Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures,  explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.” And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. But the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd. And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.” And the people and the city authorities were disturbed when they heard these things.

Acts 17:1-8 (ESV)

As of late, I’ve been reading The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, where Lesslie Newbigin very clearly articulates the tension between the need to relate to society and the danger of becoming subject to society; in this respect, the phrase “in the world but not of the world” may easily come to mind. Christians have a definite responsibility to engage the world around them as well as the solemn warning to remain “unpolluted by the world” (James 1:27). The question that must be asked is this: how can Christians effectively reach out to their culture without bowing down to its idols?

Newbigin points out that society is—and always has been—subject to what sociologist Peter Berger has called “plausibility structures,”certain frameworks of belief and practice which determine the validity of the various ideas and truth claims one might encounter (8). For centuries, the reigning plausibility structure has been the modern, rationalistic metanarrative (which only recently has begun to exit Western culture, though it has by no means disappeared entirely). Given this, through some careful introspection Newbigin came to the eventual realization that, in his desire to make Christianity relevant and appealing to modern minds, he had begun to “domesticate” the Gospel, attempting to fit it ever so neatly into the dominant plausibility structure which acclaimed reason and science as the only legitimate means of discovering truth (3).

This sheds light on how much of modern Biblical “scholarship” has been, in essence, nothing more than an attempt to reconcile the radical Gospel message with the plausibility structures of Western society; instead of allowing the Bible to scrutinize us, we have scrutinized it, throwing out so many Scriptural truths simply because they are not “plausible” to us in our modern, rationalistic paradigm.

It hardly needs to be said that the domestication of the Gospel strips it of its very power and thus is not a valid way of fulfilling the Great Commission. It is impossible to make disciples with a tamed, neutered message devoid of any subversion or challenge to existing worldviews. Yet at the same time, sound doctrine, when preached into a vacuum, accomplishes nothing; it is ineffective to merely assert Biblical truths from the street corner without making a responsible effort to impact people’s lives with the Gospel. In fact, the very nature of the Gospel demands that it be used as a sword to cut others to the heart rather than bricks out of which one builds his theological fortress.  As Christians, we have a responsibility not only to preach the Gospel but to make disciples—the application and appropriation of that Gospel to the people around us.

Our goal, then, is not to domesticate the Gospel, but to contextualize the Gospel, just as Paul did. This does not mean we “clean up” the Gospel to make it less offensive to the culture around us; to the contrary, we allow the Gospel to critique and undermine the very idols so enthusiastically worshiped in our culture. This of course requires some tact, and engaging the culture is no easy task; as Jesus said, we must be “shrewd as serpents but innocent as doves,” meaning that we are to be clever and perceptive, yet also above reproach. Our aim should be to participate in culture with the purpose of subversion rather than syncretism; the Gospel radically transforms life as we know it, and thus we should strive to also be known as “men who have turned the world upside down.”

So how can we go about contextualizing the Gospel? First, we cannot allow our Gospel to be viewed through the colored lenses of our society’s plausibility structure. Instead, let us allow our Gospel to be the very lens through which we see and understand all such plausibility structures. In this, we much more equipped for evangelism.

In this respect, it is most helpful to think of the Gospel as the over-arching Biblical narrative of creation, fall, redemption and restoration. God created a world which was good (creation) but has since been corrupted by sin (fall). Jesus came to atone for that sin (redemption) and is transforming the brokenness of this earth, until his eschatological return when everything will finally be set right again (restoration). When we think about our current cultural situation as part of this Biblical metanarrative, we can look at the values, institutions, and aspirations of our world and see the corrupting effects of sin in each area.

Communicating how sin has led to brokenness and devastation in our world is a good first step to proclaiming Jesus as the just judge and merciful healer, the agent of true change, and the rightful King who will make all things new when he comes in power. By showing the depravity and fallen nature of those around us, we demonstrate the need for Christ, and by drawing attention to the fact that our cultural standards are far less glorious than those of God, we undermine our society’s flawed system of values. Furthermore, by pointing out how good gifts from God (in creation) have been cheapened, corrupted and ruined (in the fall), we set the stage for God’s answer to the problem we’ve created.

