Between Babel and Beast
(America and Empires in Biblical Perspective)

The Glory of Kings: A Festschrift for James B. Jordan

Fyodor Dostoevsky
(Christian Encounters Series)

Athanasius
(Foundations of Theological Exegesis and Christian Spirituality)

The Four: A Survey of the Gospels

Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom

From Behind the Veil: The Epistles of John

Deep Exegesis:The Mystery of Reading Scripture

1 & 2 Kings
Brazos Theological Commentary

The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter

A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding Sermons

Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, And Hope In Western Literature

Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen

The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism

A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel

From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution

Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy

Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper

A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament

Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature

Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays

Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life

The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church
Albert Borgmann (Crossing the Postmodern Divide) writes, somewhat surprisingly, of “postmodernism realism” as an alternative to modernism and hypermodernism.
It is only surprising, he argues, because we misconstrue the character of modernism’s toxic triple mix of Bacon, Descartes, and Locke, of domination, method, and individualism. Not postmodernism but modernism was the assault on reality, and the postmodern critique was an effort to recover reality that had been laid waste by modernism. ”What has really fallen victim to the [postmodern] critique,” he points out, “is not reality but the aggressive and methological assault on it.” Modernism “either destroys or misses reality” so that “reality at length vanishes or becomes invisible” (p. 117).
Postmodernism is flawed insofar as it stops at attacking the arrogance of modernism and “accepts naively the legacy of that arrogance, namely, the disappearance of reality.” As much as modernism, it fails to attent to the “possibility of eloquent things.” Postmodernism is flawed when it remains modern. Having attacked and discredited various modern isms, postmodernists “have failed to see their own anthropocentrism.” Why, he concludes “reject a priori the very possibility that things may speak to us in their own right?”
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, September 29, 2012 at 4:10 pm
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