Postmodern Times: A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture

by Gene Edward Veith Jr., Marvin Olasky (Editor)

The modern era is over. Assumptions that shaped twentieth-century thought and culture, the bridges we crossed to this present moment, have blown up. The postmodern age has begun.

Just what is postmodernism? The average person would be shocked by its creed: Truth, meaning, and individual identity do not exist. These are social constructs. Human life has no special significance, no more value than animal or plant life. All social relationships, all institutions, all moral values are expressions and masks of the primal will to power.

Alarmingly, these ideas have gripped the nation's universities, which turn out today's lawyers, judges, writers, journalists, teachers, and other culture-shapers. Through society's influences, postmodernist ideas have seeped into films, television, art, literature, politics; and, without his knowing it, into the head of the average person on the street.

Christ has called us to proclaim the gospel to a culture grappling with postmodernism. We must understand our times. Then, through the power that Christ gives, we can counter the prevailing culture and proclaim His sufficiency to our society's very points of need.

"While pundits wring their hands over the radicalism of political correctness, speech codes, and outrageous art, Gene Edward Veith takes unerring aim at the intellectual roots of it all. The most important book for anyone who wants to know what's behind the political correctness movement." --Chuck Colson, founder, Prison Fellowship

"An ideal guide for Christians who don't want to be like the notorious military strategist preparing to fight the last war instead of the next one." --Herbert Schlossberg, author, Idols for Destruction

"Pinpoints the strengths and weaknesses of postmodern thought and points the way for Christians to take advantage of both." --E. Calvin Beisner, Covenant College

Genres: Philosophy, Christian, Cultural, Theology, Nonfiction, Christianity, School

256 pages, Paperback

First published February 15, 1994

About the author

Gene Edward Veith Jr., is the Culture Editor of WORLD MAGAZINE. He was formerly Professor of English at Concordia University Wisconsin, where he has also served as Dean of the School of Arts & Sciences. He is the author of numerous books, including Postmodern Times: A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture, The Spirituality of the Cross: The Way of the First Evangelicals, and God at Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of Life.

Postmodern Times received a Christianity Today Book Award as one of the top 25 religious books of 1994. He was named Concordia's Adult Learning Teacher of the Year in 1993 and received the Faculty Laureate Award as outstanding faculty member in 1994. He was a Salvatori Fellow with the Heritage Foundation in 1994-1995 and is a Senior Fellow with the Capital Research Center. He was given the layman’s 2002 Robert D. Preus Award by the Association of Confessional Lutherans as “Confessional Lutheran of the Year.”

Dr. Veith was born in Oklahoma in 1951. He graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1973 and received a Ph.D. in English from the University of Kansas in 1979. He has taught at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College and was a Visiting Professor at Wheaton College in Illinois. He was also a Visiting Lecturer at the Estonian Institute of Humanities in Tallinn, Estonia. He and his wife Jackquelyn have three grown children and live in Cedarburg, Wisconsin.

Reviews

[Kris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written in 1994, in some places this feels dated, but in other places Veith's writing is so on point, so extremely relevant for 2021, perhaps even more so than when it was first written. For that alone I have to give it five stars (despite the occasional references to this newfangled thing called "cyberspace").

Veith references Postman's Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1992). I can see pieces of Veith's writing influencing later books like The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation and Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. Veith also references Michael Horton.

I heard that Veith's "sequel" of sorts to this book is Post-Christian: A Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture (2020).

I also want to read from Veith:
--Reading Between the Lines
--Loving God with All Your Mind: Thinking as a Christian in a Postmodern World
--Modern Fascism: The Threat to the Judeo-Christian View
--The Soul of the Lion Witch, & the Wardrobe

[Jesse · Rating 5 out of 5]

An important book that demystifies Postmodernism. The book is almost thirty years old but still accurate for today’s world. When the book was written, the postmodernist project was a small seedling which made it hard to see all that it would become. Today, the postmodernist project has grown up into a forest and all the parts are clearly visible right in front of us. Reading this book today is like walking on a guided tour with Veith through all the parts of the Postmodernist project. Veith labels and identifies all the pieces at play in our postmodern culture. In this way, Veith pulls back the curtain and shows us the little postmodern man screaming his ideology at us all day every day. Reading this book is essential for understanding our times.

