Postmodernism in the New Testament

Despite the name, there is nothing modern about postmodernism. It has probably always been with us. It is represented already in the New Testament. There, it is the philosophy of Pontius Pilate. When he asks “What is truth?” he is presenting the fundamental postmodern claim: that there is no truth. And his subsequent actions are the consequences of this view. 

If there is no truth, how to decide matters? On a personal level, one decides based on one’s own immediate self-interest. Pilate is not about to risk any trouble, then, any threat to his position or to Roman rule, for the sake of some illusory concept of justice. Or for the sake of an innocent man.

And what about for others? One must not, surely, impose one’s own view of truth on others. For others, as a group, truth becomes a matter of social consensus. So the obvious thing to do is to ask the crowd.

Result: Jesus is crucified.

Everyone does not firmly condemn Pilate for this. Many seem to buy his proposition that he has “washed his hands” and bears no guilt. But how can that work? He has made a conscious decision to execute an innocent and holy man. As Edmund Burke said, “all that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men stand by and do nothing” Or as someone else once said—maybe it was Kitty Genovese—“none so guilty as the innocent bystander.” And Pilate cannot even make that claim. He was the responsible governing authority.

Surely the New Testament deliberately shows this postmodernism as directly opposed to Christ himself. Literally, it was not the Jews who killed Christ, and it was not the Romans. It was not even the anonymous crowd. It was postmodernism. For it was Pilate who passed sentence.

In other words, nothing is more perfectly in opposition to the Christian message, to Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Light, as Logos, than postmodernism. More so than the Devil himself—for even the demons acknowledge Jesus as the True Son of God.

The Western folk tradition, at least, has not been prepared to let Pilate get away with it. According to legend, Pilate died a suicide, and his body was thrown into the Tiber. The Tiber rejected it. So it was taken to France, and thrown in the Rhone. The Rhone refused to accept it. He was finally buried in a mountain above Lake Lucerne. According to legend, his ghost appears every Good Friday, like Lady MacBeth, again to wash his hands in the lake. Yet they are never clean.