I 3300 51 apologetics postmodern worldviews

Postmodernism
1. Meaning is determined by the person

2. Human authority originates from society

3. Human and Natural Laws are referential

4. Diﬀerence between secular & sacred is referential

5. Reason cannot explain all phenomena

6. Scripture is one of many Sacred Texts, each one may be valid

Model of Bible Interpretation
Text Reader
Translation
Writer’s
Cultural
Milieu
Reader’s
Cultural
Milieu
Audience
Exegete
is
Addressing
Postmodernism: Reader Gives Meaning
Meaning

Premodern Period
• Knowledge was mediated
• Truth was transmitted by chain of tradition
• Truth was determined by kings & priests
• Truth was accessible to a few

• Vulgate the authorized Bible
• Vulgate was read in church
• Vulgate was interpreted by the church
• Vernacular was forbidden
Premodern Period

• Hebrew Bible was read in synagogue
• Sages interpreted Scripture
• Re enforced in liturgy & recitation
• Vernacular was forbidden
Premodern Period

Modernism
The Enlightenment
• Truth became accessible
• Truth freed from religion and authority
• Truth became objective
• Truth became universal (all people, time, contexts)

• Universal scientific laws govern universe
• Universal moral laws govern men & women
• Universal economic laws govern society
• Universal civil laws govern nations
Modernism
The Enlightenment

Maxwell’s Laws
Electricity and Magnetism

5 Laws of Nature
• Equality of Man
• Pursuite of Peace
• Pursuit of Liberty
• Contend for Justice
• Good of all men
• Cooperation of all men
Thomas Hobbes (1588 - 1679)

3 Laws of Economics
1. Law of self-interest
2. Law of competition
3. Law of supply & demand
Adam Smith (1723 - 1790)

Modern Physics
Last 19th Century

World War I
Civilization is not becoming
“Civilized”

Holocaust
Depths of Human depravity

Postmodern
• Moral poverty of humanity

• Destruction of the environment

• Degredation of human civilization

• Globalization and diversity of culture

• Disillusionment with technology and science

Contrasting Final Scenes
Modern v. Postmodern

Loftin, Hugh. 1920. “Lunar Moth”. Dr. Doolittle

Charleton Heston, Planet of the Apes 1968

Also Sprach Zarathustra (Strauss, 1896)

Friedrich Nietzsche
Humans create truth by writing the
stories. The language, myth, and
narratives create their truth

Also Sprach Zarathustra (1885)
• Friedrich Nietzsche (1885)
• Zarathustra (628 BC)
• “God is Dead!”
• End of Truth
• Nihilism
Friedich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

Max Webber
Facts are neutral. Humans assign
meaning to facts creating truth.
1864-1920

Michel Foucault
Social Critical Theory:
Facts themselves are created by those
in power to control and exploit people
1926-1984

Hannah Arendt
Death of Truth: “Totalitarianism
[succeeds when] the distinctions
between fact and fiction and between
true and false no longer exist.”
(Arendt, 1976, Origins of Totalitarianism)
1906-1975

Truth Became Unanchored
• Facts alone have no meaning
• People assign meaning
• Truth, therefore is contextual
• Spiritual truth, is contextual or nonexistent

Deconstruction
• Deconstruction of traditional history
• Deconstruction of sacred stories
• Revising History with new meaning
• Revising sacred stories

Post-Truth Era
Pendulum swinging back

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/post-truth
(Oxford English Dictionary, 2016)

Push-Back
• Social media distorts truth
• Politicians distort truth
• Emotional people reject facts
• Media distorting facts to sell news

In Search of Truth
WBUR Boston
(27 Feb 2020)

• Facts do have meaning

• Facts not multiple meanings

• Truth is not relative

Debra Lipstadt, “Truth is Not Relative”

“Alternative facts” (22 Jan 2017)

Compelling truth Moral Absolutes

Theodore Cabal, Southern Theological Seminary

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2vpvwa

Text Discussion:
Five Views of Suffering & Evil

How can Christians claim they
have “the Only Way”

What about those who haven’t
heard?
Text Discussion

Why do you “push” your beliefs
on other people?