Key Terms:
Premodern: phase of Western civilization where people believed in the supernatural pg 29
Enlightenment: saw the whole universe as a closed natural system of cause and effect, pg 33
Romanticism: cultivated subjectivity, personal experience, irrationalism, and intense emotion, pg 36
Existentialism: By their own free choices and deliberate actions, human beings can create their own order, a meaning for their life that they and they alone determine, pg 37
Modernism: an unstable mixture of positivism dampened by existentialism, pg 39
Postmodernism: affirm the chaos, considering any order to be only provisional and varying from person to person, pg 42
Objectivist: those who believe that truth is objective and can be known, pg 47
Constructivist: those who believe that human beings make up their own realities, pg 47
Queer Theory: culture as supression of homosexuals, pg 53
Intertextuality: culture is texts interacting with other texts, p 52
Deconstruction: dismantle the paradigms of the past and bring the marginal to the center, pg 57
Social Construct: these paradigms are useful fictions, a matter of “telling stories”pg 57

Key quotes:
“While there is no ready-made meaning in life, individuals can create meaning for themselves. By their own free choices and deliberate actions, human beings can create their own order, a meaning for their life that they and they alone determine. This meaning, however, has no validity for anyone else.” –pg. 37

“Whereas modern existentialism teaches that meaning is created by the individual, postmodern existentialism teaches that meaning is created by a social group and its language.”-pg. 48

“‘Performance, not truth’ is the only criterion.”- pg. 50

“According to the postmodernists, all reality is virtual reality.” pg. 61

“Postmodernism has as its project the death of the self.”-pg. 73

“This individuality is only an illusion.” –pg. 76

Michael Foucault: “the concept of liberty is an invention of the ruling classes.” –pg. 77

“The disappearing ego is the victory sign of postmodernism.”-pg. 82

“We believe in what we like.” –pg. 176

“The computer symbolizes the postmodern economy.” –pg. 177

“The premodern and the modern value knowledge; the postmodern is obsessed with data.” -pg. 178

“The modern economy saw people as producers; the postmodern economy sees them as consumers. -pg. 178

[Joshua · Rating 5 out of 5]

On the whole this was superb read, though I thought some things could be improved. More general terms when referring to technology would (possibly) make the book less dated in years to come. Also, I occasionally felt as if information was too rapid-fire, without enough explanation, but then, this might be me reading books too late at night.

Veith make a number of predictions - a rather brave thing to do - not all of which are correct, but he avoids deadending his book by offering several possibilities instead of one, in most cases. Of the three options he suggests for the broader Western culture, one (while not completely accurate in the details), that the West may become something of a "Technopoly" where the culture is increasingly technology-orientated, hits a bull's eye. The others (being "deified parochial communities" (like Eastern Europe after Communism collapsed) or a "deified ecumenical empire," like Ancient Rome) are still real possibilities.

The two best aspects are Veith's astute cultural observations (to know where we're heading, it's helpful to know what train we're on) and the hope he offers the Christian Church in this, the twilight of modernism. Too often Christians seem to think if not Armageddon, then, well, things (vague term) are getting worse, so looking forward to Imagedding outta here. My brothers and sisters seem to think that the ultimate insult I can hurl is "That's postmodern." I don't know why. This book didn't change that. But it did help me see that post-modernism has several positive outcomes for the Church - art (esp. Christian art) can be interpreted in its original context once again; modernism's claims to know objective truth only get weaker (epistemology is the gaping hole in modernism's armour); and the Church is uniquely poised to answer the imbalances of emphasizing either the one or the many (postmodernism and modernism, respectively).

It's so good, in fact, that I think it's a must-read for every Christian today.

[Addy Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this for school over the course of several months. Honestly, I didn't enjoy it at all. Nothing against the author, it just wasn't my kind of book. I do believe the topic is an important subject to talk about, but I think it could've been explained a little simpler with less science-y words. XD Rating it an honest two stars.

[Ben Zornes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tremendously helpful book in sifting through the worldview that has taken root in our present culture. This book was at times prophetic, and at other times outdated. Where Veith was prophetic, he was profoundly "ahead of the times;" he identified trends and ways of thinking that are now daily displayed in the comments section of every news article. However, it was also "outdated" in one sense because he could not envision the role which the internet and then social media would have on the "postmodern mind." This was published in 1994, and thus, obviously composed sometime before that, and we all know how much has changed since then. As I read, I kept thinking that a follow up edition would be quite apropos.

