Reaching Generation Next: Effective Evangelism in Today's Culture

Miller

Preface

There is perhaps no theme that has captured the interest and imagination of the contemporary church quite as profoundly as the concept of evangelism. Nor is any theme more at the core of Christianity than evangelism. It consumed our Lord. That is why he came. It should, therefore, grip us at the very heart of our faith. Thankfully, that which was once ignored or even ridiculed by some has now become the concern of most enlightened Christians. God’s people are coming alive to the fact that the church evangelizes or it dies. It is that serious. And although it may be true that some of the motives that have spurred this new impetus are not as high or spiritual as one would wish, nonetheless, evangelism has become of vital interest to most Christians today, and for that we must thank our Lord. After all, he is the one who inspires the endeavor.

The purpose of this volume is to place in the hands of the Christian leader—and the average layperson—a basic work on the essential aspects of the evangelistic enterprise and to provide foundational guidelines on how to evangelize in a local church in today’s new world. We do live in a new day. It has been called, among other things, postmodernism or the Generation X era. The people of this generation, as well as the next generation that is rapidly growing up, must be reached.

This book has a practical as well as a theological purpose. The primary theme of the work is that the whole church stands at the fountainhead of the evangelistic tide in God’s kingdom. The church holds the key to successful outreach. Therefore, each believer must become an evangelist in a deep and profound sense. Elucidating this essential truth, the book attempts to guide God’s people and his church into a dynamic evangelistic program to reach the new age.

Moreover, there has arisen a fresh openness to spiritual things. Perhaps the terrorism and other calamities of our day, such as the September 11, 2001, attack in America, have cracked open a new door for the gospel. Regardless of what is occurring, this new generation is asking questions. And the church has the answer. It is Jesus Christ.

I must not close this brief preface without expressing my gratitude to the faithful secretaries at Beeson Divinity School. To them I acknowledge my debt. Above all, I express my gratitude to Janice Jordan who labored over the computer for hours getting the manuscript in place. Her work was invaluable. To Paul Baxter I express gratitude for permitting me to draw material from the book we coauthored, Responding to the Skeptic. I also thank my colleague and friend Calvin Miller for the foreword.

So I present my concept of the church’s evangelistic task for today with the prayer that God will use it to inspire and help us all to do the work of an evangelist (2 Tim. 4:5).

one

Today’s Emerging World

Over thirty years ago I had the privilege of publishing my first book on evangelism. Those days witnessed the beginning of a revolutionary time. Western culture found itself in disturbing flux. In America the Boomers were on the scene with their deep reaction to Vietnam and the old traditions. The Iron Curtain held sway in Eastern Europe and seemed far from coming down, even though cracks and erosion began to appear. Modernity still reigned, but new ideas quickly began filling the cracks that were forming in the worldview of the moderns, a worldview that had held sway since the birth of the Renaissance. Yet, as is often the case, it seemed that many churches were almost oblivious to the ferment bubbling up all around them. They, who could have made a compelling contribution to the turbulent hour, often failed to rise to the challenge.

In that first volume I related the story that came out of the American Revolution of the eighteenth century. The tale seemed an apt illustration of the scene at that time. Washington Irving wrote a parody that unfolds in a fascinating fashion. Old Rip Van Winkle, from a small New England town, trekked one day up into the Catskill Mountains. Exhausted by the hike, he sat down on a grassy knoll and fell fast asleep. He dreamed on and on. When he finally awoke, he realized it was late and he must hurry home. As he walked into his village, strange sights greeted his eyes. Nothing seemed the same; he puzzled over what could have happened. The streets were changed, he recognized few houses, and everything appeared so different. Slowly it dawned on the old slumberer that he had actually been asleep twenty years. During those long years, the American colonies had revolted against British rule and won their freedom. He was now living in the radically new United States of America. Poor old Rip had slept through the Revolution.

Irving’s imaginary tale seemed quite apt in the days of the sixties and seventies of century twenty. But the story is even more applicable today in century twenty-one. The fact that the contemporary church finds itself living and attempting to minister in a revolutionary atmosphere should be obvious to all. It is a different day than several decades ago. So-called postmodernism is taking over, and the church once again finds itself in the grip of a social and cultural revolution of gigantic proportions. So I have put my hand to a complete rewriting of my first volume, which has become this work. I do so because everything seems to be in a state of radical change. All aspects of society are once again in flux. Foundations of modernism, long accepted as valid even in the earlier Boomer years of the 1950s, are being seriously shaken. No segment of societal traditions escapes scrutiny and questioning. The more traditional, older generation is still with us, yet discerning minds agree that nothing will ever be quite the same again. Western society is rapidly changing, but the most disquieting element of the sociological, philosophical, and cultural revolution centers in the fact that often the sleeping Rip Van Winkle of the hour is none other than many contemporary churches. God’s people, who should be on the cutting edge of the radically changing scene and moving our new age toward God, are often found slumbering away on some grassy knoll of irrelevance, or even denial, while the world all but fragments around them.

