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The War Cry | AUGUST 2014
tend to be process oriented. "Many will come to Christ
inch by inch, not mile by mile," says Ferguson. "They
have to process the Gospel, and so, the goal is not to
immediately give them a gospel presentation but to form
a relationship with them and begin to build a bridge."
Dialogue v. Monologue
Contrary to popular belief, postmoderns are not won
solely by emotion; they are attracted to reason and
rational thinking. However, they will not be persuaded
by argumentation but by dialogue. "Most of us," Kline
adds, "learned to `do evangelism' as a monologue: we share
a presentation and ask the listener to pray a prayer. But
in every friendship I have with a non-Christian, I entered
that relationship mostly as a listener."
Community v. Institution
Present the church as a community, not an institution.
Many postmoderns are repelled by "organized religion"
but starved for community. True Christian community--
what the Bible calls koinonia -- is winsome and powerful.
Many people today crave the kind of community we
Christians often take for granted: eating in one another's
homes, sharing material blessings with each other,
supporting and encouraging each other, praying together,
weeping together and celebrating together. The joy of
Christian community is one of our most powerful
witnessing tools in a postmodern culture.
Multicultural v. Homogenous
Emphasize the universal nature of the church. Post-
moderns are "turned off " by denominations, which they
interpret as a sign of discord, not diversity. Take every
opportunity to emphasize, as Peter Tze Ming Ng of the
Chinese University of Hong Kong says, that "The real
Church is -- and always has been -- multicultural...
When we think of the Church we must conjure up a
picture not of people like ourselves, but of people of all
colors and shapes and ages, women and men speaking
different tongues, following different customs, practicing
different habits, but all worshiping the same Lord."
Followers of Jesus today face an opportunity that
comes roughly once a millennium: to not only witness
but respond to a major shift in the cultural climate of
the world around us. May we respond, like Paul, in a
way that prompts those around us to say, "We want to
hear more" (Acts 17:32, NLT).
Bob Hostetler
is the award-winning author of more than thirty
books, including The New Tolerance (coauthored with Josh
McDowell). He lives in southwest Ohio.
The Trouble Is Not in Your Set
T
rying to understand postmodernism can be a lot like standing in an appliance store trying to watch three or
four television shows at once. It defies easy definition because it is extremely complex, often contradictory,
and constantly changing. In fact, it's fitting that the very term postmodernism describes this school of thought by
what it's not. It is the philosophy that succeeded and, to some degree, supplanted modernism, a way of thinking
that has itself challenged the Christian worldview for centuries. Whereas modernism rejected religion and super-
stition in favor of science and reason, postmodernism repudiates any appeal to reality or truth... and, thus, frowns
upon those who believe anything with conviction.
So, while postmodernism is tough to pin down, it is possible to summarize its most common beliefs:
Truth does not exist in any objective sense.
Truth--whether in science, education or religion--is
created by a specific culture or community, and is
"true" only in and for that culture.
Instead of "discovering" truth in a "metanarrative"--
which is a story (such as the Bible) or ideology (such
as Marxism) that presents a unified way of looking at
philosophy, religion, art, and science--postmodern-
ism rejects any over-arching explanation of what
constitutes truth and reality.
Individual persons are the product of their cultures;
individuality is an illusion, identity is constructed
from cultural sources.
All thinking is a "social construct." That is, what you
and I regard as "truths" are simply arbitrary "beliefs
we have been conditioned to accept by our society,
just as others have been conditioned to accept a
completely different set of beliefs."
Any system or statement that claims to be objectively
true or unfavorably judges the values, beliefs, lifestyle
and truth claims of another culture is a power play,
an effort by one culture to dominate other cultures.