Veith was quite gracious and pastoral in his interaction with postmodernism. He acknowledged that some of what is happening in the transition from "modernism" to "postmodernism" is a return to the true importance of our emotions and feelings (or as Jonathan Edwards may have put it, our affections). And the role which they have in human experience, reason, and belief. Modernism held a cold, unfeeling, machine-like view of the cosmos, humans were merely widgets which the universe churned out. Postmodernism has placed a greater importance on experience and feelings, which we should not be afraid of. However, we have seen where unbridled pursuit of experience and the supremacy of feelings as a guide for truth has brought us...we don't know the difference between boys and girls. Veith reminds us of the importance of biblical thinking, while showing that Christians share certain portions of postmodernist thought; we must use these "overlaps" to reach the postmodernist culture. However, postmodernism, like all other "isms," is fraught with sin and Veith shows how the Bible roundly condemns the sinful thinking behind much of postmodernism's worldview. 

This was a very easy book to read, and all Christians would benefit from this thorough study of our culture.

[evelyn siegel · Rating 2 out of 5]

While this book pointed out some really interesting things, I did have to read it for school, which probably made it not as enjoyable as I may have found it otherwise. This book was what made me realize that I don’t really like studying the postmodern era, at ALL; it just weirds me out. Hard to believe I’m living in it o-o.

Besides the fact that I read it for school and didn’t enjoy studying the time period it was talking about, I just felt that this book was written chaotically. It felt thrown together, and not well thought through. It did inform me of some really concerning and interesting things, but I don’t feel like Veith delivered those ideas well at all. I dislike his writing style- it was kinda boring, and, like I said, a bit chaotic. I feel like other things I’ve read that are similar to this book always connected the dots between everything and specifically connected the dots around the Bible vs. the culture. But Veith’s attempts to do this just didn’t work for me.

Maybe his other books are better :-)

[Gina Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

AmblesideOnline year 9 book. This book was written in 1994 so it is a bit dated but it was really interesting too look at things the author predicted might happen if postmodernism was taken to its logical extremes and see how he was right and that things are the way he predicted. It was pretty interesting.

[Longfellow · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book, published in 1994, ranges from being spot-on even 26 years after its publication to making assumptions and statements I completely disagree with. When Veith describes postmodern values and culture, I find him accurate and insightful; when he makes predictions about where postmodern culture will lead us, he often displays prescience. Having a quarter-century worth of hindsight regarding these predictions, I was consistently impressed.

However, when Veith is interpretive or evaluative, I find myself more often at odds with his perspective. These bits of commentary sometimes have a judgmental tone and lose credibility in my estimation, not because they’re judgmental but because I disagree with his judgments. In doing so, I couldn’t help but realize how very much a child of postmodernism I am. Its values are largely the core of my own, namely relativism, uncertainty, and multiculturalism. In contrast, Veith’s judgments are cast through the lens of fairly conservative Christianity, a faith to which I lay claim but which I view differently than Veith in numerous ways.

It was quite enjoyable to react and sometimes interact with Veith’s thoughts and arguments. If I had taken the time to write down all my thoughts I would have ended up with a book of my own. I definitely got more out of reading this book in 2019-2020 than I would have had I read it fully when I first purchased it in 1998.

[Dana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Matt and I just finished up this book for our book club together. I love Gene Veith and have read much from him. This book had a totally different tone than the other books of his I have read. This one read like a textbook to me. In saying that I do not intend to suggest that it was dry at all. It was very interesting and eye opening. I really did not understand the difference between postmodern vs. postmodernism until I read this book. Postmodernism is straight craziness! My favorite part of the book is part three on postmodernism and society, particularly chapter 10 where Veith has described our current society to a T. Veith also does a great job in explaining how Christians can enter into conversation with postmodern people to share the truth of Christianity.

