Living in a Post-Truth Culture

Pastor Dave Monreal, Lead Pastor

As I sat in class in the winter of 1991 taking Western Thought and Culture, Dr. Kathryn R. Ludwigson warned of the impending danger of “Postmodernism.”  The ideas seemed so abstract and bizarre it was hard for me to comprehend that any thinking person would ever believe such nonsense. I am not sure I completely understood what she was talking about and how it all fit together. I was trying to use logic to understand a “worldview” that was more a loose set of ideas rather than a cohesive, comprehensive explanation of existence. What made it more confusing was the reality that Postmodernism is philosophical in academics, but it is a mood or sentiment in the larger culture.

In seminary I read books like, Truth Decay, The Gagging of God, Telling the Truth, The Closing of the American Mind, Reality Isn’t What It Used To Be, No Place for Truth, Total Truth, and A Primer on Postmodernism, in the late 90s and early 2000s to try to understand postmodernism. I thought, “Could we ever really get to a place where the vast majority of people deny the very existence of objective truth?” “Is it possible that we could move from believing in an objective world to saying that truth is personal, private, and subjective?” To the postmodernist there is no truth, everything is a “social construct.” In other words, we made everything up even the categories that we use to evaluate reality.

With this in mind one can begin to make sense of an editorial criticizing the South Dakota Governor for making an executive order stating that biological boys may not compete in girls’ athletics. Devin Cole for CNN writes, “The [governor’s] orders also reference ‘biological sex,’ a disputed term that refers to the sex as listed on students’ original birth certificates. It’s not possible to know a person’s gender identity at birth, and for some people, the sex listed on their original birth certificate is a misleading way of describing the body they have.”¹  I have heard it said, “Gender has nothing to do with genetics or biology.” You have to understand the language being employed here, according to transgender advocates a person’s biological “sex” has to do with their reproductive organs, but a person’s “gender” is a subjective reality of who he (or she) “feels” he is internally.

Early postmodernist adopted Marxist ideology to say that life is an economic power struggle between the “haves” and the “have nots.” More recently they have argued that life is a “power struggle” between those in a “privileged position” and those who have been “oppressed” by the majority culture. Within this “construct” one can look at race, gender identity, sexual orientation, biological sex, immigrations status, national origin, ability and economic status among other categories. Each one is seen through the lens of “critical theory” of those in power and those who are subjugated or systemically discriminated against. The idea that you have to be on the “right side” of all of these categories is called, “intersectionality.” You evaluate yourself and others, according to critical theory, based on which categories you have power and in which categories you are subjugated. The only way to alleviate this problem is to deconstruct all of the “power” structures and refashion them along equitable lines. This would entail deconstructing the entire Western Judeo-Christian Civilization as we know it.

Why am I sharing this? We are living through a time that seemed completely impossible to comprehend 30 years ago. As Christians we have been steeped in THE Truth and we struggle to understand how so much of the world seems to be irrational and illogical or how we are now seen as the enemy. There have always been challenges to the gospel but this one seems different. Past generations debated, “Which beliefs are true?” This generation asserts, “There is no true, only opinions and perspectives!” We respond faithfully to the Gospel and continue to proclaim that Jesus is “the way, the TRUTH, and the life.” (John 14:6)

¹https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/30/politics/south-dakota-transgender-sports-kristi-noem/index.html