Evangelism in the 21st Century

FORWORD

Whatever the church may have become at various times and cultural settings, orthodox Christian thinkers most honor their faith when their lives are characterized by a search for the truth about the nature of reality. Confusing this guiding principle, modern skeptics have often asked me questions like, Why would you ever want to believe in a concept like hell? I’m bewildered by such a query. We do not believe in hell, or any other discomforting idea, because we would like it to be so. We believe in hell, because we understand it to be a fact about the nature of reality. Yet, we are living in an era when many believe, even if unconsciously, that they can determine for themselves what is true and what is not.

Christians are not immune from this. A mother will often tell her daughter that she can become whatever she chooses when she reaches adulthood, yet this is not so. What if her daughter desires to be a unicorn? Moreover, there are many things, in terms of profession, that the daughter has the ability to become, but should not. Christian parents should instruct their children to become what God wants them to become. Anything else will be as much a denial of reality as it would be for the girl to attempt becoming a literal unicorn. Thus, the foundation for postmodern ideas is laid at an early age. This much is not surprising, but the 21st century academic embrace of this sort of subjectivity certainly is.

It was only a few years ago that certain Christian philosophers were prophesying the funeral dirge of postmodern thought. They were wrong! Bachelor students on liberal arts campuses are still embracing these principles as they are spoon-fed to them by postmodernist professors and enhanced by the pop-culture gurus of relativism. Such distractions from the truth are strange in a scientific age, but the thinker’s surprise is exacerbated by the church’s acceptance of postmodernism.

I was recently asked by a local television news outlet to comment on the differences between Islam and Christianity. The anchor was an accomplished young woman with a college education who indicated that she was a Christian. Nevertheless, as I explained the contrast regarding the Islamic and Christian views of the person of Jesus, I indicated that if Christianity is true, Islam is false. Her eyes grew wide as she eased forward in her chair. You think Islam is a false religion? she asked. Well, yes, I paused to say. Either Jesus died by Roman crucifixion or He did not. Either, trinitarianism is true or it is not. Either Jesus is the divine Son of God, or He is not. Yet, the expression on the news anchor’s face demonstrated that the logic was foreign to her. It was at least an innovation. The postmodern affect on the academically trained nominal Christian is on display each time the cultural nicety,

. . . but that’s their faith, is used as a validating salve applied to false ideas. This makes evangelism complicated, to say the least.

How are God’s people, a people committed to objective truth, to reach a community in the name of Jesus when that community is skeptical of the very concept of religious objectivity? It would be nice if modern evangelists could simply beg off of answering the question in light of the hope that postmodernism is fading. Unfortunately, it is not. Believers need an answer. They need direction. They need someone who has spent years researching this very problem to provide them with some way of addressing this concern. Luis Alexandre Ribeiro Branco has given us the resource we need!

Braxton Hunter, PhD

President

Trinity College of The Bible and Theological Seminary

Fall 2015

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Postmodern European society has been heavily influenced by the principles of nihilism and relativism. This has also permeated several Christian communities, and upon a continent that is in the midst of slowly replacing its Christian heritage for more humanistic principles, I believe that the church must strive to understand this dynamic period in which we live. This can only occur if the faithful seek to reaffirm the power of Scriptural decrees, in order to regain ground and lift a prophetic dedicated to guiding this generation back to Christ.

In order to achieve this objective, we must be prepared, as Christians, to engage in thought provoking debates in the proper arenas, such as schools, colleges, seminaries, and universities both as students, scholars, and teachers to present the world histories from a biblical perspective.

It is also necessary to understand the subjective culture of Gospel rejection that dominates those fields and look for a form of making our way around it and gain credibility. Unfortunately, this is neither an easy nor quick approach; it may require years, even decades to regain the right to be heard.

Luis Alexandre Ribeiro Branco, Ph.D.

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INTRODUCTION

For several years, I have been challenged by the notions of postmodernism and its implication to the Christian faith, particularly regarding evangelism. This issue is quite vast, and I have chosen to focus my efforts with the following question: In an era influenced by postmodernism how can Christians continue to be involved with evangelism in the 21st century? Despite the potential limitations, I humbly propose to develop my case in the next lines of this book.

As I begin to develop my case, I believe that it is necessary to define postmodernism and uncover its implications for society, especially in the areas of religious beliefs. Through an extensive reading and research, I encountered several factors that identify postmodernism as a prevalent ideology that needs to be wrestled with and effectively defined. I believe that the best way to start is to recognize that utilizing the term postmodern world is too broad for my current purposes.We might find that most of the Western European countries are more affected by a postmodern worldview, than nations in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa or Latin America. The situation in North America is perhaps most similar to Western Europe. However, Gary R. Habermas in Five Views On Apologetics, 2000), states: Anglo-American philosophy has in particular sturdily resisted the sirens of postmodernity. UC Berkeley philosopher JohnSeale, remarks that those who want to use the universities, especially the humanities, for leftist political transformation, correctly perceive that the Western Rationalistic Tradition is an obstacle in their path.¹ In other words, the United States in particular, is still somewhat more resistantto postmodernism’s assumptions that have infected Western European culture.