We should ask ourselves three questions.

1. What are the values of our culture, to what extent do they reflect Biblical truth and how do they fall short of God’s standard?
    
2. What are the institutions or systems in our culture, how do they reflect God’s good creation and how have we corrupted them?
    
3. What are the aspirations and desires of our culture, how are they intended to be satisfied in God, and to what has our pursuit of satisfaction elsewhere led us?

In other words, Christians need to be able to demonstrate the difference between agape love and worldly “tolerance;” we must show how worldly standards of peace and non-violence fall short of God’s shalom. The idea is to see how we, as sinful human beings, are too easily pleased in certain worldly standards of “goodness” and how the infinitely good God has a higher, much more beautiful standard which is for our own well-being.

Also, we should show how the institutions of our society fall short of God’s purpose. We should treat marriage as a wonderful gift God has given us for our good—a gift which we have trampled upon, chauvinists and feminists alike. We ought to speak of government and authority structures as systems which, while corrupted by pride, greed and tyranny, were indeed intended for good, to protect the innocent and punish the wicked, with those in high positions serving the lowly.

In addition to this, we must recognize and display how our aspirations and desires are futile apart from Christ; we were created to worship, enjoy, and find complete satisfaction in God. After all, it is God who provides for us and sustains us; it is he—and ultimately he alone—who fulfills our basic human needs and desires for love, security and justice. Though we may try to seek satisfaction elsewhere, by other means (perhaps codependent relationships, the hoarding of wealth or global warfare, for example), we will eventually be left unfulfilled and empty unless we repent and believe in the Gospel.

And the Gospel? Simply put, it’s the overwhelmingly good news that Jesus triumphs in the end. It is the very answer to our broken, fallen world. It is the comforting fact that God, in his transformative power, is in the business of fixing our mistakes, restoring what we’ve destroyed. It’s the sobering message that though we have all rebelled against God’s rightful authority (and thus become his enemies) he has made a way for us to be reconciled.

This Christianity is no mere additive to our modern or postmodern plausibility structure. It is an entirely new plausibility structure which happens to be fundamentally different from anything we’ve ever experienced. We are not trying to force an oddly-shaped puzzle piece into a space in which it simply does not fit, nor are we trimming off the edges of our puzzle piece so that we can make it fit. The fact is that we’re operating with an altogether different puzzle. And what a puzzle it is! The humble are exalted, the exalted are humbled; the meek and mourning and poor in spirit are the very ones who receive blessing! Those who seek to be the greatest must serve the lowly. Those who seek to live must take up their cross and die.

Newbigin puts it quite well: “The Church…as the bearer of the gospel, inhabits a plausibility structure which is at variance with, and which calls in question, those that govern all human cultures without exception” (9). By taking a look at “gospels” of our culture, we may begin to demonstrate their utter failure to bring satisfaction, wholeness, peace, and justice to this world. And in doing this, we hope to lead a downcast, despondent and worn-out society to fall before the Most High God—the very One whose overtures they have so long ignored—in desperate and radical repentance. Let us be known, too, as men who have turned the world upside down.

°Reference: Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1989)

When nonbelievers look and scoff at Christians as foolish, silly and dumb, we know that the joke’s on them. But perhaps their criticism of Christianity as anti-reason is somewhat valid, at least in the way the Christian faith manifests itself in the contemporary church?

Amid the present-day milieu of  decaying modernity (and the subsequent increase of religious pluralism), I believe that there is a rapidly growing need for intelligent Christianity in America, a nation which appears to be earnestly pursuing the status of a “liberated” post-Christian society. It seems now that we are casting off the shackles of foolish superstition, we are free to experience true life—or so we think. The fist of dogmatism finds any fragment of legitimacy it once grasped now slipping right through its tired, arthritic fingers. 

