earning to share with Postmoderns \ I \] \ equip Study 5: Many American and European Christians are aarmed by decine in ir churches, frightened by ceebration of ifestyes once considered immora and baffed that many Americans, even chidren y took to church every Sunday, shrug off church as irreevant and out of touch. Wecome to postmodern word! Cutura Connections The Christian church in Western cutures is ike frog in a pot on stove who s been enjoying his warm bath right up unti moment he reaizes water is hot enough to burn and if he doesn t get out, his surviva is at stake. But postmoderns are not ones who knocked God off throne. That happened back in 1600s with changes that ed to Enightenment in Europe and rise of Modernism, with its faith in human reasoning and potentia. Before n, church ooked to God as source of truth, human dignity, mora absoutes and an understanding of reaity and human experience. After that, cuture, even church, ooked to man. Modern thinking put great faith in rationaism, in man s potentia to create grand schemes to perfect and save word. But that faith began to crumbe after Word War II as it became cear that man s reasoning, and grand schemes it invented, such as Nazism, communism, even capitaism, coudn t save, or even reiaby guide, humankind. Postmodernism, with its skepticism toward everything considered true up to that point, has since spread from Europe to United States and increasingy to or nations, even those that never adopted modernism, especiay among a new generation of urban eites. Barriers to Gospe With postmodernism, not ony is God excuded as a foundation for making sense of reaity and human experience, we cannot speak of any universa truth, reason or moraity. We just have fragmented perspectives.
The postmodern man or woman reacts strongy to perceived weaknesses and abuses in cuture and church y fee shaped that cuture. He doesn t appreciate abuse of power or infuence in name of reigion. She rejects duaities such as right vs. wrong, mae vs. femae, East vs. West. He highy vaues puraism and diversity and caims to seek interests of those who have been marginaized or oppressed. She is sensitive to hypocrisy of those who caim reigious truth. He doesn t beieve that one reigion has a answers. She beieves texts, incuding Scriptures, have no inherent authority or objectivity in determining truth. They aways refect bias of writer. He beieves anguage is fuid and subjective. The hearer brings as much to conversation as speaker or writer. She rejects grand narratives that expain reaity, such as capitaism and communism, as od and simpistic. Arguments against anor reigion, no matter what it is, offend him. She beieves re is something beyond what we normay experience. He beieves that something more might be something spiritua. She beieves she can find this something more by ooking to ight within. Spirituaity must have practica appication in ife. He might be open to someone being his spiritua guide. She doesn t beieve in excusive truth. You may gain right to be his spiritua guide ony by invitation. You gain this right ony by demonstrating spirituaity in your own ife. But evangeicas find this understanding of reaity, this understanding of truth, do not fit our bibica or cutura wordview. We beieve in both objective truth and excusive truth and find postmodern rejection of both disturbing and baffing. If your carefuy constructed rationa arguments for faith in Jesus are shrugged off without a hearing, if your bedrock principes are considered offensive, what can you do and say? J. D. Greear, pastor of The Summit Church in Raeigh-Durham, N.C., which he cas a church steeped in a postmodern context, suggests three traits of postmodern miieu, which hint at how Gospe can speak to postmoderns. There is a vacuum of authority in postmodern thinking Postmoderns are wary of truth caims presented as true for a peopes in a paces at a times. Technoogy has made word fat and on a reguar basis we are exposed to peope of or cutures, reigions
