These two things are at the forefront of my thoughts recently, although they are only loosely interrelated. I will start with the conversation with the postmodernist, as that will be easier.

Postmodernism is the most popular way of thinking in the world in 2026. It has a long history, which I’ve discussed many times on this blog, dating back to a reaction to the Enlightenment and modernity. To summarize, the Enlightenment went too far in its journey into rationality, and when it started to challenge the ideals of Christian culture (many of those challenges well-deserved, some not), the Danish Christian theologian Søren Kierkegaard reacted with a new kind of Christian faith, a leap into the dark. A subjective faith, shielded from logical criticism.

While Kierkegaard was an obscure theologian in the early nineteenth century, secular thinkers resurrected his ideas of subjective meaning through an irrational venture by the early twentieth century, in response to modernity’s failures (such as WWI, WWII, and the threat of nuclear holocaust). Postmodernism, in my estimation, peaked around 2020. It is now, thank goodness, being challenged by some of the brightest minds in philosophy and history, and they are tentatively calling the next phase “meta-modern.” I will mention that the rise of MAGA, was fueled by postmodernism, allowing that movement to create its own “truths” without reference to reality.

To be clear, philosophical ideas spread through culture the same way as views of art and fashion, including haircuts and clothing, even to our religious institutions. Indeed, the conservative church has adopted Kierkegaardian faith, which requires no rationality or evidence, to contrast with rational science, which it hates for challenging cherished positions such as the Earth being six thousand years old. When an evangelical pastor told me he was not voting for Hillary Clinton because she runs a pedophile ring, I asked him, “Where is the evidence?” His response was, with a chuckle, “I don’t need evidence; everyone knows this.” The progressive church, including my own, has adopted the more developed postmodernist thinking, as described by its favorite Christian authors, Richard Rohr and Rob Bell.

My point here, in contrast to my evangelical days, is that this way of thinking isn’t limited to a small group of bad people; it becomes ubiquitous because our worldwide community is now linked by TV, movies, books, and the internet. So, I think many very good people, even the majority who are better than me, now subscribe to postmodernism. I had a conversation with a postmodernist philosopher (I use that term because she was formally trained as a philosopher), and she was one of those good people. So, after a long discussion where we disagreed on most issues, she maintained my love and respect.

As a reminder, the essence of postmodernism is that there are no universal factual truths and that pursuing factual truth is a silly exercise; we all create our own narratives and truths based on our experiences. For example, from a postmodernist Christian’s perspective, to say that Christianity is superior to Buddhism in that it is closer to the external factual truth is bigotry because, in their view, there are no external factual truths.

In contrast, I believe we live in a material universe with factual information based on that reality. The best tools for finding that external factual truth are observation and rational contemplation. The closer we live to the truth, the better our personal lives and societal lives should be. However, I also realize that as good as our God-given reason is, it has limits. Some things can’t be observed. Also, as good as our God-given rational minds are, they have interference from our emotional minds, for example, confirmation bias. While the idea of divine inspiration has always been used and abused by Christian and other religions, while sounding wonderful, if it exists, it would be impossible for an imperfect human to distinguish between the “voice of God” and internal emotional chatter. But it is not hopeless to seek God’s subjective guidance for that rational contemplation.

Now to My Observations of Saturday’s Conversation

1. It is a joy to have conversations, even if you are in disagreement, with someone outside of a religious context, because religious people, even the postmodernists, always make it an issue of morality, with them being morally superior to you if you disagree with their norms.
2. The only basis of meaning or morality in postmodernist thinking, because reality is subjectively created by the viewer, can at most be a societal construct, if not just a personal preference. I always use the example of the pedophile, and I think she was honest enough to know that if society agreed that pedophilia is a good thing (as it appears that some MAGA now see it), then it wouldn’t violate any moral law. Yet she opposes pedophilia because she personally finds it disgusting.
3. The Christian existentialist has the same problem. If their truth is subjectively created without any external reference to factual truths, then their morality and meaning must be paper tigers.
4. While I have no claim to being superior to the postmodernists, and they hold my greatest respect, historically (until Kierkegaard at least), Christianity has been understood as rational and built upon external factual truths. There is a creator who, in space and time, created the cosmos as we know it, and that creator has a preference for how we live, morally and with meaning. That creator has communicated with us via a material visitation with the teachings of Jesus of Galilee. So, while I’m not personally tempted by pedophilia, I could imagine (at least) being tempted by adultery. Yet my resistance to this act comes not from personal subjective experience, but from my belief that it is an external, factual preference of the Creator to be faithful to my wife.
5. A simpler version of what I am trying to say is that those who build their meaning and morals upon a subjective internal determination of what is right or wrong, and what gives them meaning, I don’t believe that paper tiger will stand in the face of temptation to break that law or to give up on meaning and resort to nihilism.
6. While the person I was talking to is not a Christian, I think this will be the great danger for the Christian postmodernist. Richard Rohr and Rob Bell will lead the Christian masses out of Christianity with their poetic words and leave them standing in the wilderness with nothing in the end… but wind.
7. Finally, I will say again, this conversation was very respectful and, if anything, increased my respect for the postmodernist, while not changing my own views.

I will close this post with a segue to my next one. I’ve said before, despite having cancer that will likely one day kill me, this is the most content period of my life. My life has been my children, and they are all grown and doing well. But if there is one thing that drags on my happiness, it is my loneliness and… ironically, I’m not alone.

Cancer robbed me of my best friends, the ones I knew through my work. I lost the remainder of my Christian friends when they came to this blog to read about my cancer and found me saying such outrageous things as: I love philosophy; that reason is a gift from God for finding truth, yet none of us can know God is there with total certainty. The religious world is very different from the secular world, in that if there is a disagreement in views, and mine don’t agree with either the conservative or progressive Christian views, then I am inferior… perhaps the devil. So, it is almost impossible to build a good friendship when one side sees the other as inferior. I don’t see those who disagree with me as inferior, but they tell me that I am, which makes it hard.

I’ve tried to hide my real views for the sake of friendships, but when, late in the friendship, they find out and attack me, it makes it much more painful. Then they call me oversensitive when it hurts. Therefore, I don’t want to try that method in friendship again. I know that I’m not alone in my observations. I suspect that one of the driving forces for so many leaving Christianity is this inability to build honest friendships within the Christian church… unless you first conform to their views.

More next time.

Mike