The “Freedom” of Postmodernism

Emergent guru, Tony Jones, claims that “Postmodern philosophy saved my faith.”

Postmodernism is the belief that all truth claims are subjective and are merely human creations. Here’s how Jones puts it:

• The slipperiness of meaning, the impossibility of objectivity, the incommensurability of truth claims — these themes of postmodernism appealed to me and gave my faith room to grow.

I wonder how Jones regards his own writings in light of his assertion of “the impossibility of objectivity.” I guess he has to admit that his own declarations are all merely subjective, and therefore pertain only to himself – his feelings and thoughts. However, I never have seen him appending his writings with the appropriate disclaimer:

• Everything you are now reading is totally subjective, since objectivity is impossible. Even though it might seem that I am trying to communicate something real to you, I should remind you that I am merely ranting.

How did this philosophy save his faith, giving it “room to grow?” Well, he doesn’t actually explain, leaving us to guess. So allow me to guess. Postmodernism offers “freedom.” Judging from the “born-again” testimonies of atheists and freewill-deniers, they too have achieved a degree of “freedom.”

How? They are now free from God - His moral requirements and judgments! The atheist merely banishes Him from their existence. The freewill-denier rejects any ability to respond freely to His requirements. Meanwhile, the postmodern denies that they can know if He exists, let alone His moral standards.

Each has thereby established himself as the master of his own life. No one can bring any charges against him. He can face his moral failings and say, “You are irrelevant to me. Go away and afflict someone else.” Some folks have even been honest enough to admit this to me.

I am going to ask Jones about his own “liberation” and how his postmodern thinking brought it about. However, I suspect that it is like the freedom of the goldfish who jumped out of his bowl wanting the freedom he perceived through his bowl. Some freedom!

The Bondage of the Self

In a speech of August 16, 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. identified the most powerful and pervasive form of slavery:

• As long as the mind is enslaved, the body can never be free. Psychological freedom, a firm sense of self-esteem, is the most powerful weapon against the long night of physical slavery.

Without a stable and assured source of self-esteem, we condemn ourselves to psychological slavery. This is because we all need to believe that we have value, but we relentlessly pursue this by trying to prove ourselves. In order to believe that we are good and even superior to others, we become obsessed with ourselves, comparisons with others, money, success, popularity, and power – by whatever standard society grants worth.

In the pursuit of these, we deny our faults, rationalize our failures, become dependent on the opinions of society, and ultimately become alienated from both self and others in the process. We convince ourselves that:

• If I could only have this mate (or house, or job, success or money, or…), I will have arrived and will be able to feel good about myself.

However, this moment will never arrive. The richest man in the world, John D. Rockefeller, was asked:

• How much more money will you have to make in order to be happy? 

His answer was very revealing:

• Always a little bit more!

We never arrive! We desperately pursue an unattainable goal. Is there any answer to our internal prison, our morbid self-obsessions?

We must find our worth outside of the arbitrary, changing, and often uncaring standards of society, even outside of our desperate selves! As strong as we might be, there is no way that we can lift ourselves off the ground. We need someone else to do this for us, but a someone who possesses the strength, gentleness, wisdom, and authority to define us in absolute and unchanging terms. Jesus assured His followers:

• "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:31-32)

We are enslaved by the need to relentlessly prove ourselves. Instead, Jesus invites us to define ourselves by His unfailing love and forgiveness. Consequently, it no longer matters what we or others think of us. Instead, if Jesus accepts us, we can begin to accept ourselves and find liberation.

