Puritanboard, Postmodernism, and Differance

One of my literary and philosophical goals is to get people to stop equating postmodernism with hippie emergent church, white guilt relativism.  Postmodernism at its most basic is a criticism of Modernity's god-like pretensions.    Some pomo guys do go offboard, but we can find similar villains in Modernity and Foundationalism, so that charge doesn't bother me.

Emmanuel Levinas suggested that Western metaphysics seeks to reduce "the Other" to the "One."  In short, man gets nervous when he comes across differences to his system.  And the only way to react to these differences is to negate them or mute them so that they resemble "One." Of course, we are talking about signficant differences and not trivial ones.

That sounds rather abstract. Perhaps this will help.  If you are on a TR (Truly Reformed) and someone posts a theological topic that is different from anything you've come across...but...and here is the key point...it does not contradict your beliefs ,how should you react to it?

1. Initial fear and suspicion
2. Mindless acceptance
3. Cautious Investigation

3 is the ethically responsible answer.  (2) is what Emergent hippies do.   (1) is what the TR does.  But why should it generate such fear?  Levinas again.  We fear that which is different and we must negate these differences until we reach sameness.

Do you want to really scare TRs?  Start talking about stories.   Even worse, start talking about stories in the Bible.  Stories have too much multiplicity in them, which is why TRs like to reduce Matthew to Romans.