How can a good God send
people to Hell?

Critical Social Theory
Shenvi, Neil. 2019. “Critical Theory”. New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary

Another Brick in the Wall (Pink Floyd, 1979)

Give her a Hoover
and you give her
the Best!
Hoover Magazine Ad
1937

Karl Marx
“The history of all
hitherto existing
society is the history of
class struggles”
(Marx, 1848/1913, p. 5)
1818–1883

Frankfurt School
• Hegelian philosophy
• 1920s German Marxism
• German Upheaval
• Frankfurt Ger. (1923-1933)
• Columbian University (1933ff)
(Corradetti, 2016, “Frankfurt School”)

Max Horkheimer
• Brought together: Freud, Marx,
literary theory, and philosophy
of education.
• Traditional & Critical Theory
(Horkheimer,1937)
1895—1973

Max Horkheimer
Traditional Theory & Critical Theory
Traditional theory:
“is content to describe existing
social institutions more or less as
they are”
Critical theory:
understanding of expose the
system’s false claims to
legitimacy, justice, and truth
(Horkheimer, 1937/1972, p. 188)
1895—1973

Critical Theory
Defined
A “critical” theory is a theory of inquiry that seeks to
emancipate from slavery, liberate from oppression, and create
a world which satisfies the needs and self-determination of
human beings. These may be applied to many diﬀerent
disciplines (ex. Critical literary theory, critical social theory,
critical hermeneutics, critical historical inquiry).
“Critical Theory”. 2005. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/critical-theory/

Critical Theory
Defined
Critical social theory constitutes an eﬀort to rethink and reform
Marxist social criticism; it characteristically rejects mainstream
political and intellectual views, criticizes capitalism, promotes
human liberation, and consequently attempts to expose
domination and oppression in their many forms. The extent to
which science and technology may be associated with
domination and oppression has been a major theme of critical
theory.
"Critical Social Theory ." Encyclopedia.com. 15 Apr. 2021 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>.

Premises
1. Oppressed v. Oppressor

2. Oppression through hegemonic power

3. Moral duty to liberate

4. Lived experience > Objective evidence

5. Guise of objectivity

6. Priority of intersectionality

Text Reader
Writer Language Translation
Copyist
Errors
Reader’s
Cultural
Milieu
Audience
Exegete
is
Addressing
Critical Literary Theory: Expose Oppresser
Understand the Oppressed
Meaning
Evil Powers

Seeking to oppress victims

Text Reader
Writer Language Translation
Copyist
Errors
Reader’s
Cultural
Milieu
Audience
Exegete
is
Addressing
Critical Literary Theory: Expose Oppresser
Understand the oppressed
Women, homosexuals, slaves, racial minorities, immigrants
Meaning
Evil Powers

Seeking to oppress victims

1. Oppressed v. Oppressor
• Old white men

• “Karen” obnoxious white women

• Jews are “white”

2. Oppression through hegemonic power
• Individuals are associated with their group

• Rules always favor dominate group

• Rules that favor are hegemonic power

3. Moral duty to liberate
• Liberation prioritized over other moral rules

• Re-prioritization of moral judgement

• Permission to act in ways normally improper

5. Guise of objectivity
• Objective facts are illusions

• Rational inquiry is illusion

Why did God command genocide
in the Old Testament?