and wordviews. A common way to avoid conficts is to say each wordview is vaid for word out of which it arose, thus communicating respect and humiity toward those with a different perspective. Furr, reigion is no onger seen as beonging in category of objective truth, but rar into subjective fied of vaues. Experience and observation are seen as more certain avenues to truth than reveation. Eventuay postmoderns have come to question wher even scientific facts can be proven, wher y re aso merey perceptions. The oss of authority, Greear says, is most important quaity of postmodernism, and a or quaities utimatey derive from it. Postmoderns ook to each individua to determine his own truth According to postmodernism, we cannot correct ors perceptions because to do so we must draw soey from our own perspective, which is no better than anyone ese s. Evauating someone ese s perceptions by your own is seen as arrogant and an attempt to gain power over ors. But at same time, modern peope are becoming more reigious, not ess. Postmoderns desire, even crave, spirituaity but see organized, institutiona reigions as unnecessary. Organized reigion may be on decine, but pop-spirituaity is on rise. Postmoderns recognize word needs heaing and beieve it is ir responsibiity to faciitate it Most young postmoderns see word as a pace of inequaity and injustice, on brink of environmenta and economic coapse. Capitaism, corporations and consumerism are seen as biggest threats to word heath and peace. It has become fashionabe to participate in societa heaing efforts. Corporations want to be seen as green friendy and as giving back to ir word. Vounteerism and charitabe work are very much in vogue. Bridges to Gospe Greear says that Gospe of Jesus speaks uniquey to postmoderns in ways that shoud shape how we do ministry among m. We must hep our cuture see that a wordviews, incuding postmodern one, are truth caims Postmoderns beieve that caims to absoute truth are arrogant and are power pays, but even that assertion is a caim that no wordview has found a truth. This assumes knowedge that postmoderns disaow in ors and can be every bit as much power pay y so disdain in reigious truth caims. Postmoderns often caim ony reason Christians beieve in Christianity is that y re from Christian-cuture countries. But how can y n caim that ir views come from anything or than ir birth into a postmodern, Western society?
What we must ask is which truth caim in best substantiated and produced most peace-oving, incusive attitude toward humanity. The Gospe of Jesus stands unique on both accounts. The truth of Gospe is not based on observations of men, but on reveation of God in history, specificay in resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Gospe is most humbe and incusive of a truth caims. The Christian truth caim in not founded upon wisdom of men (I Corinthians 1:27-31) but upon reveation of God. Jesus chose unearned and ignorant men (Acts 4:13, KJV) as witnesses to his caim. Peter s caim that Jesus was ony Savior for a mankind rests on fact that Jesus had risen from dead and His power had made ame man wak (Acts 4:10). A reigions distinguish acceptabe peope from unacceptabe. Even postmoderns divide enightened from unenightened, toerant from intoerant, greedy from sociay conscious. The Gospe aone teaches that it is not who you are or what you have done that forms basis of your acceptance, but what Christ has done for you. This eads us to accept and ove ors not ike us, because Christ accepted and oved us when we were unike Him and cared nothing for Him. During its history, Christianity has ed to remova of barriers such as race, gender, cass, socio-economic eve and age. Effective witness to postmoderns wi have ring of both bodness and humiity Christian witness to postmoderns must speak both with apostoic bodness that comes from certainty that Jesus rose from dead and with humiity that comes from knowing that we did not come to knowedge because of our superiority but because of God s gracious reveation. Bombasticay beitting and dehumanizing those who not agree with us wi immediatey turn off a postmodern audience. Our communications must entai respect for those who disagree with us in a tone that says, I am a sinner to whom God has reveaed himsef. I stand ony by grace of God. I beieve this is His word, and this is how I am trying my best to appy it. We must teach storyine of Bibe. Postmoderns suffer from oss of a source of authority and a grand narrative uniting a of human existence. Our preaching and witnessing must present Bibe as one authoritative story of Jesus Christ and his pan for earth. We tend to treat Bibe as if its main subject matter was us. The Bibe was not primariy intended to expain to us what we shoud do for God but to point us to what God was doing for us in Christ. When we preach each story of Bibe as if it is simpy an exampe for us to emuate, we reduce Bibe to a coection of sef-hep techniques. Postmoderns have ost centraity of God in universe and repace it with centraity of mseves. The preaching of Gospe reverses that.
