Modernism vs. Post-Moderism

I heard an interesting tidbit on what it means to be living in "Post-Modern Society", and the dangers presented to ourselves and our children. To be very basic, Modernism, theologically speaking, was the rejection of theological values. Philosophically speaking, it was the rejection of truth (we all remember this : There is no absolute truth, blah, blah, blah). So, as I am a simple girl with the desire to keep things simple, moderism equals rejection. (Of course, that is not a definition, just a point of view from a theological and philosophical standpoint.)


Post-Modernism, however, is nearly the opposite, but with a twist. The post-modern world is the embodiment of acceptance. This is where people jump on a bandwagon without researching the details. Acceptance sounds like a wonderful thing. That word gets thrown around in our culture as if it were a natural right. While I don't argue that acceptance is a basic human need, that is only as it is applied to an individual -- not to a behavior, an ideal, etc. We should all love and accept each other -- that is what Christ has taught, and He lived it to perfection. However, what the post-modern world has done is to reject the old standard "There is no truth", and embrace a new standard "Everything is truth". My religion is true for me, and yours is true for you. My lifestyle is right for me, yours is right for you. My ideals are true for me, yours are true for you. It's all right, it's all good, and everybody jump on board and accept it. This goes for theology as well as philosophy. All gods are the true god. All religions are true. All life-choices are true. All you have to do is find the one that is true for you .

Americans have such a desire to "be themselves", to not follow the crowd, don't be oppressed!!! These ideas are so easy to adopt. This way, we can all do what we want, we never have to worry about rejection, and we never have to confront one another because, as long as we aren't infringing on the rights of others, we aren't doing anything wrong. Does this really make us individuals, though? Or does it turn us into a mass of selfish and ungodly creatures, looking for any justification to live our lives "our way". These things do not free us from a judgmental society or an oppressive god. Instead, they hide us away from truth, from the safety of a protective society and a Creator Who made us in His image and with plans to prosper and not to harm us.

Question number six we learned in Catechism (well, some of us, I guess!) "Why did God make you?" And what is the answer? "God made me to know Him, love Him and serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in the next." God made us who we are -- and He gave us the free will to chose it. Society takes away our choices under the guise of acceptance. If we are to embrace the clear Christian principles and truth which will allow us to be happy with God in heaven, then we have to be willing to be shunned by an "accepting" society -- not based on what we do believe, but on what we don't.

As Christians, most of us know most of what I have said, so it's not anything earth-shattering. My question is this: As a parent, how do you fight this? If acceptance is gold in our society, and the only thing you have to do get it is to be accepting, is it harder now than it used to be for our children to stand their ground?

I hear we are leaving the post-modern age and moving into realism. I can see the slogan, now..."Only what is real is true." I wonder if they ancient philosophers are sitting together somewhere laughing at society for adopting these nonsense principles and ambiguous phrases they came up with. And this is what I get when I stay up too late. :)