Truth or Consequences: The Promise  Perils of Postmodernism, By Millard J. Erickson

Truth or Consequences

The Promise Perils of Postmodernism

by Millard J. Erickson

Truth or Consequences
paperback
  • Length: 335 pages
  • Published: September 25, 2001
  • Imprint: IVP Academic
  • Item Code: 2657
  • ISBN: 9780830826575

*affiliate partner

  • A 2002 Christianity Today Book of the Year

Postmodernism.

The term slowly filtered into our vocabularies about three decades ago and now permeates most discussions of the humanities. Those who tout the promises and perils of this twentieth-century intellectual movement have filled many a bookshelf. And in a previous book, Postmodernizing the Faith: Evangelical Responses to the Challenge of Postmodernism, Millard J. Erickson provided his own summary of several evangelical responses--both positive and negative--to the movement. Now in this book Erickson offers his own promised in-depth analysis and constructive response.

  • What are the intellectual roots of postmodernism?
  • Who are its most prominent exponents?
  • What can we learn from their critique of modernism?
  • Where do their assumptions and analyses fail us?
  • Where do we go from here?
  • What might a post-postmodernism look like?

Erickson addresses these issues with characteristic discernment, clarity and evenhandedness, neither dismissing the insights of postmodern thought nor succumbing uncritically to its allure.

An important book for all who are concerned with commending Christian truth to the culture within which we live.

"Erikson's book is an excellent introduction, summary and evaluation of postmodernism . . . This book is clear, readable, substantive, and sufficiently comprehensive to give a good framework on the subject."

Knowing Doing, Winter 2010
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CONTENTS

Preface

Part One: Backgrounds to Postmodernism
1. An Introduction to Postmodernism: Three Sketches
2. Premodernism
3. Modernism
4. Nineteenth-Century Precursors to Postmodernism
5. Twentieth-Century Transitions to Postmodernism

Part Two: Major Intellectual Voices of Postmodernism
6. Jacques Derrida
7. Michel Foucault
8. Richard Rorty
9. Stanley Fish

Part Three: Evaluating Postmodernism
10. Positive Evaluation of Postmodernism
11. Negative Evaluation of Postmodernism

Part Four: Beyond Postmodernism
12. The Nature of Truth
13. Assessing the Truth
14. The Christian Story as Metanarrative
15. The Kingdom of God as Ultimate Community
16. Making the Transition to Postpostmodernism

Indexes

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Millard J. Erickson

Millard J. Erickson is distinguished professor of theology at Western Seminary, Portland, Oregon. He is the author of the systematics work Christian Theology.