We need a new way of expaining sin beyond simpy thou shat not Sin assumes a standard of right and wrong that postmoderns reject. Presenting sin as breaking certain thou shat nots often meets with an immediate disconnect. Tim Keer says sin is fundamentay idoatry, vauing something more than God or defining ourseves by something or than God, as in Genesis 3. Everyone has a functiona god and a functiona savior The first sin (in Garden of Eden) was our decision that fruit of a forbidden tree and knowedge it promised was more necessary to our ives than presence and approva of God. The essence of a since is that we substitute something for God, deeming it more centra to our identity than gory and peasure of God. It becomes our functiona God, wher money, career achievement, a reputation, or sexua peasure. Ever since Adam and Eve, humanity has been on a quest to cover ir nakedness to find that acceptance and satisfaction previousy known in presence of God. Whatever we choose to provide respect and acceptance is a functiona savior. We might beieve our goodness, success in business or atics, our physica beauty, our abiity to be a good parent, our mora behavior, or our racia identity makes us worthy of respect and approva. Our evangeism must prioritize reationa engagement Effective evangeistic churches among postmoderns have a certain rawness to m. The preacher is not as poished, and re is more time for interaction, wher through prayer, communion, worship, or question and answer. The church appears as a community of rea peope experiencing something genuine toger. The most effective evangeistic churches wi be both attractiona and incarnation. The attractiona church emphasizes Sunday morning experience, designing it to attract interested peope into service. The incarnationa church ooks at its services as a way to empower its members to take Jesus into community. Our Gospe presentation must address issues of goba, socia and physica heaing postmoderns crave Christianity provides ony rea answer to probem of goba deterioration and suffering. Jesus pan of savation was not simpy to redeem sous out of a hopeessy damned creation but to bring resurrections and heaing to whoe creation. The Gospe aone offers redemption for physica word. Christ was raised in a physica body, which means that mattered to God. Christ ended suffering through his death on cross, which means that suffering of word is an aberration of created order, not natura to it. Jesus miraces in Gospes pointed to coming goba and cutura heaing. He heaed bindness. He stopped storms. He fed hungry. His miraces showed his mission was
to reverse curse caused by sin. Jesus miraces were not a suspension of natura order, but a return to it. To effectivey reach postmoderns, we shoud find paces of greatest pain in our society and immerse ourseves in ives of suffering, demonstrating generosity and heaing power of Gospe. The radica generosity of Christians and our ove for Christ and joy in midst of suffering wi most ikey be most compeing signs of Gospe for postmoderns. Finay, our sharing of Gospe with postmoderns shoud address word s need of heaing. It must demonstrate that our decision to foow Jesus is not simpy a matter of returning to persona piety but a ca to be invoved in mission of God. It emphasizes discipeship, not just a quick decision. Our presentation of Jesus wi be most effective if we do not focus ony on what Christ can do for individua, but what He can do for word as we. Never forget that Gospe is sti powerfu (Romans 1:16). But that power speaks most eoquenty to your postmodern friend as you show Christ aive in your ife. Additiona considerations 4Truth.net Learn more on postmodernism in What is Postmodernism? http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbnew.aspx?pageid=8589952823 and What Is Wrong (and Right) With Postmodernism? http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbnew.aspx?pageid=8589952827. Theoogy and Practice of Mission edited by Bruce Riey Ashford To earn more, read chapter Mission to Postmoderns that provided source materia for this artice. In book, more than a dozen experienced missionaries, pastors and professors write essays providing a cear bibica/oogica framework for understanding church s mission to nations, incuding in-depth materia on Hindus, Musims, Buddhists, animists and postmoderns: http://www.bhpubishinggroup.com/books/products.asp?p=9780805464122.. The Gospe and Postmodernism This artice by Ross P. Rohde provided source materia for this artice and provides furr barriers and bridges for sharing Gospe with postmoderns: http://www.facingchaenge.org/rohde1.php. Many thanks to IMB workers in Europe, especiay Lonnie Reynods, who contributed resources, shared experiences or orwise heped with an understanding of postmodernism. Excerpts used by permission, B&H Pubishing Group. Excerpts used by permission, North American Mission Board, SBC, Apharetta, GA. Excerpts used by permission, Ross Rohde, The Gospe and Postmodernism.