Since it is almost impossible to singularly identify a postmodern worldview that addresses every culture, I have decided to present a few definitions and come up with a one definition that in my understanding best describes the particular cultural which I personally experience in daily life. In his book Five Views On Apologetics (2000), William Lane Craigstates:We live in what has been called postmoderntimes, and one form of postmodernism rejects the belief that there is anything that might be called objective, absolute truth.² In his definition, William Lane Craig identifies postmodernism as a time or erarather than a culture. This view is important because not all cultures live at the same time. Using this terminology, I suppose that historically each region, nation, and culture is exposed to various experiences in time. For instance, Brazil speaks the same language as Portugal, and has some cultural similarities, but each country is separated historically by more than five hundred years. Therefore, Portuguese culture has been influenced by more historical transitions and philosophies, which helps to define its culture. Brazilians, on the other hand,experienced these transitions solely as observers while adapting their own cultural experiences as Portuguese immigrants in South America.

James K. A. Smith provides a longer explanation to what he understands of postmodernism in his book Who's Afraid of Postmodernism? (2006), where he states:

The notion of postmodernism is invoked as both poison and cure within the contemporary church. To some, postmodernity is the bane of Christian faith, the new enemy taking over the role of secular humanism as an object of fear and primary target of demonization. Others see postmodernism as a fresh wind of the Spirit sent to revitalize the dry bones of the church. This is particularly true of the emerging churchmovement (associated with Brian McLaren, Leonard Sweet, Robert Webber, and others), which castigates the modernity of pragmatic evangelicalism and seeks to retool the church’s witness for a postmodern world. In both cases, however, postmodernism remains a nebulous concept—a slippery beast eluding our understanding. Or perhaps better, postmodernism tends to be a chameleon taking on whatever characteristics we want it to: if it is seen as enemy, postmodernism will be defined as monstrous; if it is seen as savior, postmodernism will be defined as redemptive. This ambiguity tends to make us — Christian scholars, pastors and ministers, laypersons engaged in ministry—skeptical about just what we’re talking about. What is postmodernism? 

The answer to this question is sometimes offered as a historical thesis: postmodernism has been variously described as a kind of post- (after-) modern condition and is sometimes even linked to particular historical events such as student riots in 1968, the abandonment of the gold standard, the fall of the Berlin Wall, or, to be specific, 3:32 p.m. on July 15, 1972! Each candidate for the advent of postmodernism relies on an account of the supposed collapse of modernity. Trying to pinpoint the advent of the postmodern condition by linking it to a historical epoch, particular event, or even a particular cultural sphere (architecture, literature, music, visual arts) seems counterproductive, given the widespread disagreement about such historical claims. Further, it seems naïve to think that a Zeitgeist like postmodernism could be spawned by a single event. 

Instead of trying to pinpoint its historical origin or essence, I want to unpack an assumption that most commentators on postmodernism seem to share in common: postmodernism, whether monster or savior, is something that has come slouching out of Paris.³

According to James K. A. Smith, the Christian assumption of postmodernism tends to be either too negative or too positive. He also provides a historical spectrum of the development of postmodernism, tracing its origins to French philosophy; including relevant citations such as, There is nothing outside the text(Derrida), and Postmodernity is incredulity towardmetanarratives(Lyotard) andPower is knowledge(Foucault).

The French philosopher Gilles Lipovetsky in his book A Era doVazio writes the following notion of postmodernism:

Here we refused to limit postmodernism to a regional framework, aesthetic, epistemological and cultural background: if a post-modernity arises, it must designate a deep and general job to the scale of the social whole, for it is true that we live in a time wherein the rigid positions are blurred and become loose predominances, wherein the intelligence point which requires homologies correlations and underline.⁴

The theologian Dr. John M. Frame presents in The Doctrine of Christian Life (2008), five characteristics of postmodernism:

1. Truth is discerned both through mythology and rational-scientific means. 2. Ultimate reality is both physical and spiritual (personal and impersonal); these dimensions of reality interact in countless ways. 3. Individuality is disdained as self-deceptive, but individuals are encouraged to defy oppressive traditions. 4. Written communication is lowered to the level of other formats, especially the iconographic, due to widespread electronic technologies. 5. Fragmented heteromorphic multi-narratives epic histories cycle and counter-cycle of cacophony and harmony. (metanarratives are suspected as attempts to oppress victim groups).⁵

Let us examine some of these elements concerning postmodernism and its relevance to the Christian faith: 1. There is nothing outside the text. This notion rejects the Christian precept of sola scriptura, which is the foundational principle of Christianity, biblical scholarship and interpretation. 2. Incredulity toward metanarratives, which denies the narrative character of Christian religious belief and, 3.Power is knowledge, represents the enriching power of formation