Ravi on Postmodernism
Ravi Zacharias recently spoke at the Evangelical School of Theology on the subject of postmodernism. In his address he pointed out the growing "stridency of the willingness to live with the ramifications" of atheism. I've observed this as well. An atheist friend regularly sends links to Youtube videos wanting my response. (Check out this example, if you can handle the regular use of the "f" word: http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=gyILS5RL3M8 .) You're familiar, I'm sure, with the growing number of popular books promoting atheism. What I've discovered in my dialogue with my atheist friends is that logic alone no longer wins debates. Zacharias suggested the Church needs to enter the debate with a 3-pronged approach: 1) We need an apologetic that's not merely heard but also seen. Our faith must be visible. 2) We need an apologetic that's not just argued but also felt. And 3) We need an apologetic that is conscious of the ends as well as the means. It's worth using these 3 criteria to evaluate our/your church's missional agenda.
posted by FWG at
11:18 AM
1 Comments:
This is something which I have encountered full-force in the last few years...
I have a friend who grew up as a Pentecostal and eventually left all vestiges of faith behind somewhere around 8th grade (according to him). I've discussed the logical inconsistencies of his atheistic / agnostic viewpoint and his answers typically fall short of really answering my challenges. He often points to the fact that atheists can be as moral and upstanding as Christians, though he doesn't take it so far as to say a "moral atheist" precludes any argument for the existence of God. Mostly, he rests on His atheism by claiming evidence for the divine cannot be empirically discerned. If, perchance, the Almighty did appear to him, he would "stone-cold guarantee" me that he'd believe.
In any case, argumentation does little to convince him, though he is fairly intellectual in his viewpoint on political and philosophical issues. Thus, talking with him has very much cemented one conviction in my mind when it comes to evangelism:
A person's fundamental beliefs about reality (rational or irrational as they may be) are sacred. Logically, a good apologist may win the argument, but there's no sense in cutting a man off at his knees and then demanding he stand. That is, you can't reasonably expect to show someone the logical fallacies of their belief system, expect them to blink a few times as they realize the error of their view of reality, and then humbly thank you for showing them the light.
Of course, I'm sure no Christian apologist expects that to happen, yet I've often seen apologetics (especially "worldview" apologetics) conducted as though that were the goal.
Ultimately, it seems to me that there is a disparity between what we know intellectually, and what we can demonstrate in our lifestyle. It's not a new problem, but the "worldview" evangelism of more recent years (and the secular response to it), has presented an old problem in a new (and rather contrasting) light.
In short, I think Ravi's onto something...
4:56 PM
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