Why did God command Genocide?
When my angel goes before you and brings you to the Amorites and the Hittites and
the Perizzites and the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, and I blot them out,
you shall not bow down to their gods nor serve them, nor do as they do, but you shall
utterly overthrow them and break their pillars in pieces (Exod 23:23–24 ESV)
Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the
Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Take care, lest you make a covenant with the
inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst. (Exod
34:11–12 ESV)

You shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you and destroy all their
figured stones and destroy all their metal images and demolish all their high places.
And you shall take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given the land to
you to possess it. (Num 33:52–53 ESV)
When the LORD your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you
must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them
and show no mercy to them. (Deut 7:2 ESV)

In the cities of the peoples that the LORD your God is giving you for an
inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall
devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the
Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the
LORD your God has commanded, that they may not teach you to do
according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their
gods, and so you sin against the LORD your God. (Deut 20:16–18 ESV)

1. Only the Canaanite Cities (ex. Not Ammon, Edom, Midian, Aram)

When you draw near to a city to fight against it, oﬀer terms of
peace to it. And if it responds to you peaceably and it opens to
you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor
for you and shall serve you. (Deut 20:10–11 ESV)


2. Only time in redemptive history this was commanded

"Put your sword back in its place," Jesus said to him, "for all
who draw the sword will die by the sword. (Matt 26:52, NIV)



3. There was a special dispensation about “the Land”

Pentateuch includes selected stories:
Story of Sodom & Gemara
Sin of the Ammonites
Story of Lot and his daughters

And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the
nations that were before you. (Lev. 18:28, NIV)
I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward
they shall come out with great possessions. As for you, you shall
go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age.
And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the
iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” (Gen 15:14–16 ESV)




4. We minimize sin in god’s eyes and rightful punishment.

5. We minimize the eternal destiny of all those living in sin.

There were some present at that very time who told him about
the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their
sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these
Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans,
because they suﬀered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you
repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom
the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they
were worse oﬀenders than all the others who lived in
Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all
likewise perish.” (Luke 13:1–5 ESV)




4. We minimize sin in god’s eyes and rightful punishment.

5. We minimize the eternal destiny of all those living in sin.

6. Even so, there was grace for those who turned to Yahweh.

Rahab came up to them on the roof and said to the men, “I know
that the LORD has given you the land, and that the fear of you
has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt
away before you. For we have heard how the LORD dried up the
water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt,
and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were
beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you devoted to
destruction. And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and
there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for the LORD
your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth
beneath. (Josh 2:8–11 ESV)

So the young men who had been spies went in and brought
out Rahab and her father and mother and brothers and all who
belonged to her. And they brought all her relatives and put them
outside the camp of Israel. But Rahab the prostitute and her
father’s household and all who belonged to her, Joshua saved
alive. And she has lived in Israel to this day, (Josh 6:23, 25
ESV)

Rahab, the Jericho ite (Joshua 2)
Ruth, the Midianite (Ruth)
Ornan, the Jebusite (1 Chron 21:28)
Jael, the Kenite (Jud 5:24)
All Gibeonites (2 Sam 21

Christianity oppresses women
Text Discussion

Christianity is anti-gay
and responsible for oppression of LGBTQ
Elizabeth Black from NY

Christianity is a white man’s religion
and responsible for slavery and oppression of minorities

Evangelicals are responsible for
neglect of the planet
Text discussion

Christianity is responsible for
colonization and eradication of
non-western cultures.

Jesus is the incarnation of Krisna

The Gospel is a recycled pagan
myth

If I believe in Jesus, I won’t be
Jewish anymore.

God commanded us to only
worship him

When the Messiah comes there
will be peace on earth.

I don’t need someone to pay for
my sins

God never demanded a human
sacrifice

Christians are responsible for
murdering the Jews!

Christianity teaches Jews to
forsake God’s law

Jesus went to India between 13 -
33 and studied with the yogis

Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses,
and Cults

1. If I believe in Jesus, I won’t be
Jewish anymore

2. Christians have tried to kill
the Jews for 2,000 years!

3. Jesus did not fulfill the
requirements for the Messiah!

Julius Ciss, Jews for Judiasm, Why Jesus is Not the Messiah

4. Jews don’t need someone to
pay for their sins. We go directly
to God!

Tovia Singer, Were Sacrifices Necessary to Atone for Sin?

5. Praying to Jesus is idolatry

6. Christians believe you just
need to believe in Jesus and then

I 3300 51 apologetics postmodern worldviews

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