[Paul D. Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Christian writing on postmodernism tends to fall into two camps: uncritical acceptance, and uncritical condemnation. This book is a little closer to the latter, but by and large a pretty good, even-handed assessment. It is a little dated and is not a scholarly treatment, so some of its cultural references are both out of date and sometimes shallow and crotchety. Look past that and you'll learn something from this surprisingly good book.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Veith, as always, write clearly and accessibly without compromising the complexity of the ideas he's discussing. This was a great read, and he is spot on as to how Christianity is vs. should respond to the postmodern ideas we are surrounded by. He does not dismiss postmodernism wholesale, especially in recognizing the flaws and failures of modernism and the damage modernism did to Christianity. This book, though, was written 20 years ago now, so it was interesting to see how some predictions were realized, others not, and how underestimated the influence of the internet was at this time. I would have to disagree with Veith on a few points, and while it may be easy to dismiss my views as coming from one fairly saturated by postmodernism, I think the views he expresses are a bit too stuck still in modernism. One was the view that the two-party political system was being torn down, and that this was a bad thing. It still seems to be holding firm to me, and in the fight to keep control, the two parties have twisted the primary system to suit the continuation of the two parties, resulting in the travesty of the 2016 nominations. The other was the praise of modern medicine and dismissal of postmodern distrust of modern medicine and turn to alternatives rooted in paganism. Medicine is a great benefit to us, and greatly benefited from Modernisms trust in science and rationalism, in experiments and finding scientific truth. However, like everything else that came from Modernism, it dismissed needlessly anything that smacked of traditional or supernatural methods. There is much good to be found in natural methods that have been embraced by paganism, but were in many cases also gifts of God. A discerning Christian can make use of nature without taking part in paganism. Modern medicine was also dominated by white males. This does not mean it is wrong or needs to be dismissed, but we are more and more finding that medical treatment that works best for white males is not necessarily what works best for females or those with different ethnic heritage. Medical practitioners need to be aware of these differences and not dismiss them.

[L Gregory Lott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although written in 1994, this book by Veith is still an important work in understanding, the concept of postmodernism and how it impacts the church today. It is a helpful primer on understanding and navigating through what is happening in our world today. One would do well to note a number of his references; specifically Neil Postman's works. I highly recommend it.

[Samuel Hanson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very Insightful and makes you think about what you truly believe, but it is hard to follow and is boring at a lot of points

[Steve Hemmeke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Veith ably observes how postmodernism has changed the cultural landscape in art, movies, literature, politics and religion. The confusion of Babel has smashed into the modern world like a wrecking ball, leaving little of the bubbling confidence that we can fix all our problems if we just try hard enough.

But postmodernism swings the other way, skeptical of believing any story that claims to explain reality. We have to construct our own reality and meaning in life, they say. Christianity rightly critiques this by pointing to the ultimate reality of God and His revealed Word, a solid foundation on which to perceive and handle truth. We can take dominion of this world to an extent, and DO things.

I enjoyed Veith’s converse point even more, I think, though. Christians should welcome postmodernism’s critique of modernism in part. Most folks have set aside a naïve trust in the abilities of man to solve man’s problems. This opens people to the gospel in a new way. They see the problem and don’t see a solution. The problem is most are now prejudiced against accepting any solution from anywhere. Our current response to Trump is a good example: “Well, there’s a better chance of things improving with him than with Hillary.” This is the ringing endorsement I hear most often. Not agreement with his policies, not repeating his plans to lead. People are overwhelmingly pessimistic about solutions today. They refuse to be impressed. The cool response to everything is now, “Meh.” Veith calls it a cultivated blandness. This is the fruit of postmodernism.

There IS an absolute truth that we can count on outside of ourselves. Humanity is capable of great things, but we cannot fix all our problems by ourselves. Our knowledge and might is fragile. We are dependent on our Creator. At the end, Veith prophetically (in 1994) says Christians will come to be targeted for holding to absolute assertions about truth regarding God, ethics, and salvation. When the foundations are destroyed (Psalm 11), what can the righteous do? There appears to be no answer, except that God is in His temple. HE is the answer to the chaos of Babel, to the refusal to accept answers to our questions and hurts in life.

[Peter Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is good introduction to postmodernism. Veith wrote this book in 1994 so we are twenty years removed from his critique. But I enjoyed that aspect of the book. I can see how he was right in many areas, but also wrong in a few. The strengths of the book were:

He consistently showed how postmodern thinking can open doors for the Christian faith. For example, the idea of community and culture being central can make a church that has a solid community life influential on those around it. He also says that Christians can utilize the postmodern "hermeneutic of suspicion" to draw out sin.

