Who's Afraid of Postmodernism? (The Church and Postmodern Culture): Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church

Schaeffer’s own Reformed theology undercuts classical apologetics insofar as it is committed to the “noetic effects of sin”—that is, the effects of sin on the mind, distorting both what counts as true and what can be recognized as true for the unbeliever (Rom. 1:18–22; 1 Cor. 2).

as the practices of the church include the traditional sacramental

What I describe

What I, a sinner saved by grace, need is not so much answers as reformation of my will and heart.

This doesn’t mean that a particular ecclesial body is the dispenser of grace or the arbiter of salvation; rather, there simply is no Christianity apart from the body of Christ, which is the church. The body is the New Testament’s organic model of community that counters the modernist emphasis on the individual.

The church does not exist for me; my salvation is not primarily a matter of intellectual mastery or emotional satisfaction.

evangelicalism.23Indeed, we would do well to recover a much-maligned formula: “There is no salvation outside the church.”

As such, Christianity becomes intellectualized rather than incarnate, commodified rather than the site of genuine community.

Modern Christianity tends to think of the church either as a place where individuals come to find answers to their questions or as one more stop where individuals can try to satisfy their consumerist desires.