The second challenge I see facing American churches today (I discuss the first one here) is how the Church engages postmodernism in American culture. By “postmodern” I do not simply mean the period succeeding modernity, however one wants to date that. Rather, I mean the subjectivist thrust of the late 20th Century, particularly implicating language and, consequently, the objectivity of ethics and truth claims more generally.
Three oft-noted currents come together in elite (and, often, not-so-elite) American culture. First, admission into respectable society requires affirming the conundrum that, in truth, there is no truth. Secondly, an implication of the first current, one must be intolerant of those who are intolerant, with those who affirm objective truths included among those not to be tolerated.
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