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Journal during the time when you do your daily Bible study.

God wants you to see that every single day, He is giving you an opportunity to work for the Kingdom of God.

Why, when we look at contemporary pop culture—movies, music, TV, campus protests, meme culture, and TikTok (especially TikTok)—does the word “incoherence” often come to mind? Why does so much today feel random, disconnected, contradictory, aimless, and altogether void of coherent logic and purpose? Part of it is that social media’s inherent denarratived randomness has powerfully shaped a schizophrenic cultural consciousness. We see the world as we see our scrolling feeds: one random thing after another, ephemeral and quickly forgotten, providing mild amusement and occasional resonance but without an anchoring narrative that offers lasting satisfaction. As Byung-Chul Han puts it in The Crisis of Narration, digital platforms provide “media of information, not narration. . . . The coherence from which events derive their meaning gives way to a meaningless side-by-side and one-after-the-other.” Charles Taylor’s concept of “cross-pressures” also helps explain the situation. Contemporary people are bombarded from all directions by information, ideas, experiences, affinities, and spiritual quests—each pulling them in a different direction. Naturally, the experience of cross-pressured life (and its artistic expression) tends to be dizzying, conflicted, and incoherent. One term academics, artists, and critics have started to use to explain what’s going on is “metamodernism.” For Christians and church leaders, knowing what this term describes—and especially how it finds expression in pop culture—will be helpful for our mission. Metamodernism: What It Is Metamodernism is what came after postmodernism, which is what came after modernism. If postmodernism cynically reacts against and deconstructs modernism, metamodernism reacts against modernism and postmodernism, affirming and critiquing aspects of both. Metamodernism opposes the “either/or” bifurcation of modernism and postmodernism. It refuses to choose between sincerity/certainty/hope (modernism) and irony/deconstruction/nihilism (postmodernism). It values both, even if—or perhaps precisely because—such a synthesis is, in the end, illogical and incoherent. Metamodernism accepts this incoherence because it values mood and affect (how I’m feeling / what I’m resonating with) more than rigid logic. If this seems like a “have your cake and eat it too” philosophy, that’s sort of the point. Shaped by the endless, have-it-your-way horizons of the internet (a structural multiverse of innumerable “truths”), metamodernism is a worldview as wide open and consumer friendly as the smartphone. Take or leave what you want, follow or unfollow, swipe right or left: it’s your iWorld, so make it a good one. Metamodernism is a worldview as wide open and consumer friendly as the smartphone. Take or leave what you want, follow or unfollow, swipe right or left: it’s your iWorld, so make it a good one. The nice academic term for metamodernism’s hyperconsumerist, bespoke toggling between seemingly contradictory ideas is “oscillation.” The metamodern outlook constantly oscillates between the poles of modernism and postmodernism. This has the effect of making the metamodern posture impossible to pin down and ultimately hyperindividualistic. Each person, in any given moment, might swing multiple times between deconstruction and construction, truth and relativism. It seems to depend only on a vague mood disposition mixed with a cautious sense of avoiding “all-in” commitment to any one direction. Here’s how one writer describes it: Metamodernism considers that our era is characterized by an oscillation between aspects of both modernism and postmodernism. We see this manifest as a kind of informed naivety, a pragmatic idealism, a moderate fanaticism, oscillating between sincerity and irony, deconstruction and construction, apathy and affect, attempting to attain some sort of transcendent position, as if such a thing were within our grasp. The metamodern generation understands that we can be both ironic and sincere in the same moment; that one does not necessarily diminish the other. This last oscillation—between irony and sincerity—is especially noticeable when you start to look at contemporary pop culture. Metamodernism in Movies The best analysis I’ve seen on metamodernism in movies is a video essay by media critic Thomas Flight (embedded below). It’s long (about 40 minutes) but well worth the time if you’d like to learn how the cerebral concepts of metamodernism show up in concrete ways in contemporary movies. Flight highlights Top Gun: Maverick as an example of a recent “modernist” film and gives an array of examples of “postmodernist” films (Pulp Fiction, No Country for Old Men). Among his examples of “metamodern” movies are the Oscar-winning Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans (2022), and most of Wes Anderson’s filmography. These movies are characterized both by postmodern reflexivity (self-aware movies about the artifice of movies) and sincere appreciation for real, uncynical emotional encounters, both a postmodern suspicion of narrative optimism and an unabashed desire for the possibility of a “Hollywood ending.” Three Recent Examples Once you understand metamodernism, you start to see it everywhere in movies and TV. Here are a few examples of “metamodern movies” from the last year. 1. The Fall Guy (2024) This recent Ryan Gosling action blockbuster epitomizes metamodernism. The “movie within a movie” plot follows a stunt man (Gosling) who, while on a film set in Australia, gets tied up in real-life peril as well as real-life romance (with Emily Blunt, who plays a film director). The Fall Guy is heavy on postmodern reflexivity and constant self-referential jokes about Hollywood. It’s hyperaware of its artifice. And yet the film’s central romance is sweet and sincere and appeals to the audience’s nostalgic hunger for earnest, straightforward love stories in movies. In the film’s (spoiler alert) happily-ever-after ending, Gosling says, “What we got is even better than the movies.” The ending is simultaneously sincere and ironic, playfully acknowledging its “Hollywood ending” cheesiness, even as it gives audiences permission to sincerely love and desire such an ending. 