A Short Introduction to Postmodernism and the Christian Response: Don't Trust Anything I Tell You!

Jean François Lyotard
His major idea: “We should mistrust metanarratives.”
His Bumper Sticker Idea: “Don’t Trust Anything I Tell You!”

If we see Postmodernism as a reaction against Modernism, this makes perfect sense.

To unravel what this means, however, let’s establish that a meta-narrative is a story-within-a-story. Technically, a dictionary definition of meta-narrative is “an overarching account or interpretation of events and circumstances that provides a pattern or structure for people’s beliefs and gives meaning to their experiences.” In other words, the overarching story is the “universal.” The “particulars” are us acting out the overarching story.

The metanarrative of Modernism became: “Science, not God, can provide us all the answers we ever need!” If we encounter a question science can’t answer, we don’t have enough information or data and further science must be done to formulate the answer.

You can see how this can be problematic. How does science, for example, explain love? Compassion? Justice? It can’t, at least in any satisfying way.

So, Lyotard’s reaction was to mistrust the meta-narrative of Modernism, that Science has all the answers. (Hence my thought that this reaction makes perfect sense.) The problem, however, is that Lyotard determined that all meta-narratives should be mistrusted, even meta-narratives that preceded Modernism, like Christianity’s. Further, we should even mistrust meta-narratives we encounter today. The Postmodern person has nothing outside their own self to provide meaning to life.

How we should deal with this: “just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him”
Colossians 2:6a

If I’m right and the meta-narrative can be validated by how we act out the story of redemption, then the only way to convince someone they could trust the narrative of the Bible is to concretely show how that looks in practice. This is what Paul means when he tells the Colossian church to “continue to live your lives in him.” We are nested within an overarching story. Our stories are part of that larger story.