I first heard Todd Friel discuss these terms when WOTM was in Europe last year (2007). Many of the people in Europe they ran into tended to hold postmodernist beliefs.
So what is deconstructionism anyway?
A philosophy coined by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in the 1960s that interprets history by trying to determine the meaning from what is left out of the text or ignored or silenced by it. This philosophy is an extending the philosophical excursions of Nietzsche and Heidegger.
The example that Todd used was George Washington. He was a slave owner, therefore he's a bad person (even though history doesn't record this and actually shows him to have treated the slaves as family members). Therefore, everything he made contributions to (being a devout Christian who wanted his government to reflect his beliefs) is called into question and doubted, although there is no proof of it. A deconstructionist maintains these assumptions because they can't see or experience something in the past. They don't care if they have no proof of their assumptions. They interpret history by adding their prejudices and assumptions to history. They assume, based on these prejudices and assumptions, what has been left out, ignored or silenced in historical writings.
How does this effect us as Christians? When we talk about our Christian heritage in the building of the United States of America, they deconstruct it by finding faults in the founding fathers, as in the example above.
So when witnessing, be ready for this!
If your head isn't spinning enough already... How about postmodernism?
From an article by James Beverley in 2002:
"Postmodernism is a term of recent vintage, but the seeds of postmodernism hearken back to thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, and Martin Heidegger who raised radical questions about the intellectual, cultural, and political ideologies of their day. Though none of these thinkers were postmodernists, per se, each saw that powerful elites use "reason" and "logic" and "truth" to hold humans in captivity in some form."
Postmodernism: "There is no single world view that captures reality, no master story (or meta-narrative) that underlies humanity. Reason is to be distrusted because there is no way to know which person's reason is reliable. There is no such thing as objectivity. There is no "truth" to appeal to for understanding history and culture. There are no moral absolutes. The West, with its colonialist heritage, deserves ridicule. Texts, whether religious or philosophical or literary, do not have intrinsic meaning. Ideas are cultural creations. Everything is relative. We need to be deeply suspicious of all ideas since ideas are used as tools to oppress and confine humans."
So a postmodernist has trouble knowing whether or not he is alive for sure...
How to witness to a postmodernist\deconstructionist?
When trying to witness to a postmodernist, they might counter with, “Christianity was created to control the masses.” They might also suggest that nothing can be known for certain; such as the fact that Christ was the Son of God who came to earth for our salvation.
When witnessing, obviously we don't want to stay in these arguments long because you will make no progress arguing with the intellect. Instead we might ask them, “Is there absolute truth?” If they say no, ask them when it is right for someone to rape someone else? Maybe from there, state that there are absolutes in life and then take them into the moral Law, the Ten Commandments.
This is a good article on witnessing to postmodernist.
Below in quotes was taken from this article and are good to keep in mind when witnessing to a postmodernist or someone with these leanings. To sum up below I think he's saying we've got the truth of God (positive) as opposed to the negative view that postmodernism tends to create within a person (when they are being open and honest).
"Our reasons for optimism include the power of God, the loneliness of postmodern culture, postmodern nihilism, and a vacuum of truth."
"By discovering the presuppositions of others and gently leading them to discover the problems with their own views, we can thaw the dogmatism of postmodern consensus and ceate a new openness to alternatives."
***I'd like to thank Jon Speed of Lost Cause Ministries for helping me with this article.
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