Sermon Tone Analysis

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What Is Postmodernism?

Defining postmodernism is a little like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube; though you may be somewhat successful, you will likely make a mess of it.

Postmodernism is not so much a doctrine as it is a mindset or a mood.

It does not want the restraints of what has been handed down through what is called a “metanarrative.”

A metanarrative, according to postmodernism, is “a religious tradition or philosophical system that commits acts of cultural tyranny by promoting the fiction that all knowledge reduces to a set of universally applicable truths.”

Of course, the Bible fits the postmodern definition of a metanarrative.

John 18:37

Was Solomon a Postmodernist?

Such statements about the limitations of human wisdom makes it sound like Solomon would agree with Postmodernists.

He tried to use reason and logic to figure out the best, most fulfilling, way of life.

He repeatedly came to the conclusion that it was pointless.

What Saved Solomon from Being a Postmodernist?

Where postmodernism concludes that human reason is pointless, therefore there is no absolute truth; Solomon understood the only true source of wisdom.

Ecclesiastes agrees with the postmodernist view that life is complex and our understanding of it is limited.

However, Solomon did not reach the same conclusion postmodernists do - to reject all truth.

When Solomon saw the futility of human wisdom “under the sun” he turned back to the only true source of wisdom - God!