Thus, in order to appeal and witness to this ever-changing culture, it is, in my mind, imperative that Christians are educated and equipped to effectively relate to and participate in even the most sophisticated societal discourse. This doesn’t mean just watching secular movies to “keep up” with what’s going on in the world. It requires significant learning in areas of philosophy, logic, and rhetoric which will enable us to truly engage those around us in an intelligent and level-headed manner, for the sake of the Gospel. I suspect that this is a bit controversial, and I am willing to dialogue, but let me at first list a few short reasons why I hold this opinion.

1. We have a responsibility to preach the Gospel to people, not just into a vacuum. 
I understand that “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12 ESV). I recognize that God can (and in many situations does) use the proclamation of Scripture alone to convict and convert people. However, we cannot misapply the fact that God’s word is powerful to excuse a lack of responsibility on our part. We are instructed to make disciples (Matthew 28:19), and doing so requires some tact. Being able to understand a person’s worldview in order to carefully and shrewdly critique and subvert it allows us to communicate the Gospel more effectively. Furthermore, knowing what we’re talking about adds legitimacy  to our faith claims, especially in a society which no longer privileges Christianity nor takes it for granted.

2. Anti-intellectualism is not helpful to the Body of Christ.
If you know me, you know that I don’t completely buy into our society’s extreme glorification of a college education, and that I very strongly believe that salvation is by grace alone—not knowledge. However, the developing worldwide religious landscape consists of rapidly developing Pentecostalism, which is particularly flourishing in Third-World countries (albeit not absent in the U.S). While I rejoice that people are coming to know the name of Jesus, I am concerned over the potential for a dangerous misunderstanding of the Holy Spirit and a general disdain for rational decision-making. In 1 Corinthians 14:14-23, Paul encourages believers to use their minds in (rather than detach them from) corporate worship. God gave us a rational mind so that we might bring glory to him and edify other believers by using it appropriately.

3. Most people—even in the church—don’t have a Christian worldview.
Perhaps this is more indicative of a theological problem or a flaw in our discipleship methods, but Christians should be able to comprehend how the Gospel of Jesus should determine the way they view the world. Of course, we’re not going to agree on everything, but the foundational understanding that Jesus’ death and resurrection is so significant that it actually defines who we are and how we think about things needs to somehow be built into our discipleship processes. I realize that not everyone has the same I.Q., but most people should be able to learn how to view things through the lens of the Cross, at least on some level. By having a better education—particularly one which emphasises the Gospel as their metanarrative, Christians are better-equipped to think critically about and interact with the world around them, enabling them to recognize, avoid, and work more effectively in tearing down the idols of 21st century society. 

Of course, the problem is that there are very few systems in place (at least that I am aware of) which achieve this type of Christ-centered, intellectual preparation. Based upon my personal experience (and that of many like me), Bible colleges across the nation generally leave graduates ill-equipped to make a difference in (or even think critically about) society. And while some programs at secular universities may offer a more rigorous academic environment, they most certainly fail to promote a Christian worldview, thus leaving the average Christian very few opportunities to receive an education which will significantly aid them in their life of faith and fulfillment of the Great Commission. 

I’m not sure what needs to happen, but it appears to be an issue which must be dealt with by the local church. I know I feel a need to read more and do what I can to sharpen my mind, yet I still long for some type of training or preparation in the church which would help guide me in this. Throughout the centuries, a solid education has proven quite helpful to so many believers—from Paul to Luther and Augustine to Schaeffer. And sure, the present day perhaps has its share of theologians and scholars. But wouldn’t it be haphazard to ignore the need for educated Christians in each and every local congregation?