He pointed out that postmodernism is built on power and desire. When there are no absolutes desire dominates and those who have power get what they desire. Thus the goal is to gain power so we can get what we want.

He calls Christians back to a confessional Christianity build on solid doctrinal truth and morality.

He does a good job of talking about technology and how it has helped usher in postmodernism without completely disparaging technology.

The idea that truth is determined by societies/cultures was helpful. It is not so much that truth is a construct of the individual, as it is a construct of the society in which the individual is a part of. Thus, every sub-group has it's own truth. There is no overarching group.

I enjoyed the book, but want to read a more recent treatment of postmodernism to gain more insight into it.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good overview of the topic from a Christian perspective. Importantly, Veith is willing to see good points both in our postmodern times and even in the postmodernist philosophical approach (at one point he recommends quite persuasively that Christians adopt the postmodernist "hermeneutic of suspicion," turned of course to Christian ends and against sin). Major weakness here is a lack of engagement with the primary sources of postmodernist thought: almost everything is filtered through the lens of secondary sources.

[Chris Plemmons]

In finishing the chapter on the critique of being human, it is clear that Veith has an expansive knowledge of fascism and is butting the origination of postmodernity to a communistic worldview that de-emphasizes the individual and stresses the communal cultural education of a people with an almost utilitarian mindset. Individualism is bad, as such are individual ideas. Historical figures are only products of the time they live in, and cannot have personality that is full of life and potentially so much of a bright spot in history that it influences multiple people.

[Eunice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Postmodern times is an amazing book showing how Postmodernism clashes with Christianity in today’s society and expectations. Postmodernism, which succeeded modernism and existentialism, came with pros and cons…and Christians need to understand how to evaluate this new worldview from biblical lenses. This book shows what Christians should expect from the shift in worldview and how should we react concerning it. Overall an insightful read.

[Chris Comis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Veith did a good enough job detailing all the problems with "postmodern" thought and culture, but left a lot of questions and "what abouts" unanswered. A better book, in my opinion, on this knotty issue is S. Grenz's Primer on Postmodernism. Also check out P. Leithart's Solomon Among the Postmoderns. I think Veith is much better cultural exegete than he is a philosopher anyway.

[Zach Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book could have been good, it really could have, but there was so much bias in so many places that I struggle to think that there's much that was truly good. It was important, honestly, and I think Christians need to think about this, but I'm not sure this book is the best way to go about it. 2.5 stars rounded down.

[Douglas Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good introduction to postmodernism for Christians.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oops, somehow missed marking this amazing book as "read."

[Kristin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Veith, and it's not that I don't think what he's written is worth more stars but sometimes an author needs to wrap things up and move on...

[Laurie Wheeler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every historic era has a predominate worldview, which defines the culture, the history, the literature, the philosophy, the fine arts, the way the people make decisions, etc, etc, etc.

I have had the opportunity to meet Dr. Veith several times (although he wouldn't remember me because I have sat as an attentive listener in his audience) in my frequent visits to my son's college where Dr. Veith has spent many years teaching literature.

While in the college bookstore one day my eyes caught this title about postmodernism by Dr. Veith. Curiosity drove me to purchase it because I knew how nebulous the postmodern era was to nail down. Furthermore, I know that the better we as Christians, and especially homeschoolers, understand our world, the better we can properly respond to these present times.

Veith clarifies that there is a difference between the words postmodern and postmodernism. The -ism changes the root word incredibly. Whereas the Postmodern Era is a timeframe in which we all currently live, postmodernism is the set of ideas that characterize this present age in everything from art, movies/plays, and literature, all of which influences the people, which in turn influences the government...which eventually becomes the history of the era that people of the future will look back on.

In short, postmodernism defines truth as being relative and has no moral absolutes. After detailing these concepts in full, Veith discusses the shift in worldview from previous eras of romanticism, Marxism, fascism and existentialism to the current one of postmodernism. Therefore Veith's book provides a window into further understanding past worldviews as contrasted with our current one.

