Postmodern Trivial Pursuit
On December 22, 2021, I came across a comic strip I had never seen before in the daily newspaper, called, WUMO, by Mikael Wulff and Anders Morgenthaler. It only had one frame, in which four adults were sitting around the table—playing a game. The caption underneath read simply, “Post-Truth Trivial Pursuit.” It refers to that which was the latest rage on college campuses—the idea of postmodernism. In this way of looking at the world, there is not any real objective meaning to what anyone writes—whether it’s Hemingway or J.K. Rowling. Objective truth does not exist; the only truth is, “What does the text mean to me?” Yes! You see, we all bring our own ideas and experiences to the text. What it means to us as individuals is, therefore, what it means, period. If there are twenty different readers, there might be twenty different truths.
Of course, such is nonsense, but academics take it seriously, although it must be difficult to grade. How is one person’s truth to be graded as better or worse than another’s? The purpose of the comic strip is to point out the foolishness of the theory. How does postmodernism apply to playing Trivial Pursuit? The player at the left hand of the table explains: “I’m still taking a blue piece even though the card had an answer that was different from what I said. I feel my response was just as right.” To win the game of Trivial Pursuit, one must win a pie in each color, before moving to the center of the board to answer one final question. In this instance, the player feels that his answer was valid, though not identical to the game’s answer.
Theoretically, that is possible—if the answer was, “3 feet,” and someone said, “one yard,” or, “36 inches.” But that would be a rarity in the game. Occasionally, one might use a different but equal word, but that too is rare. So, here is a protest; the player on the left insists that his answer be accepted, even though it is not identical. The player on the righthand side is shouting, “The Amazon rainforest is NOT in Greenland!” Not only is Greenland wrong; so are Canada, Norway, Paraguay, and Siberia. The correct answer is Brazil.
Those who apply postmodernism to the Scriptures also err. Jesus cannot be the Son of God to some and just a prophet to others. The miracles prove His Deity (John 20:30-31). He built only one church (Matt. 16:18) and purchased it with His own blood (Acts 20:28). He never taught that anyone is saved because he feels he is. The Scriptures teach objective truth (John 17:17) rather than subjective truth. No one has the right to worship God the way he desires (Gen. 4:3-7; Lev. 10:1-2). God has always determined the way in which He wants men to worship Him (John 4:23-24). People will not tolerate bizarre answers in Trivial Pursuit or mathematics (e.g., 22 = 87); why would they think it would work in Christianity?