Postmodernism and Thanksgiving

What are postmodernists thankful for anyway?

"The lack of grounds for any approach, centering, or categories has provided a valuable opening for critiques of the dominant approaches by feminism, anti-colonialism, and other liberating movements. But implicitly these movement go beyond critique, and beyond post-modernism which holds that liberation is impossible because some categories, distinctions and social controls will always again re-surround any liberating attempt, and also that liberation is not a ground for deciding anything. Going beyond these two tenets of post-modernism, can we articulate the assumption that we will and should use the demise of all categories to free people, rather than to justify Dostoyevsky's Ivan, or one's own "superior" culture, class, or "free" market economics?"
-http://www.focusing.org/apm.htm

I spent Thanksgiving with Nancy's relatives at her grandparents' place in New Jersey. Since there was no room at the "big table," Nancy and I ate at the "kids" table, which actually was just a seperate table with Bill, Claudia, Will, and Scott.

Bill - Nancy's uncle, in his 40's, teaches business grad students - including ethics
Claudia - Bill's fiancee, in her 40's (I think), teaches business grad students, liberal, pro-abortion, anti-war, pro-Kerry/Edwards, outspoken
Will - Bill's 19 year old son, genius, speaks authoritatively, laughs a lot and loudly
Scott - Bill's 17 year old son, smart, quiet, looks up to Will
Nancy - my beautiful wife, smart, believer
me - I'll let you decide.

So, early into our Thanksgiving dinner, Claudia starts letting us know her liberal, pro-choice views. Well, may God deal with me severely if ever I let that go unchallenged. So, I called her to task. We got into a polite but intense conversation about abortion which led to a conversation about ethics, faith, God. I certainly let my views be known, and I did so with kindness - which was probably the best that I could do, but I did not and do not feel real good about the situation. I would imagine that Jesus would have expressed more indignation. The Apostle Paul would have probably acted with more authority than I did. Isaiah probably would have preached about God's wrath. John the Baptist would have probably said, "Repent." I said, among other things, "Death is the wrong time to get a lesson in theology." Maybe I did handle the situation well. But usually, when it comes to abortion, I get more indignant. I did not this time, partially out of fear and partially out of a desire to keep peace during Thanksgiving dinner. This is probably idolatry for which I need to repent - even though 99 out of 100 "Christians" would probably say that keeping peace during Thanksgiving dinner is the winsome and wise thing to do.

Anyway, for better or for worse, we stopped the conversation. But thanks to Will, later we got back on a similar discussion. Will was talking about postmodernism. Will's intellect is amazing. He was analyzing in depth postmodern thought. I forget one of the precise statements that Will made, but he said, "Postmodernism rejects .... (something)." This, of course, is an absolute statement. So, I started bantering with him - essentially saying, "What about logic?" If postmodernism rejects absolutes, then asserting an absolute statement is a contradiction. When I pointed this out, the response was, "That's ok because postmodernism accepts contradictions."

Well, I was somewhat flabbergasted by this, but not surprised, and I expressed my thought that to accept contradictions is ridiculous. This led everyone into a deep conversation about postmodernism which in turn led to a conversation about Christian dogma. That these intelligent and educated people were seriously giving postmodernism authentic consideration is totally ridiculous, yet not surprising in this culture. But what was more troublesome was the pressure they were putting on people to give postmodernism that same consideration. How many times Will said, "We must..." or "You have to..." was humorous to me. If there are no ethical absolutes, then I do not have to do anything. There is no "must." But, we were not expercting postmodernism to be consistent.

To be fair, Will made it clear that he does not categorize himself as a postmodernist. He is too smart for that.

What was disconcerting was the political implications of postmodernism. If there are no absolutes, and postmodernism accepts contradictions, then how do you have an intelligent conversation about rights, law, ethics, and politics. True to contradictory postmodernism, the conversation about policy forming from the postmodern point of view was completely inconsistent with some of the theoretical abstractions and metaphors that had been previously discussed during dinner. That this worldview is as popular as it is, is really disconcerting because these people vote. How do you have courts without having a standard of right and wrong? How do you write law, if words hold no meaning? How do you presume to have rights at all, if this world is not real in the first place? How do you speak of the "greater good" of society, if goodness is subjective?

At one point of the conversation (and I think this bridged the conversation to a discussion of Christian dogma), I asked if people at that table believed that being open-minded was a good thing? I think Will was well aware with where I was going with this, and he did not immediately say, "Yes." But his dad did. So then I asked, "Are you openminded to the idea that a lot of your ideas are nothing but foolishness?" Bill said, "No." So, I said, "Then, you are a closed-minded person." Will responded to this with a big word that I did not know, but basically he said that my assessment was unfair and not true. (Of course, this implies that fairness and truth have absolute standards that both he and I know very well). He also began to suggest that I was being hypocritical because I am not openminded to the idea that Christianity is false. But then I made it clear that I never claimed that I was openminded, nor that being openminded was necessarily always a good thing.

Then, we got into a conversation about Chrisitianity. Bill expressed his problem with the dogmatic claims of Christianity and every other dogmatic religion. I explained to him that inasmuch as the doctrines, creeds, and assertions of other religions, philosophies, and worldviews are not all bad and wrong. Inasmuch as they are in agreement with Christian dogma, then they are right. But inasmuch as they contradict Christian dogma, they are wrong and damnable.

Nancy had some good things to say throughout the conversation, especially at this point. Nancy, with her wonderful sweetness showed Bill and the others that, as a professing Christian, I have to reject all doctrines that are in conflict with Christianity. I had pretty much said the same thing, but people were all the more eager to listen to Nancy. We balance each other out pretty well. Nancy is sweet and winsome. I am adament about sticking to sound doctrine.

This led to a discussion of divine revelation, and I, of course, asserted that I have had divine revelation, and that without divine revelation, you can't know the truth.

Ryan, Nancy's brother, also got involved in this conversation. I was glad to have the opportunity to witness to him. He seemed very open, and he seems to have a desire to read the Bible and learn more.

Scott also had some real interesting questions for me. We had a good conversation too.

Eventually, the conversation was brought to a close without any real awkwardness. We proceeded on to a friendly game of scrabble.

Father in Heaven, let your kingdom come, and let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Reveal yourself to Nancy's relatives. Draw them to yourself. Show them the depth of your love. In Jesus' Name, Amen.