Why is all of this important? Let's take some commonly understood concepts from the more traditional past and look at how they relate to the present concepts of postmodernism...as quoted from Veith's book :

"Since there is no objective truth, history may be rewritten according to the needs of a particular group." p50

"The traditional academic world operated by reason, study, and research; postmodernist academia is governed by ideological agendas, political correctness, and power struggles." p58

Why is the traditional being so quickly exchanged for postmodernist thought? In part due to the change in information gathering:

"Neil Postman has shown how a society's information media affect the very way its people think. Reading a 300-page book demands sequential thinking, active mental engagement, and a sustained attention span. Reading also encourages a particular sense of self-one reads in private, alone with oneself and with one's thoughts. Watching television, on the other hand, presents information rapidly and with minimal effort on the part of the viewer, who becomes part of a communal mass mind. Visual images are presented, rapid-fire, with little sense of context or connection." p81

In short our brains are becoming rewired and quite subtly in many ways. Therefore Veith analyzes...both good and bad...the visual arts, performance arts, architecture, malls and theme parks, TV, movies, literature, etc in our postmodern world, analyzing the traditional ideas that remain v. the ideas of postmodernism that have emerged.

Then Veith examines postmodernism from our viewpoint as American citizens who participate in a representative republic established by our Founding Fathers: "Today postmodernist legal theory teaches that the Constitution is not a document setting forth absolute principles, but an organism that must be continually reinterpreted as society involves." p167

Next Veith analyzes postmodernism in our everyday world: business, a new social class, science, medicine, education, social policy, global environment, and religion..."Postmodernism shapes our lifestyles, the way we make a living, how we educate our children, and how we approach our personal problems and those of society." p175

Finally he addresses how to take a stand and live in a postmodern world...whether "to go along with the times or to counter them" p230

I highly recommend this book to understand these modern times.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Gene Edward Veith Jr.’s Postmodern Times in 2016 felt like attending a theology seminar where the speaker had just binge-read Derrida, Foucault, and Lyotard... and immediately wanted to call a prayer meeting. And yet, it wasn’t simplistic or reactionary. Veith’s approach is clear-eyed, honest, and genuinely concerned — not just with academic theory, but with souls, societies, and the survival of meaning.

The book stands as a Christian critique of postmodernism, but not from a place of scorn — from a place of alarm mixed with empathy. Veith doesn’t paint postmodernism as some intellectual boogeyman. Instead, he treats it as the inevitable consequence of modernism’s failures: the collapse of Enlightenment rationalism, the cynicism that followed the world wars, the disillusionment with utopias, the loss of a shared moral compass.

He begins with a clean and accessible overview of the postmodern condition — breaking down how truth has become subjective, how language is seen as unstable, and how identity is viewed as fluid, performative, and fractured. He tracks the influence of French theorists and deconstructors with a wary eye, suggesting that while they’re brilliant diagnosticians, their prescriptions often lead to nihilism, relativism, and despair.

But this isn’t a book just about theory — it’s about culture. Veith moves fluidly between ideas and expressions: he talks about postmodernism in architecture, literature, film, television, advertising, even in pop spirituality and New Ageism. He shows how this philosophy isn’t locked in universities — it’s in sitcoms, billboards, fashion trends, and increasingly, in churches.

One of the book’s strongest sections deals with language — and how postmodernism's suspicion of words echoes the Fall, the Babel moment, the breaking of shared meaning. Veith warns that if truth becomes only personal and narrative becomes only performative, we lose the grounding for not just theology, but community itself. Without a trustworthy Word, even the Gospel risks becoming just another story.

And yet, the book doesn’t spiral into hand-wringing despair. Veith offers hope — and not just a “pray more” brand of hope. He argues that Christianity has always outlived ideologies, and in fact, postmodernism may create a new hunger for something eternal, transcendent, relational, incarnational. In an age where people are exhausted by spin and simulation, the church can offer something radical: truth that is humble, love that is objective, and meaning that is not manufactured but revealed.

Reading this in 2016, during a seminar where I had to bridge Derrida and doctrine, I remember feeling torn — but also challenged. Veith made me realize that Christianity needn’t reject every insight of postmodernism — it can redeem them. That perhaps the suspicion of power, the longing for authenticity, the craving for community — these aren’t anti-Christian. They’re deeply Christian impulses, distorted by a culture trying to live without God.

