Postmodernism: What Hath Paris to Do with Jerusalem?

If you are skeptical about postmodern thought, I encourage you to check out “The Church and Postmodern Series” by Baker Academic, which “features high-profile theorists in continental philosophy and contemporary theology writing for a broad, nonspecialist audience interested in the impact of postmodern theory on the faith and practice of the church.” Five out of the scheduled seven books have been published. I have read the following:

• James K. A. Smith, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church
• John D. Caputo, What Would Jesus Deconstruct?: The Good News of Postmodernism for the Church
• Carl Raschke, GloboChrist: The Great Commission Takes a Postmodern Turn
• Merold Westphal, Whose Community? Which Interpretation?: Philosophical Hermeneutics for the Church.
  

Of these four titles, Caputo’s was my least favorite and the most problematic. If I had to pick only one in the series, I suggest the Smith title but the Raschke and Westphal titles are close runners-up. I anticipate reading Graham Ward’s The Politics of Discipleship: Becoming Postmaterial Citizens and Bruce Ellis Benson’s forthcoming title on improvisation as a paradigm for thinking about worship and the arts. (Bruce is a former professor of mine at Wheaton College.)

I would like to share two of my published reviews with Evangel readers:

• Books & Culture (April 2009): “The Message is the Messenger” [a review of Carl Raschke’s GloboChrist].
• Christian Scholar’s Review (Winter 2009): a review of Merold Westphal’s Whose Community? Which Interpretation?

Here is my bibliography for all pomo-curious Christians.

GENERAL PRIMARY SOURCES (I regard Nietzsche and Kierkegaard as proto-postmodernists)

• David Farrell Krell (ed.), Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings
  
• Paul Rabinow (ed.), The Foucault Reader
• John D. Caputo (ed.), Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida
• Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge
• Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method
• Adriaan T. Peperzak (ed.), Emmanual Levinas: Basic Philosophical Writings
  
• Christopher J. Voparil & Richard J. Bernstein (eds.), The Rorty Reader
• Mark Poster (ed.), Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings: Second Edition

PRIMARY SOURCES ON CHRISTIANITY AND POSTMODERNISM

• Graham Ward (ed.), The Postmodern God: A Theological Reader
• John D. Caputo, On Religion
  
• Gianni Vattimo, After Christianity
• Gianni Vattimo & Richard Rorty, The Future of Religion
• Gianni Vattimo & John D. Caputo, After the Death of God
• Gianni Vattimo & Rene Girard, Christianity, Truth, and Weakening Faith: A Dialogue
  
• Slavoj Zizek, The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity
• Slavoj Zizek, The Fragile Absolute: Or, Why Is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For?
  

GENERAL SECONDARY SOURCES ON POSTMODERN

• Christopher Butler, Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction
  
• Kevin Hart, Postmodernism: A Beginner’s Guide
  
• Terry Eagleton, The Illusions of Postmodernism
• Leszek Kolakowski, Modernity on Endless Trail
• Steven Connor (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Postmodernism
  
• Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity
  
• Charles Taylor, A Secular Age
• Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity
• David Harvey, The Conditions of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change
  

SECONDARY SOURCES ON CHRISTIANITY AND POSTMODERNISM

• Carl R. Raschke, The Next Reformation: Why Evangelicals Must Embrace Postmodernity
  
• Peter J. Leithart, Solomon Among the Postmoderns
• Myron B. Penner (ed.), Christianity and the Postmodern Turn: Six Views (pay special attention to the essays by Kevin J. Vanhoozer, John R. Franke, James K. A. Smith, and Merold Westphal)
• Merold Westphal (ed.), Postmodern Philosophy and Christian Thought
• Merold Westphal, Overcoming Onto-Theology: Toward a Postmodern Christian Faith
• Robert W. Webber, Ancient-Future Faith: Rethinking Evangelicalism for a Postmodern World
• Kevin J. Vanhoozer (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology
• Graham Ward (ed.), The Postmodern God: A Theological Reader
  
• Diogenes Allen, Christian Belief in a Postmodern World: The Full Wealth of Conviction
• Frederiek Depoortere, Christ in Postmodern Philosophy: Gianni Vattimo, Rene Girard & Slavoj Zizek
• John D. Caputo & Linda Martin Alcoff (eds.), St. Paul Among the Philosophers
• John Milbank, Slavoj Zizek & Creston Davis, Paul’s New Moment: Philosophy and the Future of Christian Theology
  

STUDIES OF POSTMODERN PHILOSOPHERS

• Bruce Ellis Benson, Graven Ideology: Nietzsche, Derrida & Marrion on Modern Idolatry
  
• Bruce Ellis Benson, Pious Nietzsche: Decadence and Dionysian Faith
• John D. Caputo and Michael J. Scanlon (eds.), Augustine and Postmodernism: Confessions and Circumfession
• Martin J. Matust’k and Merold Westphal (eds.), Kierkegaard in Post/Modernity
• Merold Westphal, Levinas and Kierkegaard in Dialogue
  
• John D. Caputo, The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida: Religion without Religion

* Information on above image: Roy Lichtenstein, Grrrrrrrrrrr!! (1965)