In the light of such a situation, the church must be awakened to the contemporary cultural atmosphere so that it can address itself to the problems this social and philosophical revolution precipitates. Although much has been written on postmodernism for the individual reader to absorb, in the final analysis, the church as a whole must get geared for the new challenge it faces, hence the writing of this book on the subject.

This does not mean that every church has its head in the sand and is thus oblivious to the dramatic scenario. Often the church just finds itself in the grip of irrelevancy, failing to address and communicate effectively to today’s worldview. If such is the case, the church must be awakened and updated. The people of God must be shaken from their slumbers and made to see and respond to the tremendous evangelistic challenge of this turbulent hour. It may be that the disturbing voices being heard in our world today will be the ones to awaken the sleepers. There is openness, as we shall see, to spiritual matters in this hour that bodes well for a dynamic evangelism of integrity. Perhaps these voices will give the people of God the urgent wake-up call needed.

A New Day

The revolution of our era, a worldview that is now well under way, has acquired its own moniker; we commonly call it postmodernism. As many realize, in the late 1960s the modern era pretty well died and postmodernism commenced its reign. Its constituents, generally speaking, are those born after 1965, often called Generation X or Busters, and the next generation, the children of the Busters, are following in their footsteps. They are all a different sort with a different approach to life and reality than that of older generations. Sociologists and others tell us that this new spirit has come about as a reaction to the sterility of modernism, or so-called modernity, the socialized, philosophical, rational mind-set that grew out of the Enlightenment movement. This understanding of life and value postmodernity has rejected. And the reaction is basic and fundamental, ushering in an entirely new worldview. Since one’s worldview determines life values and meaning, the challenge for the evangelical church today is to confront the validity of the new worldview. Can the church convince postmoderns that Christianity offers the best of all worldviews? The future growth and effectiveness of the church depend largely on how it responds to that challenge, not to mention the spiritual condition of an entire generation that must be reached for Christ.

So the question becomes, What are these postmoderns and their young children saying? We clearly need to understand them before we can effectively communicate Christ’s message to them. We shall delve into that issue, attempting to acquire at least an overview of the movement from a basic philosophical perspective. It may appear somewhat pedantic to review these philosophical issues, but all people, regardless of their sophistication, have a philosophy that determines their worldview. Philosophy is important, so we will take a short excursion into the basic thought patterns of postmodernism. But before launching out on that voyage, it will be helpful to see what the postmoderns are in revolt against, namely, modernity.

The Meaning of Modernity

Space precludes a thorough philosophical—or practical—investigation of modernity; that would require countless volumes, and much has been written on the subject. But the essence of modernity, its essential worldview, advocates the epistemological principle that truth and reality can be discerned primarily by the five senses and through rationalism. Empiricism (sense perception) and rationalism stand as the central sources and final criteria of truth. This philosophy had its contemporary birth, as stated, in the spirit of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.

It must be understood that epistemology, how truth is discerned, always constitutes the essential question in the quest for a meaningful life. Many philosophers of the relatively recent past and a fair number of contemporary ones have enrolled in the Enlightenment school of thought. Tragically, they often reject spiritual realities. These thinkers tend to take this rigid line because metaphysical, spiritual concepts raise questions, the answers to which are not totally verifiable on a mere rational or empirical level. Thus they either outright reject spiritual truths or at least minimize them. Many see them as merely irrelevant.

The philosophical departments in European and American universities have been more or less committed to some form of rational-empirical thought for years, at least until quite recent times. The result is that philosophy has suffered in proportion to the many vital issues it has ignored. Moreover, it seems abundantly clear that, during the pervasive reign of modernity, many average people, especially of the older generations, have shared the same attitude toward rational-empirical thought, even if with an unsophisticated understanding. Thus we have our American obsession with the scientific, materialistic, affluent society—the good life.

