long one and we have not reached shore yet. The transition from one way of thinking to another does not come smoothly. There is always an intermediate step, a series of experimental convictions that allows the new. We will be in the postmodern world for some time and it is essential that we come to grips with it and learn how to function in it. Just as our ancestors came up with "Good News For Modern Man", we also must find the good news for postmodern people. Functioning and even succeeding in the postmodern world is not as hard as it seems. In fact, a world in transition is generally more open to change and new things that than a world stuck in the status quo of a dominant worldview. Explaining the mystery of the gospel should be easier for us now than it has been for a really long time.

Postmodernism in the Context of Global Worldviews.

If there are three dominant mindsets, then there is at least another worldview that would represent the transition from one to another. If this transition takes time, which I believe it does, then the transitional mindset becomes in many cases a worldview of its own, although more dynamic than static. In our world, we are calling it postmodernism, since we are leaving the modern worldview and will one day adopt another. In the account of Job, the flow of conversation is interrupted by a young man who, after waiting his turn to speak, tells Job that the other three men are wrong. The young obnoxious man is Elihu. I see Elihu as representing the transitional, which in today's world, is the post modern. There is a pregnant moment when Elihu comes closer to the truth than the three older men. And yet he also is proved to be wrong. In my mind, Elihu personifies the deconstructive, the doubt-casting, idol-dethroning, paradigm-shattering attact on the status quo. It is Elihu who is the postmodern hero of the Book of Job.

Elihu: Postmodern Hero

The thinking of Elihu is the vehicle that allows contemplation, suspicion, deconstruction, and the way to think in another dimension. Listen to his advice to the suffering Job. "For the ear tests words as the tongue tastes food. Let us discern for ourselves what is right; let us learn together what is good." (Job 34:3-4) Here we have three elements of postmodern thinking. The suspicious "testing" of what seems right. The committment to the local community to discern for "ourselves". And the value of collaboration in learning "together". I see in Elihu the postmodern tension of today, the conflict of living and thinking in between worldviews. For it is my opinion that we are moving from a Zophar (rational) way of thinking to an more Elipahaz (mystical/experiential) way of thinking. One that is more eastern than western, more Hebraic than Greek. One in which experience precedes explanation rather than follows it. Rather than attacting the shortcomings of postmodern thinking, we might do better to prepare people for the worldview around the corners, one which is showing us glimpses of itself.

Postmodernism: Worldview Number Four?

Walter Truett Anderson includes the postmodern in his set of 4 ways of thinking. Anderson's first three fit in with the previous sets that I have mentioned.

1. Social-traditional, in which truth is found in the heritage of previous learning.

2. Scientific-rational in which truth is found through methodical inquiry.

3. Neo-Romantic in which truth is found either by "attaining harmony with nature and/or spiritual exploration of the inner self." Again, these three line up with Job's three friends. But Anderson adds another worldview.

The fourth he calls "postmodern-ironist", which sees truth as not found at all but rather made or "socially contructed". Anderson's distinction between finding truth and making truth is valuable. All truth in its man-made packaging is somehow constructed by someone.

Three Kinds of Postmoderns.

It is also important to note that there is not a singular "postmodern" but rather many "postmoderns" and many "postmodernists". For the sake of simplicity, there are basically three postmodern positions, at this point in time.

Pauline Marie Rosenau, Professor of Political Science at the University of Quebec, has done a great work in naming the distinctions that seperate the first two groups of postmodern thinkers, who she calls "skeptics" and "affirmatives".

1. Skeptical Postmodernists offer a pessimistic and gloomy scenario. They are inspired by early Continental post-modernism (Heidegger and Nietzsche) and focus on the chaos, death, and impossiblity of truth. It is these early authors who were picked up by Christian teachers as representative of postmodernism in general; a very unhealthy and unfair critique which has made it difficult for dialogue to take place among Christian intellectual communities.

2. Affirmative Postmodernists, who may agree with the skeptics critque of modernity but offer a more optimistic view of the post-modern transition. They are more influenced by North-American and British authors. They affirm an ethical system(s). They value choices that are superior and are open to honest intellectual practise. This is more reflective of the Christian teachers who are training students to minister in a postmodern world.

Rosenau acknowledges that there are some postmodernists who avoid the label since the word "postmodern" "promotes a singlular view of reality, encourages closure and denies complexity. Although she doesnt give a name to this group in the short article of hers I am reading, others often call this group "post-postmodern" or "po-po-mo". I dont like the term since it sounds too reactive of modernity. People in this third category are no longer defined by what they came out of but rather by where they are now and where they are heading. In line with Rosenau's other labels, an appropriate name that I would ascribe to this third set would be "Intuitive Postmoderns".

Anderson also sees three kinds of postmodernists: he names them The Nihilist, The Constructivist and the Player. The Player, like the Intuitive, finds it natural and effortless to cruise this new world and find sucess in it.

Douglas Ruskoff, in his excellent book "Playing the Future" would call the last one a "Surfer" rather than a Player. Rushkoff describes Surfers as those that see the "deeper order" in the chaos around them and learn instinctively how to surf the patterns and move through life. The fractal patterns of "self-simularity' reveal the patterns than can be surfed. He goes as far to say that surfers (the kind at the beach with surfboards) were the first postmodernists. If Christians were reading Douglas Rushkoff in the 1990's rather than Douglas Coupland, then we might have not camped out so long in the skeptical mode.

