Post Modernism

the foundation of right doing is right doctrine - right theology lays the lasting foundation for right practice..

Orthodoxy > orthopraxy.

This design for right living permeates the writings of the Apostle Paul - every practical section of his epistles are based first on teaching - doctrine - theology.

It is the starting point of the writer of Hebrews as he begins his sermon – not with an extended illustration, but with a definitive doctrinal statement.

In the mid-part of the last century Dorothy Sayers (

Dorothy Leigh Sayers was an English crime writer and poet. She was also a student of classical and modern languages. She is best known for her mysteries, a series of novels and short stories set between the First and Second World Wars that feature English aristocrat and amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey.

Student of Classical education and languages) wrote:

“Official Christianity, of late years, has been having what is known as bad press. We are constantly assured that the churches are empty because preachers insist too much upon doctrine—dull dogma as people call it. The fact is the precise opposite. It is the neglect of dogma that makes for dullness. The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man—and the dogma is the drama….” The Whimsical Christian: Eighteen Essays by Dorothy L. Sayers (New York: Macmillan, 1978), 11)\Pragmatism is a very real problem, but right alongside this is something called postmodernism.

Where modernism (19th and early 20th centuries) is committed to the absence of anything supernatural and is guided by scientific investigation to arrive at truth and obtain instruction for life, Postmodernism, suggests that “truth” and “reality” are merely perceptions of reality dictated by one’s particular worldview - you, yourself, determine what is reality..The postmodern turn has led to a widespread embracing of ethical *pluralism. In addition, it has fostered a renewed interest in the *ethic of being, with its attendant aspects such as the cultivation of *virtues and the quest for spirituality, an awareness of the communal nature of *ethics, and an appeal to narrative thought as providing a way of understanding the connection between ethics, or *moral development, and personal identity formation.

Pluralism as a stance in theology is the belief that there are many paths to and expressions of truth about God, and several equally valid means to salvation. In ethics, pluralism generally refers to the belief that all moral principles arise out of a particular community that espouses them, and that in any society that includes a multiplicity of moral communities a plurality of possibly competing ethical systems will exist simultaneously. Pluralists often add that because an act or principle of action can only be judged from within the context of the particular community that espouses it, there is no universal standpoint from which to adjudicate the debate among moral communities or to determine definitively which ethical system is valid. Some pluralists conclude from this situation that the various ethical systems are equally valid. See also conventionalism; relativism; tolerance; universal moral judgments.

Stanley J. Grenz and Jay T. Smith, Pocket Dictionary of Ethics, The IVP Pocket Reference Series (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 90–91.

But in today’s world, Kruger’s audience is driven by moral relativism, which is the product of the previous era. With no foundation for absolute moral truth, Kruger explains that “morality is ever-changing and culturally conditioned. There is no true morality; don’t push your morality on me” (p. 10, emphasis original).

Chase R. Kuhn, “Review of The Ten Commandments of Progressive Christianity by Michael J. Kruger,” ed. Rob Smith, Themelios 46, no. 2 (2021): 462.

What endures for liberal Christianity is its dismissal of doctrine and what Kruger calls the “vertical” (e.g., relationship with God) for the moral and “horizontal” (pp. 37, 42, 52). Kruger systematically and surgically shows how at each turn this project fails. A horizontal-only moralism is dysfunctional. It is baseless and unable to deliver what it promises. In fact, the very thing it shuns (i.e., doctrine) holds the answer to the problems it addresses. Examples of this can be found in each chapter, but I offer the following as a noteworthy instance of Kruger’s tactful insight: “The fundamental problem with the progressive approach to judging is that it undercuts the very goal it is trying to achieve, namely human reconciliation. Such reconciliation can only happen when wrongs are acknowledged, owned, and repented of. And in order for that to happen, judgments must be made about people’s behavior. And that behavior must really be wrong—not just wrong in someone’s opinion. Otherwise, reconciliation is a mirage” (p. 20, emphases original).

Chase R. Kuhn, “Review of The Ten Commandments of Progressive Christianity by Michael J. Kruger,” ed. Rob Smith, Themelios 46, no. 2 (2021): 462.