Sunday, June 18, 2017

The Catholic Church And Postmodernism

Epiphany Alert: I recently watched the Jordan Peterson lecture below and it radically changed how I see things.


At his suggestion, I went to Amazon and bought Explaining Postmodernism and it's as awesome as he says.

It's Father's Day, upon which I wish a happy day to all fathers out there, but it also means I get to cook whatever I want for dinner. I've got a whole chicken to cut up and marinade for Jerk Chicken tonight and after that I want to test out my MGB headlight wiring harness, so this will be quick.

The Central Problem for Catholicism in 2017

Postmodernism says there are no such things as Truth, objectivity or even logic. The Church says there are. Without an agreement that there is such a thing as Truth, there's practically no point to the Church. If everything is relative and everyone has their own reality, then the Catechism is just a bunch of dudes in robes trying to tell people how to live their lives.

Evangelism, then, is not about "how do you know this is what we should do?" but "how do you know there is something we should do?" I would argue that once you convince someone that objectivity and Truth exist, the Church has a huge advantage. As long as each person's reality is self-defined, you're pretty much hosed.

Going back to the Benedict Option posts, the strategy the sagacious and kind-hearted Rod Dreher is suggesting is that we crawl into bunkers and wait for Postmodernism to self-destruct. That could get very, very ugly. Without logic and objectivity, you get a society of screaming, violent mobs.

Sort of like what they've got at Evergreen State University.

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