(The following post is Part 2 of a three part series that I began in the previous post entitled, 9/11 and the death of the Modern.  While the first part focused on the philosophical and secular impact 9/11 to the Postmodern age, this section focuses on the theological impact of Postmodernism, particularly on Protestantism.  A third post will follow this one offering some concluding remarks.)

The more sobering reality of the epistemological revolution occurring in our day is not just that the Modern has fallen prey to the supplanting forces of the Postmodern, but that at the same time, the last gasps of a Post-Protestant Christianity are also quickly succumbing to the same principles of Postmodern thinking.  And when carefully examined, the principles of the Modern, the Postmodern, and the growing Post-Protestant Christianity are not only virtually identical, but these principles which they espouse are the same principles of religion adhered to by the Roman Church.  Thus, the sobering fact of this shift that we are witnessing in the opening years of the 21^st century is the very the reversal of the Protestant Reformation, not just in theological terms as occurred in the 20^th century, but also in ecclesiastical, cultural, social, economic and political terms.  Even secular historians acknowledge the Protestant Reformation transformed Europe and the United States into the great dominating social, cultural and political powers of the 18^th and 19^th centuries-often referred to as the great ‘Golden Age’ of the West.  But in the 19^th and 20^th centuries, the Modern destroyed the theology of the Reformation, creating instead the secular dispiriting dystopia of the 20^th century. And as we proceed into the 21^st century, having realized the emptiness of Modernism, humanity has embraced a new religion for its times, Post-modernism.

The consequence of this shift is even more frightening than that of the Protestant to the Modern, because while the Modern destroyed the theology of the Reformation which under girded the Western world, the Post-modern is actually destroying the outward institutions of Protestantism-including everything from the organized Protestant church to the rejection of constitutional representative government by the rule of law.  And all of this is happening as a result of the church’s and society’s embrace of the new Post-modern religion with its faith in human faith and its worship of the human ego.  And unless there is a swift and sudden reversal of these trends, we will very likely in our life times witness the complete and total collapse of those very institutions that we as Evangelical Protestants have all taken for granted for the last five centuries.  And all of this simply because of the great theological paradigm shift we are watching work itself out in our time.

Now as an aside, I should point out, not all professing Christians in our time are grieved by this shift.  In fact, there are many who profess to be Christians who would welcome the death of Protestantism as the next step in an Hegelian-like step of ecclesiastical progress that will once again unite Christendom into one institutional church.  And depending one’s theology and religious views, such an even might be a welcome triumph.  But as most of you already know, this author does not welcome the apparent death of Protestantism as a good thing for the true Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.  But I digress on that point, and will visit perhaps some time in the future.

Suffice to say this: As the modern age collapses into the ethereal smokey age of the Postmodern era (age sounds too sophisticated for our time), the radical change in philosophical thinking is also impacting the course of theology and church history in just as radical a change as our secular world.  And we cannot truly appreciate this change without understanding both the secular and religious elements of this epistemological revelation.