[Abrahamus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Published over 25 years ago (1994) but exceptionally relevant for today’s cultural landscape. (Indeed, we are regrettably witnessing the sordid fulfillment of many of the trajectories which this book quite accurately predicted.) Essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the rot which at the time of Veith’s writing had thoroughly infected academia and has now been spewed forth into the rest of society at large.

The primary tenets of postmodernist ideology (taken from p158):

•Social Constructivism – Meaning, morality, and truth do not exist objectively; rather they are mere constructs invented and imposed by society.
•Cultural Determinism – Individuals are wholly shaped by cultural forces, the “prison house” of language, in particular.
•The Rejection of Individual Identity – Collective/group identities are primary.
•The Rejection of Humanism – Humankind represents nothing exceptional amid the other “planetary species,” and is in fact the most deplorable, due to its tendencies for oppression, exclusion, and exploitation of the natural environment. (The self-contradictions inherent within such valuations in light of other salient points listed here should be obvious.)
•The Denial of the Transcendent – There are no absolutes, only raw materialism.
•Power Reductionism – The primal will to power is at the root of all human relationships, institutions, and creative endeavors.
•The Rejection of Reason – The idea of objective truth is illusory, and the desire to impose order upon life misguided at best and thoroughly wicked at worst. Impulsiveness, subjectivity, and a “radical openness to existence” are the only legitimate modes of operating.
•Revolutionary Critique of the Existing Order – Modern society, with its rationalism, order, and insistence on objective truth claims, must be supplanted by a new world order, consisting of a society which is radically segmented into constituent groups which nevertheless (paradoxically) somehow share a communal existence.

Veith effectively traces the historical arc and ultimate implications of each strain of postmodernist ideology, including an honest appraisal of various ways in which Christian individuals and institutions have contributed to the overall devolution. It should also be noted that his critique of postmodernist ideology is not entirely negative: he acknowledges certain points of legitimacy, especially in its various reactions against modernist/Enlightenment ideology, which has its own set of acknowledged problems. But throwing the baby out with the bathwater, as postmodernism most certainly does, necessitates an overall rejection, and Veith effectively demonstrates at every turn how a clear understanding and articulation of the Gospel holds forth the only hope of resolution and redemption to the morass of self-contradiction and self-loathing which postmodernist ideology represents, on the whole.

[Jeffrey N. Hora · Rating 1 out of 5]

I finally had to stop reading this about two chapters in.

The approach and tenor of the book is to shade everything written with what I recognize as a Evangelistic White Christian viewpoint, rather than a more balanced and perhaps questioning approach that could be taken. There is a LOT of binary ("black-or-white") presentation while not being willing to admit to the complexity of modernism or post-modernism. There is certainly no assessment of the power plays of Western Christian culture and its impact on how post-modernism may have arisen from frustration with and greater awareness of this culture's place of power and collusion with powers, both legitimate and illegitimate over the millennia. Numerous references to justifying commentary are from self-same writers from this cultural background, as opposed to other voices in the post-modern discussion.

I'm normally one for "toughing it out" if I feel the book as something that I can learn. I don't feel this book fits that description.

[Katrina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a detailed look into the Postmodern age, it's strengths and faults, it's potential and failings. Veith begins by addressing the prevalent idea that there are no absolutes, and then he goes on to consider areas of society in which that "foundation" shows fruit. He talks in detail about art, performance, architecture, TV, music, literature, movies, politics, and religion and the damaging effects of the postmodernist worldview. Ultimately, he comes to the conclusion that "if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?" The truth is: God is God, and we are not. He is in control, and we must pray that he would use us, in our time, to bring this world back to Christ. How desperately we need him now!

[Landon Coleman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Veith published this book in 1994 … I’ve read plenty of books on the topic of “postmodernism” and Christianity that were published in the 2010s and 2020s. Way back in 1994 Veith saw the postmodern movement for what it was - a right rejection of modernism and a dangerous threat with respect to traditional Christianity. At several places in the book, Veith was a bit too optimistic about the “opportunity” that postmodernism presented to the church. The last 30 years have revealed that the postmodern “takeover” of American (Western) culture has not been a positive thing for confessional churches. Nevertheless, Veith’s analysis and prognostications were remarkably prescient. Such a clear, helpful book for my personal understanding of postmodernism, even though it was written in 1994.