The Earth, The Sky and Everything In Between

One of the big no-no's that gets tied to post-modernism is moral relativism - the idea that its all about 'what works for you' - which, by the way, is one massively powerful idea in our current culture. The frequency and subtlety by which relativism is communicated is really very concerning.

One great example is the current commercials for Wendy's Hamburgers. They spent no time attempting to post-modernize their message after Dave Thomas' death. After a few failed advertising efforts (remember the strange man that appeared outside of people's houses in the middle of the night to tell them about Wendy's?), they've settled on a catchy, artistic campaign that ends with the message 'Eat what tastes right'.

Firstly, I'm glad I don't live by that message, or I'd probably look like an upright cow. The message is a convenient one for a fast food chain, since the 'eat what tastes right' mode of thinking is the only reason anyone eats fast food, and for its foolishness is the last argument one would (or should) use to justify such a habit. The funny part is, this is the exact argument we see used among our beloved fast food junkies! And why? Because the worst conceivable defence of a fast food obsession is also its only defence. Our burger-happy hedonists shape their diets around their taste buds at the neglect of every important part of their digestive system (and no, taste buds in fact don't make that cut). They satisfy the surface level at the cost of everything beneath.

Big question: Do we know people who are actually like this with their food choices? Maybe. There are people like this who do exist.

Bigger question: Do we know people who are like this with their spiritual choices? The answer is almost assuredly yes.

I wrote last night on my blog about our tendency to replace the God of the Bible, who is beyond our feelings and desires, with an 'improved' version of God - a deity far more tolerant of what we want and when we want. While this goes a long way to justify our pleasures and desires of the moment, and perhaps reduce or whitewash any sense of guilt we might otherwise have for pursuing first our own happiness, we starve our souls, which can only feed on the real, active, and unmoving Father.

If I may digress back to the food illustration once more, I remember hearing an amazing fact, I believe in the movie 'Supersize Me', which stated one of the facets of many fast foods is their tendency to act as a drug, causing the body to release a certain level of endomorphines, creating a relaxed and slightly euphoric sense about the individual. Once the meal is finished, the chemical release subsides, along with the happy feeling, causing the individual to 'crash'. The easy solution fast food provides to this crash is the further consumption of additional fast food, re-establishing the good feeling created by the chemicals stimulated. This is as close to the characteristics of a drug as I can describe.

This drug creates a false sense of sustenance, and in time, creates quite a dependency to maintain an energy level that was never really there. All the while this drug stands in place of what the body really needs and actually requires to survive, and such is our self-customized God which stands in place of the Living Heavenly Father in our faith practice... And you know, salads don't get a lot of commercial time either, except those you can get from Sonic, which is just as bullshit as their incredibly tasty burgers.

So what does all this have to do with post-modernism? Honestly, I suggest not that much at all. What many people assert as problems with post-modernism, I assert as the same overriding human problem that happens to have the current cultural skin of post-modernism on top of it. From the time Adam munched his Sonic salad thinking what looked cooler than the original could only be a good thing, we have all carried this wonderful knack of substituting God and all His goodness with a Deity that, like the God of Old, has but 1 commandment.

God of the Bible: "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

New God: "Eat what tastes right.”