Won't we make mistakes in postmodernity that were made in modernity?

First, I want to thank you for your response on anewkindofchristian.com to my rather convoluted e-mail asking "what's a guy like me to do?" I was having a particularly bad day and probably put a bit darker of a face on my situation than warranted, but at the same time it probably really got at some of what I have been feeling for some time. Your response is in many ways helpful, and reflects what I have not only been taught in one form or another for most of my Christian life. I find that alternately comforting and disquieting. Comforting mainly because it shows me that my belief system has been/remains anchored in something real. But therein lies the disquiet as well. On the one hand I see many Christians - evangelicals for the most part who claim all of these things and seem to be happy and fulfilled, at least on the surface. But when the surface is scratched there is very little difference than anyone else. There is no self-examination, no depth, and I am left to wonder what would happen to them is they truly examined their lives and beliefs. At the same time some of the most rigidly conservative people I know have been some of the most truly fulfilled, truly godly people I know. Then I come to the postmodern turn, which seems to be "where it's at" culturally religiously, etc. And I don't buy it (all consumerist implications intended). I don't see how this kind of shift really solves any of the problems that modernism/modernist thinking have produced. I am highly suspicious that all it does is make the same kind of mistakes in a polar opposite direction.

If my foundationalist leanings are simply wrong or naive, if the postmodern contention that truth is merely perspectival and culturally bound is indeed accurate, then I am at a loss on several fronts. 1) Why should I care what you, or anyone else has to say about anything (including myself)? It seems to me that the Nietzschian/Foucaaultian "Will to Power" is the only philosophy that truly makes sense and I reject them categorically. 2) I don't know how one can deny all absolutes/metanarratives and really believe that there is some kind of morality out there that should persuade me to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God - because there is no compelling reason (at least that I can think of) to belive that these things will have any bearing on my reality or my children's reality in the future. They are only a kind of collective hunch. I want something more solid than that, and I don't think that postmodernism can give me any kind of solid footing. Which is exactly what Christ says He is - He is, according to the Scriptures the chief cornerstone, arguably the rock in that parable of the two builders, in my view the rock of Psalm 40. All of this it would seem points to some kind of solid ground, some kind of (dare I say it) foundation that goes beyond me. A move that I don't see has any room in a postmodern worldview. 3) I get that evangelicals in particular have not done well with nuance/mystery/anything they(we) can't get are our arms around. I grant that and even argue that we need to be much better at this, but does this mean that there is no middle ground? I am tired of the pendulum. The back and forth, left and right. I want a third way, and I don't think that being postmodern/emergent can do it any more than being modern/pre-emergent (status-quo?) can do it. I fully agree that something needs to change, but at the same time am as fed up with the position that the modernism and the "modernist Christianity" of the 19th and 20th centuries is simply over and was pretty much all bad. The fact of the matter is that without the advent of the Enlightenment and modernism, none of us get to sit in climate controlled environments freely e-mailing each other on subjects like this.

Further, even where there is certainly excess and problems with the modern worldview, it has been useful in many ways. Including science, technology, and I would argue whether or not we should give any allegiance to this person called Christ and his church because it made the tools for real criticism available to the general population. Postmodernism corrects many of the problems with modernism, but it also invites a whole host of new ones that are as dangerous to Christianity as anything that modernism brought to the table. What bothers me is that just as there are a whole host of Christians who uncritically write of postmodernism, there are another host who uncritically accept it. At bottom, I guess, is this simple question. If I cannot legitimately make the claim that Christ is the savior of the world for all people and all times (and all of the implications therein for the rest of the cosmos) why should I believe that He is for me and my family now? The fact that I cannot independently verify this position with a "view from nowhere" doesn't mean that some kind of objective/absolute truth doesn't exist. Further I believe that Christians can't, by definition be as critical of human knowledge and human language in particular as postmodern thinkers would like us to be. If God truly is the creator of the universe and humanity and wants us to know that and Him as Christianity (and Judaism at the least) argues, then by definition we not must be able to truly know Him, but that knowledge cannot simply be specific to our cultural time and space because that knowledge begins with God Himself not us. Further, if God is the creator of humanity, then at the very least de facto he is the creator of language as well (and I don't think that any argument for theistic evolution removes this, it simply makes indirect). This doesn't even begin to address the idea of Christ as "Word" with all of its implications both Greek and Hebrew.

I believe that if we as Christians do not seriously critique postmodernism as well as modernism we will be back at this same divisive and disillusioning point in short order. I want a Christianity, and a Christ, that I can follow and believe in even when postmodernism or whatever other ism falls. I want to know that the connection that I have to Paul and Ignatius and Augustine and Luther and Nouwen, and you is more that mere sentiment and has a reality beyond the fluff of the "churchianity" I see all around me. This is what I do not see in postmodernism and what you rightly decry in much of the current state of evangelicalism.

I would like to thank you again for your prayers and support. I look forward to hearing more from you. By the way, I did finish the book, and yes there was a lot that I have problems with (and much that I thoroughly agree with you on). I would love to write a rejoinder to much of that. Maybe you would be willing to have a dialogue with me on that at some point.

I wish I could engage in personal dialogue with you and so many other people, but I am so limited … in fact, as you can imagine, there’s no way I can respond to all the issues and questions you raise in your impassioned letter. Your frustration comes through, and I have been there, and I understand to some degree what you’re feeling. I can only offer a few brief responses.
1. There is no such thing as “postmodernism” as you seem to be reacting to it – as one set of uniform answers (or nonanswers). If you think of postmodernity in terms of a general feeling of dissatisfaction with modern Enlightenment thinking and the colonialism that it funded, then you’ll see that there are a whole range of responses and directions included under postmodernity.
2. I don’t think that postmodernity in any of its forms is the gospel! I believe the gospel is what gives us hope.
3. But I don’t believe that the gospel – or modernity, or postmodernity – can be apprehended without faith. We’re all on level ground – nobody gets a free ticket out of the human condition, which includes being limited and being non-omniscient. So we all need faith.
4. This might help – or not: at the end of the day, I don’t believe we can find a knowledge system that is universally defensible, and then, from within that knowledge system, exercise faith in a narrative or story. Rather, I believe we have to start with a narrative or story that is apprehended by faith. Our knowledge systems arise within our narratives, in my opinion, and not the other way around.
5. The Christian narrative gives the best context I am aware of for life and knowing. I guess I’m suggesting that this is the place we start – within our narrative. I hope that doesn’t sound too unorthodox! I’m suggesting we actually believe our story – and that it will lead us to a greater and greater knowledge of truth!