Is Stephen aka Q a Postmodernist? Am I?

After a long hiatus, Stephen aka Q has returned to posting on his biblioblog, Emerging from Babel. Unbeknownst to me, he's been active on another of his sites, [A]mazed and [Be]mused, which gets a lot of responses.

Stephen wrote a post entitled Whose Christianity?, in which he says that he is now a postmodernist Christian. He has arrived at these convictions because of divisions among Christians over crucial issues, such as torture, annihilationism, and pacificism. As many of you may know, Stephen has been active in these debates on the blogosphere.

My impression of what's going on is this: Old Stephen believed that God is obviously against torture and war. The things that told him God's will (e.g., Scripture) indicated this, and so that's what he accepted as true, in typical modernist Christian fashion. More than that, he hoped that the Christian church would take a united stand on these issues, acting as a conscience to society. But he has encountered well-intentioned, reasonable Christians (such as John Hobbins of Ancient Hebrew Poetry) who see a different message when they read the Bible, one that views torture and war as necessary in certain cases.

And so Stephen now seems to be more skeptical about our ability to arrive at an objective definition of Christianity. He states, "A postmodernist will not be shocked to learn that 'Christianity' is an empty basket that people fill with their own prior convictions. Those all-important prior convictions are local and contingent — not to say self-serving." What he means is that there are all sorts of Christianities, some that promote liberation, and some that promote the status quo. And, since Jesus is not here to tell us which one is right, we're basically here, interpreting Scripture according to our own subjective preferences.

But I wonder if Stephen is totally a postmodernist. Even now, he seems to believe that torture and war are wrong. He says, "I would prefer near-unanimity among Christians: against torture; against the doctrine of hell as a place of eternal torment; against abortion; in support of pacifism; in support of a substantial redistribution of wealth[.]" So he believes in the existence of right and wrong, right? Don't postmodernists believe that right and wrong are relative, meaning that there are no absolutes?

Of course, I'm just speaking from my own understanding of postmodernism. I don't know for sure if they're complete relativists, who deny the existence of objective truth. That's how they've been presented to me in Christian books. Even a Harvard scholar such as Jon Levenson has framed postmodernism in such a way before arguing against it. I have read postmodernists in the past, but I don't understand what the heck they're saying. (Clarity is not one of their strong points, though Stephen writes clearly.)

If postmodernists deny that we can accurately describe reality, then what's that do to their truth claim that we can't accurately describe reality? I mean, postmodernists themselves make truth claims, right? I can argue this and pat myself on the back, but, seriously, postmodernists are intelligent, educated people. They have to be, to use the big words that they use! Surely they have some way to respond to this!

I once heard a professor discuss a book that features a debate between Richard Rorty and Umberto Eco. My impression from my professor's discussion was that Rorty was the postmodernist, whereas Eco was more of a modernist. Eco said (and I paraphrase), "Of course there's objective truth! Drop a ball! What goes up, must come down." My professor said that Rorty didn't have much of a problem with that, and that he was also open to the existence of better and worse interpretations. But Rorty thought that, in many cases, reality is ambiguous and open to multiple outlooks.

I've not read the book, but that's somewhat where I am. I think there are things that are obviously true and false, but much is open to interpretation. You can place all sorts of spins on history. I've done that myself in debating numerous people. Not everything is subjective, but there's a lot of subjectivity out there.

I think that all sorts of beliefs have a reason for their existence. I read Christian debates on Calvinism, preterism, hell, and a host of other issues, and I see "My view is right, and your view is wrong, so you're stupid." I don't think so. Calvinists can find scriptures that coincide with their view on salvation (predestination), and Arminians can cite verses that support free will. The fact that people disagree shows that the truth is vague. The Bible is open to all sorts of interpretations.

But I'm not ready to say that the Bible can't serve as a conscience. There are still many things that Christians agree on. On the basis of the Bible, we believe in honesty and love for neighbor. We can evaluate (say) the Iraq War according to certain standards: Is it rooted in justice and concern for humanity, or in greed? If the former is true, then it is good. If the latter is the case, then it is bad.

I realize things are not that simple, but I'm just saying that we don't totally lack a moral compass as we evaluate issues.