Transition beyond postmodernism: Pluralistic culture, incommensurable rationalities, and future objectivity

Abstract

Modernist confidence in objective reason has given way to postmodern assumptions that rationality always reflects community-specific standards that can find no indisputable foundation in objectivity. Within postmodern cultural conditions, the church will need to transition beyond the potential relativism of incommensurable communal rationalities and toward a Christian post-postmodernism. Christian post-postmodernism will assume that relativism can be overcome through truthful narration rather than through truthful reason. Christian narratives will include scripts that guide church relationships across the private, communal, and public spaces that define the pluralism of contemporary social life. Reflective development of church rationality will be a centrally important task in meeting the challenges of postmodernism. A transition beyond postmodernism is filled with possibilities for enhancing the rationality and evangelical potential of the church.