Freedom and Prostitution

Prostitution is now widely regarded as victimless and therefore, should be legalized. After all, shouldn’t we be free to fulfill ourselves in this manner! However, not everyone is of this opinion. Tania Fiolleau had once been a prostitute. She had also been an “overseer” of brothels who once employed hundreds of women.” Now, Fiolleau and other former prostitutes are denouncing the Ontario Court of Appeal’s decision to legalize brothels. Why? On her website, Fiolleau argues:

• First, the impact of migrant trafficking is an estimated 120 to 400 million dollars a year and accounts for roughly 8000 to 16,000 people arriving in Canada a year illegally. Vancouver B.C is also a major port for human trafficking. This goes a lot deeper than your typical prostitute on the street corner soliciting drivers. About twelve 15 to 30 year-old Asian girls are trafficked into Canada each week on visitors or work permits and then sold into prostitution. These women are working in brothels, and many of these are unlicensed establishment disguised as therapeutic massage centers, nail pedicure places, etc.  These women do not want to become prostitutes; they did not grow up with dreams of one day becoming a sex slave or being pimped.  Many of these are ‘tricked’ into coming on work visas and then forced into prostitution.

• Second, the demands for young prostitutes is very high as customers prefer the services of adolescents for their own sick reason and they are also ‘perceived’ to be more clean and less likely to harbor sexually transmissible diseases. Many teens are recruited into prostitution by friends who are already part of the trade and youths who have left broken or abusive homes. They are, in turn, susceptible to offers of shelter and emotional support and are often tricked into prostitution. The average age of entry into prostitution in Canada is 13 to 14 years old. Most of them are recruited or coerced into prostitution and many are leaving abused homes.

• Approximately 80% of women in prostitution have been victims of rape. Prostitutes are raped on average of eight to ten times per year; they are the most raped class of women in the history of our planet.  In a study, several prostitutes showed many of the same characteristics as soldiers returning from war. 76% of prostitutes met criteria for PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). That number is higher than soldiers and Prisoners of war.

• Legalizing prostitution becomes an incentive for women to enter the trade if we keep it legal…Once they enter the trade the statistics show that less than 3% of prostitutes can exit. They get addicted to the money, they get addicted to drugs, they lack education and they can’t get out.

• Statistics show that two-thirds of the children born from prostitutes end up prostitutes as well or in jail.

• The diseases that are spread are vast.

• In a 1998 report of prostitutes across five countries, 92% of women said they wanted to escape prostitution immediately and they would if they had resources.  Women who sell themselves are often coerced, forced or drugged into it—sometimes even at gun point.

Later, Fiolleau told LifeSiteNews that prostitution is a physical and psychological destroyer of women. “As the years go on they develop drug habits. Every single time that you sleep with a John, it chips away at your soul. Eventually you are the walking dead and then you try to take your life. I see it over and over and over again.”

Prostitution is no less a victimless crime than outright murder. However, it’s far more seductive. It is ironic that the feminist movement claims to have taken huge steps to liberate and elevate women. While employment and educational doors have swung open, she has also been reduced to a sexual object to be gawked at, grabbed, undressed, used, discarded, and often murdered. She has been told that what she does best, where she derives her greatest joy – child rearing – is beneath her dignity. Instead, she has been “dignified” by a stressful career from which she must return home to her children who still need diapers changed.

What promises liberation and sexual freedom can enslave. The things that we want can kill, and this is not just true of drugs. Peter described this irony regarding false teachers and their alluring false teachings:

·        For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity--for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him. (2 Peter 2:18-19)

Indeed, our choices can “master” us. All of this raises the question: “What kind of society do we want?”  However, it raises an ever more fundamental question: “What is freedom?” Is freedom a matter of indulging all of our passions whenever we want them fulfilled? Is freedom a matter of imbibing heroin or pornography if this is what pleasures us? Won’t our pursuits and addictions deprive us of freedom? Heroin certainly is a freedom killer. Many argue the same thing about pornography – that it kills normal relationships, addicting us to images and fantasies, undermining our commitment to families.

“Choice” is now equated with “freedom” – whether regarding prostitution or porn – but should it be? Perhaps, instead, it’s more like what Jesus taught:

·        Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?  (Matthew 16:24-26)

Perhaps, then, freedom is a matter of restraining our passion. For Jesus, freedom is also a matter of knowing and embracing the truth:

·        To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:31-32)