2. Love at First Sight (2023) This Netflix rom-com was a hit with audiences last fall, likely because it embodies the metamodern approach to ironic but sincere romance. The film follows a young woman and young man who meet on a flight to London and, you guessed it, fall in love. The Hallmark-esque plot is unabashedly cheesy but knows it, and this is the key. The film is just self-aware enough to make it palatable to metamodern audiences who’d otherwise find its love story too naive. The film’s postmodern street cred is reinforced when one character regularly breaks the fourth wall, speaking to the audience in a wink-wink way. Yet this ironic detachment is interspersed with heaps of sincerity and real moments of emotional affect. “We know love stories like this don’t happen in real life,” the film communicates. “But it feels good and right to desire that they do.” 3. Barbie (2023) Greta Gerwig’s record-breaking blockbuster showcases the “OK with incoherence” nature of metamodernism. The film constantly oscillates between detached, ironic self-awareness (“Yes, we know how ridiculous it is to take seriously a movie about plastic dolls”) and earnest attempts at meaningful reflection (“How might we see ourselves in Barbie’s and Ken’s existential conundrums?”). As I wrote last summer, Barbie is disorienting yet “at ease in its contradictions.” I found the film unsatisfying due to its incoherent, “have my cake and eat it too” approach to questions of gender. But clearly, most audiences didn’t mind. Indeed, Barbie’s box-office dominance is the clearest signal yet that metamodernism has gone mainstream—and needs to be taken seriously. Metamodernism’s Implications for the Church Much more needs to be written about metamodernism’s implications for culture and Christianity, and I hope to revisit these questions in subsequent essays. But for now, here are two brief reflections on the “so what?” of this admittedly cerebral concept: one observation of concern and one reason to be encouraged. 1. Aversion to Logic and ‘Adjusted to Incoherence’ I’ve long been haunted by a phrase Neil Postman used in his 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death to describe the way television had eroded our logical faculties: we’d become “adjusted to incoherence.” How much more is this the case in the social media era? And this is indeed what metamodernism reflects. Metamoderns have become so adjusted to incoherence that they no longer recognize inconsistencies and seem not to mind art, politics, philosophies, and activism rife with internal contradictions. This explains the illogical phenomenon of “woke jihad” that has become ubiquitous on college campuses of late: kaffiyeh-clad hipsters who denounce the patriarchy and promote LGBT+ equality even as they declare solidarity with patriarchal, anti-LGBT Islamist terrorists. Metamoderns have become so adjusted to incoherence that they no longer recognize inconsistencies and seem not to mind art, politics, philosophies, and activism rife with internal contradictions. This is but one of countless examples of our adjusted-to-incoherence culture, which shows up in metamodernism’s oscillation between contradictory ideas (can you really believe in both absolute truth and relativism?). The biggest challenge here is that many metamoderns don’t flinch when their illogical views are pointed out. They aren’t bothered by the internal incoherence of their contradictory stances. This will no doubt pose new challenges to Christian pastors, church leaders, evangelists, and apologists: How do we disciple people toward a coherent, consistently biblical view of the world when they’re increasingly at ease in whatever contradictions best suit them? 2. Real Desire for Meaning and Certainty Likely because metamodernism is fundamentally subjective, it contains within it an awareness of subjectivity’s limits. Relativism won’t ultimately satisfy. There has to be more than me and my oscillating mood. This is why the certainty and optimism of modernism appeals. Metamodern people have seen the unsustainability of postmodern deconstruction, and they desire construction. They want to believe problems can be solved and progress can be made. Even as they’re suspicious of absolute truth in theory, their existential reality leads them to desire it. After all, to construct anything, one must have foundations. It’s here that Christians can find a hopeful inroad with metamodern seekers. Insofar as our faith offers solid foundations and, as a result, demonstrates ongoing construction in a world of deconstruction, it holds natural appeal. The church is well positioned to meet people in the acedia of postmodernity’s afterglow and invite them into a time-tested community of truth, growth, and purposeful mission.

