What is post-modern Christianity?

The perilous times have arrived, and the faith once delivered to the saints is being assaulted and opposed by many evils. There is the form of godliness in which the power that convicts men of sin and brings them with repentance to the feet of the great Redeemer, and changes their lives, is denied. Leaders of religious thought are turning away from the testimony of the Lord and offering the sacraments instead of the living Lord and Christ as the means of life and blessing, and are drifting back into popish superstitions; and others, drunk with the wine of modernism, have made an unholy alliance with "science, falsely so called," and are casting aside the Word of God as an obsolete thing and overthrowing the faith of some. Formalism, Ritualism — these be the gods of an apostatizing Christendom, but they are as false as Baal and Ashtaroth and Chemosh, the gods of the Canaanites! "O Timothy," wrote Paul, the aged, in view of these days, "Keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: which some professing have erred concerning the faith" (1 Tim. 6:20).

Verse 8, however, is parenthetical, and verse 9 picks up the thread from verse 7. These anti-christian deceivers were not abiding in the doctrine of Christ. They were transgressing or going forward, as they thought, to newer and better things. We have this kind of thing quite full-blown today in what is known as "Modernism." The Modernist believes that religion or theology is a human science, and that like all sciences it must not stand still but advance with the times and with the increase of all human knowledge. Hence he goes forward with much confidence to what he conceives to be greater light. No doctrine is sacred to the out-and-out Modernist. There is hardly one doctrine of the Scripture which he leaves intact.

The philosophy of modern days has the same source, the mind of man, though it acts differently in respect to Christianity. For instance, with some, Christianity is regarded as emanating from man, and so is compared with Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, all of which are said to be branches of the same religion of man; though Christianity is judged to be the best, none are to be condemned; there is truth in them all! Others sit in judgement on the word of God, and profess to be able to cut out many parts as not being written by the professed writers, and having no claim, ought not to form a part of scripture. Others declare that modern thought cannot be cramped up in the dogmas hitherto held by Christians almost universally, which in general really means what scripture teaches.

In our culture it has become generally accepted that truth and morals are relative, that there are no objective or absolute truths and morals. All questions of right and wrong are seen as relative to the situation or to the culture or to each individual personal opinion. Since no one's opinion is more valuable than anyone else's, each of us must personally decide what is right and wrong - for us. To claim there are absolute truths about right and wrong is viewed as being intolerant, bigoted or judgmental - the three great "sins" of our postmodern secular culture.

Interestingly enough, those who take the "all truth is relative" approach, constantly find themselves having to make judgments about what is true, what is right and what is good. As they do this, they cannot help but judge other people with whom they disagree. With no absolute measuring stick about right and wrong, the ultimate result is moral chaos. (For where postmodernisrn is leading us, see chapter 12.)

A fourth category is reserved for those who are reluctant to commit to any particular worldview. They would prefer to pick and choose what they like about different worldviews and aren't much bothered if the ideas contradict each other. The only thing that counts is "what works for you." These people will say things like, "I don't believe any one system contains all truth." Whatever else this worldview is, it is relativistic, and it is often a big part of the thinking found in secular humanism and postmodernism, as well as the New Age movement.

Today Christians face many nonbiblical worldviews, which can be broken down into several categories: naturalism, pantheism, polytheism and a possible fourth category, relativism, which in a characteristically postmodern way wants to avoid the straitjacket of categories.

Concerning right and wrong, the Christian does not cave in to secular humanist or postmodernist claims that there are no absolutes and that all truth is "relative" - that is, whatever is good for you is fine, and whatever is good for me is fine, too. Moral truth, in particular, is absolute because God has pronounced it so. The Ten Commandments are not the "ten suggestions." Not only do we need to learn God's commandments, but we also need His constant reminders of what is right and wrong because of our innate human capacity to be deceived, not only by other people but by Satan, who "masquerades as an angel of light" (2 Cor. 11: 14; see also Eph. 6:12).

Strange things have happened to truth over the last 100 years. This rebellious Western world has in general lost its belief in an absolute God, and hand-in-hand with this there has been a loss of belief in absolute truth. Truth has become relative - as man today sees everything: what is a truth for you may not be a truth for me. Not only does modern man not believe the same things as we do, but his whole way of thinking is different. We could have had an intelligent debate with a Victorian about an issue of spiritual importance and we may not have agreed, but at least we would have understood each other. But for many this is no longer the case - to many, truth itself no longer exists in any absolute sense.

Time is refuting the unproved theory of Evolution and forcing scientific assertions into correspondence with Genesis 1. When travelling to India recently a series of talks on different religions was organized on the upper deck in the evenings. When Christianity was presented by a missionary I was specially invited to attend. This missionary talked only of love and the Sermon on the Mount, and said not a word about sin in its real character, the cross, the atoning sacrifice, but followed to some extent the modernistic trend that has degraded Christianity to a Unitarian level of following Christ as an example and refusing Him as Saviour. We took occasion to bring forward those vital truths of Christianity that centre round Christ as God and Man who atoned for sin on the cross.

There is, however, another phase of this modernist movement which is characteristic of the last days. The natural man has never been truly subject to a revelation from God; at the same time, for many generations, professing Christians have been outwardly controlled by a more or less orthodox traditional religion. To-day, however, we are witnessing a great change. Men are casting aside the trammels of tradition. We are thus faced with a great mass of people who, while retaining a profession of Christianity, are no longer governed by the revelation of God, or the tradition of man. The result being that the natural heart of fallen man is expressing its enmity and opposition to God and to Christ without any restraint. This means in fact that Christendom is heading for apostasy.