Brad Sargent, of Golden Gate Theologial Seminary, also sees three distinct postmodern thinkers and gives examples of them.

1. New Edge, as personified by the punks of the 1970's.
2. Far Edge, like the cyber-punks of the 1990's.
3. Over The Edge, like the Global-Nomads and Third-Culture Kids of the emerging global culture. Many missionary's kids, Sargent adds, would fall under this category since they have learned to function in multiple environments.

In my own explanation of the various stages of the postmodern transition, I found it helpful to use the following concepts.

1. Barn-Burning - a sometimes angry or resentful deconstruction to delete what should not be there.

2. Dumpster-Diving - an inquistive exploration to discover and restore what was missing, hidden or forbidden.

3. Well, I dont have a good word for this stage, actually. I was using Lego-Land but am not happy with it. Consider the naming of this stage as a "work in progress". But even without a label, this final stage of the transitional process represents a creative re:mixing of the new and old elements to construct a new and better way.

Brian MacLaren, a leading Christian teacher on this topic, often explains the transiton using these same three stages that I shared with him, even though the last one lacks a title.

Lets Catch Up.

There are three major worldviews and, at the risk of oversimplification and a shameless reductionism, we could sum them up like this. There are:

1. Traditionists, who inherit truth

2. Rationalists, who discover truth

3. Mystics, who experience truth And, if we include the present transitional postmodern mindset,

4. Postmodernists, who construct truth.

Of course the postmodernists would say that everyone constructs truth, based on their own background, disposition and bias. But the postmodernist is the one who admits it and would not take their own construct as seriously as the others. The posture towards man-made truth is more humble, suspicious and playful, in the acknowledgment that everything made by human hands is suspect. That goes for our sermons, books, theologies. Even our statements of faith are tainted by prejudice and therefore under suspicion. This leads us to affirm the words of the famous hymn, "I dare not trust the sweetest frame [construct], but wholly lean on Jesus name. On Christ the Solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand."

So right about here is where the traditionalists and modernists chime in with their attack on postmodern thinking. Is there a truth that is really true? Absolutely true? (They like that word, "Absolute") And there is not one single correct postmodern answer since, as I have said, there are many postmodernists and not all of them would agree with my stance. But let me answer it my way.

Yes, Virginia, there is truth. But truth is found in Someone, not something. God is truth. His Word is truth. God never changes. He will always be true. God is also beyond time and space and the small boundaries of human definitions. But we are bound by time and space and see through a glass dimly, at least on this side of eternity, which humbles us in our intellectual treatises and makes us more dependent on God to reveal himself. It also removes us from an unhealthy dependancy (idolatry?) upon scientific methods to determine correct interpretations. It drives us towards faith in God, dependence on His Spirit to lead us, to protect the sanctity of the mystery of God, to value the role of creation as a co-revealer of God, to be holistic in striving towards truth, to trust in each other as the community of God (Ecclesia). All in all, to be faithful to God and each other in this postmodern world means to be people of faith, people who are holy (wholly) just as God is holy, people who refuse to downsize God by reductionist explanations. We are moving from dualism to holism, piecing things together rather than pulling them apart. Humility and honesty in our attempts to discover and communicate truth.

Elihu says it well. "How great is God - beyond our understanding! The number of his years is past finding out . . . Who can understand how he spreads out the clouds?" (Job 36:26-29)

So . . .

It is probably true that we are half-way through a major global paradigm shift. The time of Eliphaz is almost upon us. From a rational world of highly processed truth that gives way easily to human inquiry to a world of mysterious, elusive truth that lies hidden in nature and peeks out occasionally through power encounters, dreams, revelation and the truth that resonates in what is really Real. We are presently experiencing the chaos of transition out of modernism and into something that is as yet undefined. The time of transition is one in which we cannot land anywhere for very long, cannot see everything clearly. We need to have faith in what is unseen, to rest in God's ability to lead us. As Job says "But you know the way that I take. And when you have tried me, I shall come forth as gold. (24:10)

References

Global Mind Change: The Promise of the 21st Century, Willis Harman, 1998, Institute of Noetic Sciences

Playing The Future: What We Can Learn From Digital Kids, Rushkoff, D. 1996, HarperCollins

The Truth About Truth: De-Confusing and Re-Constructing the Postmodern World, edited by W. T. Anderson, 1995, Putnam

Godspace for the New Edge, By Brad Sargent. 1997, Cutting Edge Resources, Golden Gate Theological Seminary.

Paul Ray, ONN Interview, 1998, www.cogenesis.com

This is Part One of a series called "The Skinny on Postmodernity, by Andrew Jones.

This article was originally presented as a lecture at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in 1999. (Church Planting, Linda Bergquist and Dieter Zander)

Andrew Jones directs The Boaz Project and is the Postmodern Consultant for the Baptist General Convention of Texas. He blogs daily at http://tallskinnykiwi.blogspot.com The Skinny Series is a work in progress and your input is appreciated. Send comments to tallskinnykiwi@hotmail.com

images by matthew palmer .find.matt.