(The following essay is Part 1 of a 3-part series examining the rise of what I would call the Postmodern world and its impact on Protestant Christianity.  The original essay was close to 2,000 words. However, that length seemed to long for one blog post.  So I am posting the essay as a three-part series.  Nonetheless, you may wish to read all three parts consecutively to appreciate more fully the main thrust of the essay.  These observations were originally written in 2012 as part of an introduction to a sermon outline which I never completed. These thoughts really provide the philosophical and theological foundation for why I started this blog in 2013.)

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, proved to be the seminal event that defined the first decade of the 21st century if not for the entire century.  But it did not define that decade in geo-socio-political terms alone, but also in religious and theological terms. In the thirteen years since that attack on American soil, we have witnessed a significant shift in the philosophical, theological and religious paradigm of the 21st century world that may be regarded by future historians as the beginning of the new Post-modern world.  But what makes the post-modern world different from the modern world of the 20^th century?  The answer to that question is actually quite simple.  In the modern world, secularism was king, and religion was relegated to the status of a serf or a slave and was considered in the words of Karl Marx to be the “opiate of the people.” Throughout the better part of the 20^th century, economics, politics, cultural revolutions, science and philosophical enlightenment were the gods of the modern. Religion was considered out of date, passé, and most of all something to be discarded like the last vestiges of an old rag.  As a substitute for the religious convictions, experiences and paradigms that dominated the world up till the late 19^th century, the modern worshiped human reason, exalting it to the place of the supreme being of the universe.  This fact is actually quite ironic because while the modern worshiped reason, the modern was perhaps the most irrational of all the philosophical schools of the thought of the last 3000 years. But with the collapse of the great eschatological movements of the 20^th century-namely, Perfectionism, Progressiveism, Socialism, Communism, etc, the modern was left with nothing but empty shells of meaningless promises, failed hopes and empty dreams, and most of all, a world that seemed to have petered out of life, energy, vitality and purpose.  History had run its course according to the high priests of Modern religion, but humanity had still not yet reached utopia, the eschaton was not manifested, and we still had not regained Paradise.  Then, 9/11 occurred.

Suddenly the great hopes and aspirations of the modern which by the late 1990’s had obviously failed were now replaced with fear, terror, and the constant threat that our very way of life would be completely devastated in a short moment of time by an a small, but extreme group of militant religious terrorists.  For the first time since the world wars and the cold war of the 20^th century, Americans were faced with the full extent of their mortality, and hope was replaced with fear, optimism with terror, and confidence with despair. And in a sense, as the twin towers fell, their fall marked the final death of the modern, and out of those ashes, rising in the mist of the smoke of burning rubble, the foggy and ethereal post-modern age, and in particular, the post-modern’s rejection of a full orbed secularism in place of an inclusion of religion within the segmented world of human knowledge and understanding.

In one sense, this shift was a perfectly natural occurrence.  Just as an individual who suffers a life-threatening trauma will suddenly become aware of their mortality as well as their own spirituality, so the same principle is true with societies.  On September 11, 2001, our nation was suddenly, brutally and traumatically shaken from its lethargy and complacency, and brought face to face with the potential end of our existence as we knew it.  Hence, an embrace of faith in the post-9/11 world was perfectly normal.  But the real significance lies not in the embrace of the faith, but the peculiar nature of that faith which our society is now embracing.  That new type of faith marks the first major manifestation of our new Post-Modern religion that will very likely define the coming decades of the 21^st century.

What is this new object of worship for the Post-modern?  The Modern worshiped HUMAN REASON. The Post-modern worships HUMAN FAITH-faith in humanity, faith in some vague ill-defined spirituality, faith in experience, faith in secret knowledge, and ultimately, faith in subjectivism and its ultimate consequence, the human ego.  And faith in the human ego is perhaps the the SINE QUA NON of religion in our Post 9/11 world.

But this so-called religion is hardly new.  It is just another repackaging of the religion described by the Apostle Paul in Romans 1.  Paul describes this religion as one that worships the ego and is manifested in self-pleasure, self-aggrandizement, and the assertion of one’s own will as supreme and sovereign over all things, including the Sovereign and Triune God.  In short, egotism is nothing more than the very sin that our first parents, Adam and Eve, were guilty of-the exaltation of oneself in the place of God.  And Egotism (whether in faith, knowledge or the human will) is now quickly replacing the Modern faith in secular reason and pure rationalism.  This is the death of the Modern which has given birth to the Postmodern.