As the number of children identifying as transgender has increased enormously, the gender debate has taken center stage in the American culture war. How did we get here? For years, the answer has evaded many—but not for lack of trying. In the quest to understand the transgender boom, many wide-ranging theories have surfaced, focusing on social progress, coping mechanisms in adolescent development, social media, and even the massive profits for healthcare providers. But these theories often overlook one factor: the law. Transgender Conveyor Belt Recently, my colleague Luke Goodrich at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty outlined what he calls the “Transgender Conveyor Belt”—a complex network of state and federal laws that pressures children toward gender transition and contributes to the explosive rise in children identifying as transgender. It works like this: Step 1: As early as pre-K, schools begin teaching children to question their gender identity. Step 2: For those children who begin to question their identity, teachers must not only affirm the child’s transition—with new pronouns, clothes, and bathrooms—but also hide it from parents. Step 3: If parents learn about their child’s new gender identity, the law prohibits them from seeking professional counseling that would help the child become comfortable with his or her biological sex. Step 4: At this point, for parents who continue to resist, the state threatens to take custody away. Step 5: Now that the child is well on the way to transitioning, the government guarantees access to gender-transition drugs and surgery. Step 6: To ensure cost is no roadblock, insurance companies must cover gender-transition procedures. At each step, the law operates to move children down the path of gender transition. The conveyor belt is, in other words, a one-way track—and it won’t change unless the conveyor belt is challenged head-on. Fortunately, the conveyor belt is being challenged at every step. Conveyor Belt in the Classroom Step 1. The transgender conveyor belt begins where children are most impressionable—in the classroom. As conveyor belt supporters explain, preschool is “the ideal time” to begin introducing subjects like “gender diversity, gender nonconformity, and gender-based oppression.” And that’s exactly what schools have begun to do. For example, just outside our nation’s capital, the county of Montgomery in Maryland required pre-K and elementary-aged children to read controversial books that promoted transgender ideology and encouraged gender transitioning—all without parental notice or opt-out. The school board encouraged teachers to “disrupt students’ either/or thinking” about gender. To that end, one book tasked 3- and 4-year-old children to search for images from a word list that includes “intersex flag,” “[drag] queen,” “underwear,” and the name of a celebrated LGBT+ activist and sex worker. At first, the school board assured parents they’d be able to opt their children out of this instruction. But it later inexplicably withdrew that right—making these books the only part of the school’s curriculum that parents cannot opt children out of for religious reasons. With the Becket Fund’s help, Muslim, Jewish, and Christian families sued Montgomery County to restore their parental religious liberty rights to opt their children out. Unfortunately, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled for Montgomery County. As a result, the religious parents will ask the Supreme Court to protect their parental religious liberty rights later this summer. Step 2. It doesn’t end there. Some school districts have pushed further, requiring teachers not only to affirm a child’s new gender identity—with new pronouns, clothes, and bathrooms—but also to hide the transition from parents. That’s what California did to Jessica Konen. According to the lawsuit, several teachers and administrators secretly (without telling Jessica) worked to convince Jessica’s daughter she was transgender. After succeeding, they created a personal gender support plan and supplied her with new pronouns and clothes. This plan even instructed her to hide the transition from her mother because, according to the school, Jessica couldn’t be trusted. As a result, Jessica didn’t learn about her daughter’s transition until the next year—when her daughter eventually felt comfortable sharing her new identity. Yet even after being confronted, the school confirmed it would continue to refer to and treat Jessica’s daughter as a boy. So Jessica sued the school district for violating her parental rights, after which the district paid her $100,000 to settle the case. On the flip side, however, states like California and New Jersey are suing local school districts for telling parents like Jessica that their child is transitioning. Conveyor Belt in the Home Step 3. After parents learn about their child’s transition, the conveyor belt leaves them powerless to do much. That’s because 22 states