Approaches to and Images of Biblical Authority for the Postmodern Mind

Biblical authority is unintelligible, if not inimical, to the postmodern mind. Deconstructive, analytical postmodernists are hostile to any "privileging" of a text. Playful postmoderns, many persons in the broader culture, though technologically sophisticated, live "surface" lives indifferent to authority, biblical or otherwise. Constructivist postmoderns promote "Scripture free" paradigms for constructive living. Through reflection on the Bible as "sword" and "grand mural," "mirror" and "CD-ROM," "light for the path" and "map for the journey," this article seeks to commend Scripture to the postmodern mind of whatever stripe.