By Brannon S. Howse

Benchmark #2: Postmodernism 

The term “postmodernism” is so widely known these days that you might think it is simply a word attached to a vast but vague set of contemporary ideas. But its origin is actually very traceable. Two men, Friedrich Nietzsche and Michael Foucault, founded postmodern thought. 

Postmodernism argues that truth and reality are created by man and not by God, that something is true “if it works for you.” Truth is neither absolute nor binding over the entire globe, but merely situational and subjective. What’s more, postmodernism is a dominant worldview in America today, largely because Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the most widely read authors on college campuses. While there are more than six worldviews to choose from, postmodernism is one of the six dominant worldviews people embrace today, and the global false church has largely adopted Nietzsche’s view. 

Nietzsche is best known for declaring “God is dead,” but few know that he went on to say that not only is God dead but “we have killed him.” Nietzsche hated Christians. According to Nietzsche, “Christianity has been the most calamitous kind of arrogance yet,” and “I call Christianity the one great curse, the one enormous and innermost perversion, the one moral blemish of mankind…. I regard Christianity as the most seductive lie that has yet existed.” Nietzsche believed that Christianity made his fellow Germans weak, so he described himself as “The Anti-Christian Friedrich Nietzsche” or sometimes just “The Antichrist” (also the title of one of his books—Antichrist).

Many Christians would claim they believe in God, but most of these are part of the false church, have joined Nietzsche in “killing God,” and in His place have created a god of their own making who is the opposite of the God of the Bible. Those who are still serious about holding to a biblical faith, though, should be extremely concerned about the popularity of Nietzsche’s worldview. Why? Let’s start with his connection to Adolf Hitler.

Hitler was so enamored with postmodern thought that he visited Nietzsche’s museum to have his picture taken while staring at a bust of Nietzsche. Hitler declared, “Creation is not yet at an end. Man is becoming God…. Man is God in the making.” And: “Do you really believe the masses will be Christian again? Nonsense! Never again. That tale is finished. No one will listen to it again.” He even passed the writings of Nietzsche along to his Italian counterpart, Benito Mussolini. 

Hitler combined the survival-of-the-fittest worldview of Darwinian evolution with the Superman concept of Friederich Nietzsche and developed eugenics—the systematic elimination of individuals the State deemed to be the weakest link, the racially defective, and “subhuman.” Both Hitler and Nietzsche championed the eradication of guilt from the human conscience. Nietzsche elevated Darwin’s survival of the fittest concept and proclaimed that “Life simply is will to power.” Whatever it takes, he believed, a person should purpose to be a ruler and master over the less desirable. Thus, in promoting his master-and-slave morality, Nietzsche, in his book Beyond Good and Evil, proclaimed the need to look beyond Christian definitions of good and evil to whatever it takes to gain power—including using cruelty when necessary to accomplish the goal. 

Copyright 2015 ©Brannon Howse. This content is for Situation Room members and is not to be duplicated in any form or uploaded to other websites without the express written permission of Brannon Howse or his legally authorized representative.