Postmodern Theology and Marxist Influence

QUESTION: Postmodern Theology – Marxist Influence

ANSWER:

According to Glen Ward, the vast majority of mainstream Postmodernists emerged from the Marxist atheistic tradition.¹ Michel Foucault, for example, was at one time a member of the French Communist Party and one other Maoist organization.² Jean Baudrillard’s writings were “within a loosely Marxist framework,”³ thinking it was his responsibility to “bring Marx up to date.”⁴ Pierre Macherey was “a Marxist critic...concerned with how texts act to reproduce the values of capitalism.”⁵ A sympathetic critic defined Postmodernism as Marxism-lite dressed in a French tuxedo, sippin’ French wine in a French café on the campus of the College International de Philosophie. A less sympathetic critic referred to Postmodernism as linguistic sophistry seeking to save Marxism’s irrelevant posterior.

Postmodern Theology – Salvation for the Irreligious
During its early years Marxism promised a this-world salvation for the enlightened irreligious. However, with the passage of time and countless body bags, the idea of a Marxist utopia was eventually revealed for what it was—a mirage. As a result, Postmodernism was birthed as a “wayward stepchild of Marxism, and in a sense a generation’s realization that it is orphaned.”⁶

Thus, Postmodernism became a reaction against Marxist dogma of violent revolutions, Marxist dialectical logic, and the Marxist worldview itself. On the other hand, Postmodernism is a continuation of other Marxist ideas, namely atheism, socialism, punctuated evolution, and the socially constructed self, among others.

Notes:

Rendered with permission from the book,Understanding the Times: The Collision of Today’s Competing Worldviews(Rev. 2^nd ed), David Noebel, Summit Press, 2006. Compliments of John Stonestreet, David Noebel, and the Christian Worldview Ministry at Summit Ministries. All rights reserved in the original.

¹ See Glen Ward’s Teaching Yourself Postmodernism (Chicago, IL: McGraw-Hill, 2003), 78f.
² Mark Lilla, The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics (New York, NY: New York Review Books, 2001), 150.
³ Ward, Teaching Yourself Postmodernism, 78.
⁴ Ibid.
⁵ Ibid., 97.
⁶ Lawrence E. Cahoone, ed., From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology, 2nd ed. (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2003), 4–5. Also see Gene Edward Veith, Postmodern Times: A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1994), 75–76.