Everyone seems to be talking about postmodernity these days. Unfortunately, it all sounds so confusing that you need a degree in philosophy to understand what all the fuss is about. All you really need to understand postmodernity is the TV Guide and an old movie channel. Simply by watching some of the movies made by Alec Guinness over the last forty years, a person can grasp the basic issues at stake with postmodernity. 

Personally Focused 

Postmodern people are personally focused. In the comedy Our Man in Havana, Guinness plays a vacuum cleaner salesman in Havana during the last days of the old regime before Castro. At a time when everyone else is concerned about international politics, he is only concerned with his daughter. Postmodern people put personal relationships first. 

In A Majority of One, Guinness plays a Japanese businessman in love with a Jewish American widow. Postmodern people are fully accepting of pluralism and diversity. They do not view one system, race, or culture as superior to another. They would regard Christianity as just one of many religions. 

In Bridge over the River Kwai, Guinness plays a British colonel in a Japanese prisoner of war camp who leads his men to build a bridge for the Japanese. He focuses on his specialty while ignoring what the impact of his actions will have on the British army. He has lost sight of the “big picture.” Postmodern people yearn for integration and wholeness. They reject the trend toward specialization of modernity. 

Politically Alienated 

Postmodern people reject authority. In Lawrence of Arabia, Guinness plays an Arab prince who questions Colonel Lawrence about his loyalties. Lawrence is such a loner that he seems to recognize no authority over him. Postmodern people also reject ideology and other forms of personal commitment. In Doctor Zhivago, Guinness plays a doctrinaire communist in the struggle to advance the aims of the communist party. Postmodern people do not “belong” to causes in this way. 

Philosophically Confused 

Postmodern people have largely rejected the Western philosophical tradition. In Murder by Death, a farcical spoof on murder mysteries, Guinness plays a blind butler trying to communicate with a deaf maid who is mute. She holds up notes for him to read. Postmodern people reject empiricism (knowledge through senses), and the idea that we can have absolute knowledge of things. In Star Wars, Guinness plays a retired warrior with mystical powers who constantly reminds his young apprentice to trust his feelings rather than his reason. Postmodern people reject rationalism (knowledge through logic) and the modern preference for the mind over the heart. 

Theologically Ignorant 

In the relativistic world in which they live, postmodern people reject absolute values and absolute truth. In Star Wars, Guinness’s character explained that he had not lied when he told young Luke that Darth Vadar killed his father. When the father turned to evil he destroyed the good man he had been and became Darth Vadar; therefore, what Obi Wan had said was true, “from a certain point of view.” In the postmodern world, everything can be explained away as relative. 

Finally, postmodern people accept spirituality. They believe in spiritual things, but they do not know about Christianity. It is a new age of paganism. In Star Wars, Guinness’s character teaches his young apprentice about “The Force,” an impersonal power that permeates the universe and includes both good and evil. Postmodern people know that some kind of “higher power” exists. They just don’t know what it is. 

Where Do We Go from Here? 

Postmodern people have rejected many of the very things about the modern world that Christians have criticized for two hundred years. On the other hand, postmodern people have not reject-ed Jesus Christ. For the most part, they have never heard about him. Christianity is always one generation away from extinction, and postmodern people are the generation that has not heard. 

Within the very concerns of post-modern people, however, we can see bridges for the gospel: Relationship – Christian faith is a relationship rather than a religion; Pluralism – Jesus Christ accepts everyone who will come to him; Wholeness – Jesus Christ offers his peace which is the sources of wholeness; Authority – Jesus Christ is the worthy authority postmodern people do not find in society; Ideology – Jesus Christ offers a person to believe in rather than an impersonal system; Empiricism – Faith gives us sure and certain knowledge of what our senses cannot reveal; Rationalism – Jesus Christ teaches us to combine both mind and heart; Truth – In Christ we realize that TRUTH is not an abstract concept but a person; Spirituality – Jesus Christ shows us that the higher power we know is there is actually a person who loves us. 

Poe is Vice President for Academic Resources and Information Services.