This epistemological approach to truth and reality has interesting early roots. Aspects can be seen in certain Greek thinkers like Aristotle with his logical dialectical method. It should be realized that confidence in human knowledge goes back to very early thought. As New Testament scholar C. H. Dodd points out, In the classical period an almost unbounded confidence in the human reason led thinkers to believe that accurate knowledge of reality was attainable and that in such knowledge lay the ideal for human life.[1] This sounds very much like the modernity that emerged in and out of the Enlightenment. However, it became clear to some Greek thinkers that such an approach did not answer some very important questions of life. Consequently there arose in some circles a philosophical turn to revelation—the knowledge of God. Thus emerged gnosticism, but that approach never led to a true knowledge of God. As Dodd goes on to state, they believe that eternal life lies in the knowledge of God, but they overlook the explicit teaching of the Gospel about the true nature of such knowledge.[2]

In more recent years, modernism was more or less epitomized in the utterly radical rationalism of Friedrich Hegel. This philosopher, whose dictum declared the rational is real and the real is rational, has influenced Western thinking tremendously. His approach reached its peak in the logical positivism of scholars like A. J. Ayer, Bertrand Russell, and others with their verifiable principle. They held that any proposition that is claimed to be true must be verifiable by rational or empirical methodologies; otherwise it is meaningless. So influential did this extreme approach become that both the professional philosopher and many common people alike all but worship before the shrine of this scientific, rational approach to truth, reality, and meaning.

Now no one wishes to decry the amazing advance and benefit that scientific, empirical investigation has produced. We enjoy, and rightly so, the good things of the affluent society. But modernity has built its entire system of values on this level, and this is where the problems arise for the postmoderns and the church as well. By ignoring or minimizing the reality of spiritual values, or by classifying them as meaningless, modernity has defined reality on a quite materialistic basis. Health and wholeness are often sought primarily through scientific medicine and behavioristic psychology. Status, and therefore acceptance by one’s peers, means the attainment of certain economic levels. In the spirit of the philosopher Hegel, these devotees of an empirical worldview believe that all problems, in principle if not yet in fact, can finally be solved in the laboratory or on the psychiatrist’s couch. Though the average man on the street may not be able, as can the philosopher, to present a formal rationale for such a completely empirical, rational approach to truth and reality, he has certainly lived out such an approach on a practical level. Thus the modernist dreams of the entire world being well fed, in good health, living long, and enjoying all the benefits of life to the fullest and is not concerned with eternity.

Faced with this purely empirical and rationalistic-scientific worldview, the church’s efforts in evangelism are hindered, unless God’s people can find a convincing apologetic for the faith to combat the basic tenets of modernism. For example, the so-called conflict between science and religion that has caused many to cast their vote for behavior-ism and the laboratory instead of for the pulpit still waits to be resolved. The effective evangelistic church must come up with a credible answer and apologetic for this approach, not to mention the crying need for an effective apologetic to address postmodernism. And too many churches have not faced or developed a convincing apologetic as to the essential presuppositions of what constitutes truth. Again, may it be said, the epistemological problem is the basic issue. Where can an answer be found? Is there a convincing apologetic to knock down the straw men standing in the way of an acceptance of the gospel of Jesus Christ for the modern’s, not to mention the postmodern’s, mind-set? Yes, as Francis Schaeffer has correctly pointed out:

The floodwaters of secular thought . . . overwhelmed the church because the leaders did not understand the importance of combating a false set of presuppositions. They largely fought the battle on the wrong ground and so, instead of being far ahead in both defense and communication, they lagged woefully behind. . . . Man thinks differently concerning truth, and so now for us, more than ever before, a presuppositional apologetic is imperative.[3]

This opens up a whole new vista of thought. Of course, the place of apologetics in evangelism is a subject in and of itself. It will be approached later in this book in some depth, but that must be put on hold for the moment. What is essential to see at the immediate juncture centers in what modernity is and why postmoderns reject it. So, we carry on, looking now at another aspect of modernity.

Humanism

Another voice that sallies forth from the modern mind-set centers in humanism, i.e., the concept holding that life is to be understood in purely human terms. Naturally this emerges out of a rational, empirical epistemology. There have always been committed humanists, of course, but they usually tend to stay in their ivory towers or in relatively small, esoteric groups. Since the Enlightenment, however, this worldview has become quite widespread. Perhaps one of the reasons humanism as an orientation to life moved out of the philosopher’s ivory tower and into the marketplace is because of the influence of behavioristic psychology and thought. The modernity movement, coupled with the industrial revolution in its depersonalization of people, caused the human character to cry out desperately for recognition. Behaviorism was born. What developed was a sort of romantic, materialistic view of human personality. Growing out of this basic approach, humanism declares that the real, and thus anything of ultimate value, rests in the human personality and human interests. This has clearly been a modernist life view, especially since Freud.

