Eric sent this line to me. It’s old but deeply insightful looking at philosophy and the question of what we think we need and what we do need. First Things. Following are some quotes from the piece.

The great American prophet Ralph Waldo Emerson penned epigrams that capture the ambition of the first aspect of modern humanism—its redemptive project—and they certainly challenge Christian principles. Against the obedient discipline ofimitatio Christi, Emerson claimed that “imitation is suicide.” Against the self-condemning introspection of St. Augustine’s repentant autobiography, Emerson substituted the affirmative principle, “Trust thyself.” Against the hierarchy of creature and Creator, Emerson insisted that “nothing is sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Against the penitential imperative, Emerson interjected, “I do not wish to expiate, but to live.” Against reliance upon a faith once delivered, Emerson stated that “the centuries are conspirators against the sanity and authority of the soul.” At every turn, Emerson is a brilliant strategist of the Promethean ambition of modernity. We must throw off the chains that bind, especially our psychic bondage to social and moral expectation, and then live in freedom according to the pure dictates of personal conscience.

Together, a zeal for freedom and a cool empiricism have nourished the modern spirit, and for both our humanity takes pride of place. For redemptive humanists such as Emerson, once liberated from the dead hand of dogma, our humanity would be the creative and bountiful source of moral insight. For cautious humanists such as Locke, if we use critical doubt to reduce the demands of prejudice and social convention, then we can undertake the painstaking and slow process of empirical inquiry. In both cases, human power displaces divine power as the source of hope. Emerson’s hot passion and Locke’s sweet reason guide us toward fulfillment. We are to break from traditional authority in order to release ourselves from hindering fetters, and in so doing, we will accelerate the natural human push toward freedom and truth.

The contemporary allergy to authority and flight from truth is certainly familiar to anyone in touch with American culture today. Consider the slogan: “Celebrate diversity!” This platitude is so ubiquitous that it now seems self-evident. Some people are tall, others are short. It would be absurd to require all people to be the same height. Just as people are of different heights, we reason, so also do people have different spiritual sensibilities and needs. It would be absurd, then, to require them to hold the same beliefs or conform to the same moral rules. Even as only a violent attack upon the bodies of individuals would produce a world of people the same height, so also enforced uniformity of belief and practice requires violent assaults upon conscience, intellect, and will. Therefore, we must reject all authoritative claims as so many acts of violence.

Of course, Christianity is inevitably caught up in the postmodern flight from authority. As the most powerful force shaping Western culture, Christianity becomes the very essence of the authority against which we must protect ourselves. If we are afflicted with enduring divisions of race and class, then surely Christianity must have a hand in causing this evil. If Western societies subordinate women and deny them public roles, then, again, Christianity is at the root of the problem. The list of particulars is endless, varying in focus according to the interests of critics, but the basic logic is always the same. The authority of tradition must be overthrown, the sacred bonds of loyalty to what has been passed on must be broken, so that we can be released from the oppressive burdens of present power.

In this sense, their attitude is not Promethean, but it is also not traditional. My students submit to the many demands of postmodern life, but with the knowing wink and sigh of a child raised on a steady diet of critique. They accept limitations, but they keep everything at a distance. This distance and the many spiritual disciplines of postmodern life that deflect and demystify the powers that would penetrate into our lives is the most fundamental form of postmodern humanism. It is a protective distance. In a society socialized to be nonjudgmental, supported by the conviction that all truth is relative, the walls of defense against authority are strong indeed. We can safely navigate the danger of life, detached from the true and everlasting dangers of obedience and commitment, for nothing has the right to make a claim on our souls. Such is postmodern freedom.

If I am correct in reading the signs of the times, then the spirit of our postmodern age is Petronian, not Promethean, and this has important implications for how we preach the gospel. Petronius was an enigmatic Roman who lived during the time of Nero. His notorious observations of Roman life come down to us in the Satyricon, a rambling narrative that is part soap opera, part National Enquirer, and part serenely detached social description. In the Satyricon, Petronius is a participant who stands at one remove. He is an observer who can mock and satirize. He can describe venality without judgment; he can narrate vice without protest.

The modern theological tradition is keyed to the challenges of Promethean ambition, not the Petronian apathy that prevails today. We are the inheritors of that tradition, and as a consequence, we respond to the postmodern age inappropriately. Cynicism can indeed seem like a gain for the gospel; after all, the New Testament counsels Christians to take a jaundiced view of worldly wisdom. Furthermore, irony can appear to be an ally, for the postmodern reluctance to adopt the old humanistic projects, whether Emersonian or Lockean, with wholehearted vigor suggests a newfound humility. Finally, the willing conformity that characterizes so much of postmodern life can give the evangelist hope that the prideful self-sufficiency of modernity has finally exhausted itself. These are, however, deceptions made possible by a fixation on pride as the primary barrier to faith. But sloth and cowardice are just as deadly. Both slink away from the urgency of conviction. Both fear the sharp edge of demand and expectation. Both have a vested interest in cynicism, irony, and outward conformity. These vices, not pride, now dominate our culture.

I am not engaged in pastoral work, at least not in the primary sense of ordering the community of the faithful in worship. Nonetheless, in my own pedagogy, I am constantly trying to penetrate the defenses of irony;