by Christopher Wiegering

Created on: June 04, 2009   Last Updated: June 05, 2009

The difficulties for an individual to live his Christian faith in a postmodern world are grave. There are many explanations to how a postmodernist culture can be hostile to Christian beliefs. We will explain how this postmodern culture can influence us beyond our will and our awareness. We will also list and briefly explain some of these conflicts between Christianity and postmodernism all in the attempt to aid today's Christian in his endeavor to live a true Christian faith.

How can a postmodern culture influence us?

1- One of the challenges we face as Christians is our dependence on 'Custom' or 'Convention'. We live in the present and the present influences us. Sometimes to the point that we can even use the expression: we 'ARE' our present, our surroundings, our customs and conventions. We tend to think that what is culturally accepted in the present by the majority must utterly be true. Any criticism of this cultural 'mind frame' we live in seems to be fantastic, far-fetched or not politically correct. So if we live in a postmodern culture, then unfortunately, unless we make a conscious and repeated effort not to buy into a post modernist mentality, we will!

2- Another challenge is that Christian beliefs and truths not only demand or understanding but also our, sometimes frail, 'will'. This can make accepting Christian beliefs rather difficult. On the other hand postmodernism is part of our society and our social conventions. It therefore grants us security and comfort. Freeing ourselves from these social 'customs' and 'conventions' would expose us and without its existential crutches we would be forced to open our minds to realities that may not fit our own likings or convenience. Liberating ourselves from the postmodern 'mind frame' would make existence more difficult, risky and costly.

What are the conflicting points between postmodernism and Christianity?

3- To answer this we have to take a look at how history has helped in the process of producing this postmodernist (anti-faith) cultural mind frame. Since the Renaissance, man has been eager to 'emancipate' himself from the idea of God and Religion as if it were contrary to his own nature. The presumption was made that we are a consequence of a mundane, purely biological and historical process of evolution, impermeable to any sort of supernatural causality or interaction. Later during the Enlightenment, many men of sincere but shallow or weak faith began to see their beliefs challenged by a world

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