Derrida and the Messiah
Brian J. Walsh
January 1, 1999
They had a whole semester of semiotics under their belt, swimming in the deep end of postmodern theory. Foucault, Lacan, Lyotard, Derrida—they had read and discussed them all. By some fluke of history they even had a guest lecture from the post-structuralist queen of intertextuality, Julia Kristeva. Later in the year, Linda Hutcheon (one of the finest and most eloquent of the postmodern literary critics) was due to address the class. And their professor figured that it might be a good idea to have me come in and talk to the class about religion and postmodernity. Me. Preceded by Kristeva, followed by Hutcheon. Called upon to address this group of seasoned, Gen X, semiotically attuned postmodernists.
So I started with a rather innocent question that produced precisely the results that I expected.
What happens when postmodern thought and culture interface with religion?
"Religion gets deconstructed."
What do you mean?
"Well, a Foucauldian analysis uncovers the implicit power grab involved in any and all religious truth claims, demonstrating that religion is just a front for a regime of truth that will marginalize all dissent as it imposes its orthodoxy on everyone."
(This answer might be impenetrable to the average reader, but it's completely lucid to a postmodernist.) Anyone else?
"Wouldn't Lyotard's 'incredulity toward all metanarrative' also be the death knell of at least the three western monotheistic religions?"
Why is that?
"Well, they all tell pretty tall tales, don't they? The stories that they tell all make universal claims for themselves, and in a postmodern context it is pretty hard to believe any such claims."
"Yeah," added another student, "these religions, and probably all religions, fall into the trap of totality thinking. ...
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