and more than 100 local governments have adopted counseling censorship laws, which prohibit parents from getting counseling services designed to help their children become comfortable with their biological sex. Essentially, these laws make it illegal for counselors to talk to children about behavior that aligns with their biological sex, which can even prohibit discussion of the underlying issues causing the child’s discomfort. Because of these laws, counselors must affirm a child’s transition. Parents and counselors have challenged these laws with mixed results. For example, in Otto v. City of Boca Raton, the Eleventh Circuit ruled that the First Amendment “does not allow communities to determine how their neighbors may be counseled about matters of sexual orientation or gender.” But the Ninth Circuit reached the opposite conclusion in Tingley v. Ferguson. There, the court ruled that counseling censorship laws address “professional speech,” which means the government can implement them to “protect the physical and psychological well-being of its minors.” Although the Supreme Court ultimately declined to review the Tingley decision, several justices signaled interest in taking a case like this in the future. Step 4. Any parents who continue to resist their child’s transition risk losing custody altogether. That’s what happened to Catholic parents Mary and Jeremy Cox in Indiana. After someone reported that the couple wouldn’t refer to their son by a girl’s name and pronouns, the state swooped in and took the son into foster care. What was it that made the Cox home so unsafe? They dared to seek help for their son’s existing mental health struggles rather than treat him as a girl. Even though Indiana ultimately concluded there wasn’t any abuse or neglect, it still permanently removed Mary and Jeremy’s son from their home. The state believed the boy “should be in a home where she is [ac]cepted for who she is,” and the Indiana courts agreed. The Becket Fund then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, but the Court declined to help. This is unlikely to be an isolated incident. Illinois is currently considering legislation that would make it child abuse for a parent not to support a medical transition. And Oregon, Massachusetts, Washington, and New Jersey have all rejected loving foster parents because they wouldn’t support hypothetical future gender transitions. Conveyor Belt in the Doctor’s Office Steps 5 and 6. Finally, now that both children and parents have been pushed toward a gender transition, the conveyor belt reaches its endgame—medical transition. Recently, Biden finalized a new rule that requires doctors and hospitals to guarantee access to gender-transition drugs and surgery, regardless of their religious beliefs. The rule also requires insurance companies to cover these experimental procedures. Although this is frightening, the good news is that Biden’s transgender mandate isn’t likely to succeed. It’s the second attempt to impose such a mandate—the Becket Fund defeated Obama’s earlier attempt in 2016. Courts have held that transgender mandates trample the rights of religious healthcare providers because they impose a substantial burden on the exercise of religion and can’t satisfy the strictest legal test. Science Rejects the Conveyor Belt While much is still to be legally decided, scientific evidence is mounting that the conveyor belt is harmful. Last month, in “the largest review ever undertaken in the field of transgender health care,” a new report condemned the transgender practices that “remain widespread in . . . America” and debunked many widely held beliefs about transgender care. For example, the report busted the myth that puberty blockers merely “pause” sexual development and buy more “time to think.” As the report explained, puberty blockers can permanently inhibit a child’s development by preventing critical events in puberty. In reality, the report only confirmed what many already knew: transgender procedures inflict severe (and often irreversible) harm. The child’s body, after being both “permanently and profoundly altered,” becomes “sterile”—to say nothing of the emotional trauma that can eventually lead to suicide. That’s why the United Kingdom, Sweden, and France—all former gender-affirming pioneers—are pressing the brakes on medical transitions for children. Despite all these harms, some still argue that children “have a right to the hazards of their own free will.” But aside from being wrong, that’s cold comfort to the kids rushed down the conveyor belt only to later regret the hasty transition foisted upon them. Hope Although the fight is ongoing, there’s cause for hope. The transgender conveyor belt is a fragile network that contradicts basic principles of religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and medical science. Important victories have already been won, and through the courageous individuals who continue to stand up, there’ll no doubt be many more.