We are still considering the hope that the children of postmodernism might yet reclaim an earlier tradition. Friday we observed that a culture is not made up of a few things you can pick up at a Super Walmart. A culture makes us what we are, it is a complete set of coherent choices, a collection of judgments about everything. It is something held in common with other people. You don't get to concoct a culture for yourself and a few friends who like votive candles and think U2 is a cool band.

Culture is not like a new hat you can buy when people start laughing at your old hat. Culture is what tells you whether a hat is worth having, what sort of hat is appropriate and which store will have the hat you need. Some of you will remember the beginning of the story when Bertie Wooster brings home a silly hat, an inappropriate hat for a man of his station. And you will remember that by the end of the story he finally accepts the judgment of Jeeves and allows him give it to a hobo who has lost all self-respect.

But let's set this fact aside for a moment and recall the words of these children of postmodernism and the choices we've seen them make.

• At the TAG conference it was important to answer the question: "Christian theology after Google says what about what you can put in your mouth and where you can put your genitals?"
  
  
• One pervert—who has even been to seminary and has a full selection of views on Hell to choose from—said: I don't believe in hell, if your definition of hell is a burning pit where bad people go for all eternity. (I reserve the right to wish for a hell for child rapists. I do wish it for them. I want no forgiveness for them. They deserve to go to hell, in the classical sense. Other than that, I don't believe in it.)
  
  
• Dave Hayward goes on and on and on about how he has outgrown his church, how he is free, and how he has "found his voice". He contrives this Z-theory which would embarrass even the man who ended up wearing Bertie's hat.
  
  
• Jana Riess asks "What Can We Say About God in 140 Characters or Less?"and then takes the opportunity to pass snarky judgment on the very text that reveals God.
  
  
• Dave Henson thinks he knows more about Pentecost than the Apostles, Evangelists and the billions of us who have believed the Apostles and Evangelists.
  
  
• Danielle Shroyer extrudes a religious ideology from stories Moses never told.

But notice the commonality: as ridiculous as each of these beliefs is on its merits, notice how they all emerge from an obsession with the self, with a rejection of the institutional church (which they often call the IC). This talk about community is a ploy: they have rejected the largest, most intellectually coherent community of faith they've ever known. It is impossible for these people to create community out of cultic impulses and spastic stabs at self-actualization. It can't be done.

Where is the postmodern impulse to understand and preserve a culture?