Of course postmodernism has some roots here as well. It must be granted that an element of truth can be found in humanism, as it can in pure scientism. Everyone should find sympathy with philanthropic endeavors to enhance human dignity and meet the pressing needs of one’s fellowman. People are important; they are important to God. But when materialistic, rationalistic humanism becomes a worldview that excludes God and spiritual values as the ultimate good and romanticizes enlightened man, trouble begins for the evangel. But that is what a commitment to a rational-empirical humanistic epistemology will do, and that gets right to the heart of modernity.

Existentialism

Voices were raised against a crass rational-empirical humanistic worldview, even in the heyday of modernity. One voice that was heard—and still is heard because it possesses postmodernity overtones—can be called agnostic existentialism. The existentialist, in oversimplified terms, sees existence as more important than essence. Experience is where reality can be found. Drain from each moment of existence all the good it has to offer. Whatever turns you on or makes you happy matters most. Objective standards are out; inner truth is where life’s meaning can be found. The autonomous self reigns.

This worldview has a certain kinship to humanism, but it has its own way of expressing itself and viewing life, and rather than leading to a kind of proud utopianism and optimism as did scientific empiricism, it tends to lead to serious, almost morbid despair. Agnostic existentialists hold that the chaos of this world presents a universe with no ultimate reality, order, or meaning. Objective realities and principles are laid aside or ignored. Failing to look beyond the immediacy of temporal existence, deep despair can easily ensue. Still, the practical conclusion of this orientation to life is in essence the same as that of the hard-nosed empiricist or humanist, namely, no God. As Martin Heidegger has expressed it, we came from nothing and we go to nothing. Jean Paul Sartre said that nothing can save us from ourselves. Friedrich Nietzsche claimed God was dead.

Thus one is constantly thrown back on one’s self. The views espoused by philosophers such as Nietzsche and Heidegger and popularized in the mid-twentieth century by writers like Albert Camus and Sartre, impacted many and created a new and different worldview. It may be that not all who live in this general frame of reference are propositional atheists. Yet, because they believe that self, not God, reigns, they are something of at least a practical atheist or agnostic as far as everyday living is concerned.

At the same time, these thinkers have rejected philosophical rationalism, and in a modified sense even empiricism, as the ways to truth and meaning. It begins to look somewhat like postmodernism, although the postmoderns are more positive and less in despair than the extreme existentialists. Actually, existentialism has made its significant contribution to the postmodern spirit, as we shall see shortly. The crunch for the church, however, is that these existentialists reject the concept of revealed truth, which is clearly a central Christian position. So with little or nothing left to build on, except their own selves, they just opt out. This is their decision of courage in order to become an authentic self. We meet many like that yet today in the traffic pattern of everyday life. Here is where we still find a host of people, especially the Boomers, whether they are of the revolutionary sixties or the strange, passive seventies. Little wonder we call them the me generation. Granted, many of them have not worked out their position in thoughtful terms; still existentialism describes their basic approach to life. And if the church thinks them to be no more than immoral reactionaries who should thus be held up to scorn and contempt, it will miss evangelizing a segment of society that desperately needs the gospel.

All this does not mean that all existentialists are as radical as Heidegger and company. There is Christian existentialism, personified in men like Søren Kierkegaard. But that is another subject, and space again forbids it being addressed here. The point is that modernism in its various forms still remains with us, even if it is becoming passé to the postmodern mind.

All this raises the issue of what the fallout of the modernity movement has been, especially for the emerging generation. The only answer that can be given today is that there has been a reasonably strong reaction, namely, postmodernity. And therein lies the challenge for the church in its evangelism for the new millennium.

The Postmoderns

As previously pointed out, myriad books have been produced in recent years on the essence of the postmodern spirit. It seems hardly necessary, therefore, to go into minute detail in analyzing and describing the postmodern’s worldview. Yet a general sweep of the basic thought of postmodernism stands in order for today’s church. Hopefully it will not be too generalized and the heart of the issue can be set forth so that the church can launch out on its challenge to evangelize this growing segment of society.

D. A. Carson has given a succinct definition of postmodernism