I recently finished reading Mark as Story [link], a book which, despite its flaws, succesfully promotes a narrative approach to reading the Gospels. While the authors made some dangerous and unsupported theological statements, their overall treatment of the Gospel of Mark as a story was quite helpful and renewed my interest in the way humanity is shaped by narratives. Certainly, Graeme Goldsworthy’s According to Plan [link] made significant progress in helping a modern audience read the Bible as one big, unfolding narrative. Lately, however, I’ve been reading through The Drama of Scripture by Craig Bartholomew and Michael Goheen [link], a similar book which introduces the idea of a unified Biblical narrative as essential to evangelism in the postmodern world. Their work is founded upon the understanding that human beings are significantly shaped by stories—particularly over-arching, grand stories or metanarratives—and that the Biblical story is the only such metanarrative which is true, meaningful and liberating.

Dr. Goheen has an excellent grasp on the over-arching story which has shaped modern Western society; I heard him speak about a year ago, and by the end of the first day of his conference lectures, I felt like my mind was already operating over-capacity. Now that I’ve had some time to think through things, I am coming to see the extreme importance of understanding our cultural story—that is, our metanarrative—in respect to impacting our society with the Gospel.

Any given person can only have one metanarrative, though they may know a number of other stories. It is our metanarrative, in fact, which determines the way in which we view and interpret all other stories. Therefore, if we accept the metanarrative of modern society—a story rooted in the Enlightenment, where reason is the hero and scientific or technological progress makes for a “happy ending”—we will find that all other stories (including the Gospel of Christ) are subject to our greater, over-arching metanarrative. This very thing caused the rise of liberalism in respect to Biblical studies, where modernism very much shaped the way people read the Bible.

A person’s metanarrative is the lens through which he will view all other narratives; it is his gopspel. However, if the Biblical story is our metanarrative, it will effectively critique competing, false metanarratives (such as the modernistic gospel of rational optimism).

In this, we can see the goal of our evangelism is not to only preach the Gospel as a laundry list of truths, but to subvert the false gospels (or metanarratives) which deceive our culture. It is too easy to embrace certain Biblical truths as long as they “fit” our existing worldview; many people will accept Scriptural doctrines insofar as their metanarrative allows them to be accepted. Thus, we get Christians who go to Sunday church services but live self-centered lives devoid of fruit; Christianity has become a mere additive to their pre-existing metanarrative.

However, the Gospel of King Jesus is not merely a series of doctrines, but an altogether different foundational understanding of the word. It is a new metanarrative, and until people allow it to destroy their existing metanarratives, they will not experience its power. “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 2:22-24 ESV).

With that being said, the present-day difficulty is postmodernism—”an incredulity toward metanarratives,” as famously defined by Jean François Lyotard. Because our society so blindly submitted to the false gospel of modernism, rationalism and humanism, we are now reaping what we have sown; from wreaking environmental havoc to creating weapons of mass destruction, our modernistic metanarrative has led us to despair. Thus, postmodernism recognizes the betrayal of the modernistic gospel and is highly skeptical, therefore, of all such metanarratives; any over-arching story which serves as a source of meaning and hope is highly suspect.

Of course, postmodernism is really a metanarrative of its own, as it defines the way in which we view the world; however, in this story, the antagonists are metanarratives themselves. To reach resolution, all such metanarratives must be reduced in power—they must become “just another story” rather than an over-arching gospel—and only when this happens, postmoderns believe, can society be truly free from danger. This explains why phrases like “whatever works for you,” “who are you to judge?” and “all roads lead to God!”  have become so immensely popular as of late.

What this leaves us with is a sense of meaning which finds its root in tolerance, passivity, and ignorance. Ultimately, it will only bring further confusion and despair. Yet for now, as evangelists, we face the dilemma of promoting a metanarrative—a radical one at that—to a world whose existing metanarrative tells them that we’re fools. If we’re going to have success, we must embody the gospel in all that we do—to truly allow it to become our metanarrative—and to live life in such a way that the truth of the Biblical story is made evident in our actions. Preaching the Gospel must involve the systematic teaching of doctrines, to be sure, but the power of the Gospel itself must not be restrained nor hindered by our unwillingness to unleash its earth-shattering, life-changing, mind-blowing nature to the world.