The Funeral March of Modernism

It seems to me that this hurricane should about put an end to the whole period we have known as modernism. After all, we have just seen how wrong we have been. One of the hallmarks of modernism was that man could control his world with enough knowledge and enough technology. Everything is a matter of logic. All that we have to do is just think and work hard enough and we would do alright.
Then our knowledge and technology defeated us. We saw nuclear weapons kill thousands and thousands of innocent people. We saw the very medicines we made create killer bacteria. We saw our airplanes, the pinnacle of our defiance, the device which dared to defeat gravity, used to blow up two towers.
And when that is not enough we see nature flex its muscles. In the face our brightest and best failed miserably. Actually, we are talking about Bush and a couple old UPS workers who he let run FEMA, so at least the most powerful failed. We were shown the power of nature. As AIDS rips continents apart we see that in reality, we have no hope of actually controlling the world around us. All that our science and modern minds have given us is death, failure, and a misplaced sense of pride.
I am amazed, however, at how the church continues to cling to modernism. She does not see what it really is. There is such a fear of postmodern thought, that we really aren't evaluating what is dying. With the death of modernism and the rise of postmodern we see the end of a period in which man tried to replace God. It was after all in the spirit of Modernism that Nietzsche declared that God was dead. He was no longer of consequence. In modernism we flew in the air and into the second heaven (outer space). We split the atom and created electricity. We took the divine mystery of salvation and grace and boiled it down to 5 easy steps. We learned how to take care of ourselves with no help from the metaphysical "myths" of those past idiots who proved that our social Darwinism was so wonderfully correct.
We were a people much like the men of the first eleven chapters of Genesis. Adam thought he was so smart and would become like God when he ate that fruit. He would not die and he would be as wise as his creator. God would be obsolete. Or what about those angels in chapter six who decide to sleep with human women and act disgracefully to God's created order? And then there were the most Modern of all of ancient Mesopotamia, those who built that Tower in Babel. They where going to reach God with their magnificent structure.
We all know what happened to all three. Banishment, a flood, and dispersion. At every corner God said "Not so fast, remember who I am (or remember I AM to put it in more personal language)." There are limits.
The Persians make a similar mistake in Daniel. They make a law about worshiping anyone but the emperor. Then, THREE TIMES, the text notes them bragging that the "Law of the Medes and Persians can not be changed." They were so confident that they were unstoppable. The King works all day to change things and can not reverse the law. (Sounds like they had stupid bureaucrats too.) They even put a stone and seal on the lions' den and say that they do it so that Daniel's condition can not be changed. They knew they had them. The king runs in the next morning and says "What your God ABLE to save you." It is God who was able the whole time. HIS law cannot be changed and the conditions HE creates can not be overridden. He shut the mouths of the lions, and that was unstoppable. They thought that they were so able.
The stone brings to mind one more group of people that thought that they had sealed the deal. They made sure no one stole the body of this pseudo-Savior. Guess what, they weren't too smart either. Jesus strolled out of that tomb and defeated death himself.
A modernism will tell you that this is all fake flub from some half crazed zealous Jews. A postmodern will tell you that they aren't sure.
Now there's the rub. We don't want anyone to say that we don't know. If nothing else the church has to hold on to her belief that she knows what is going on. I mean, if we aren't certain that we have our stuff right, we are in trouble. We don't want all of that relativism that would mean that we don't know anything. If we don't know anything about anything than we would be forced to believe!
Paul writes to the Corinthians, a society that thought that they were wise the following thing (my emphasis):
1When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.
If nothing else the new postmodern reality which we face before us is humble. It does not assume to know everything about the world, or about any subject. It is willing to listen. It also seems that our world (pluralism, many new religions, loose morals, sexual immorality, violent entertainment, abortion, terrorism and all) mirrors very well the world of the first century. In Galatians Paul says that Jesus came in the "fullness of time." Something about the world at that point in history made it fertile for the hearing of the Gospel.
Katrina shows us yet again that humans can not do it alone. There are wonders and mysteries that are too far beyond us to handle. In fact, we know very little. We must look to the Heavens and recognize our own petty vanity. The postmodern dawn is growing brighter, and for Christians it might be a welcomed new day.