How Can Christians Reach Today's Culture?

In this regular feature Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call.Here is this week’s question:Dear Dave and Tom: “I know you guys are against a popular trend in evangelical Christianity called the “emerging church” which claims to be the best way to witness to the post-modern generation.I can’t say I disagree with you, but what do you recommend in reaching our culture today?”

Tom:

Dave, first of all for our listeners who, maybe some of these terms “emerging church,” and “post-modern generation,” is a little new to them or their not really aware of what that’s all about.But “post-modern generation,” it’s highly characterizing what we see going on today.So there are people out there who, you know, want to do their own thing.They disdain rules.Ok?Truth to them is relative.They don’t put much stock in commitments.This is the culture that supposedly in the “post-modern” and this is what the emerging church--these are the people the emerging church wants to reach.They live for pleasure, pursue pleasure, they live for the moment, they scorn the rational, prefer the emotional, you know, whatever feels good do it, let your feelings be your guide.And, they have a preference for the experiential, those who would be thinking spiritually anyway.They prefer the experiential over the doctrinal and they have a propensity for visual imagery over the written word.So, how do we reach this segment of our society?

Dave:

Well, I have a few ideas, Tom.First of all, that long list you gave of their propensities, their behavior, sounds very much like it’s always been.They give it a new name but this is rebellion against God.That’s how simple it is.Doing my own thing, wanting to live for myself, it’s self-centered.You could go to II Timothy 3 and you’d find pretty much the list.Lovers of self, etc.Number one.So, how do we reach any generation?Well, we are not going to update the Bible.We’re not going to edit the Bible, we’re not going to change it in order to reach some new generation.The Bible is written for every generation.It’s like Solomon said, as in water face answers to face, in other words, you see a reflection in water, so the heart of man to man.Now, that wouldn’t be just during some generation.Same thing, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, Jeremiah writes, of course inspired of God.So, how are we going to deal with the heart?Well, I, the Lord, search the heart.That’s what God says.David writes in Psalm 139, Search me, O God, and know my ways, my thoughts, etc. So, it’s the Spirit of God is going to have to convince of sin, of righteousness and judgment to come.This is what Jesus said in John 16, when He the spirit of truth is come, He will convince the world of sin, of righteousness and judgment to come.Of course we need a little addendum there, “until the new post-modern generation comes along” and then spirit of God will have to change His tactics or we’ll need a new spirit of God, we’ll need new scriptures, or whatever.Absolutely not true.So, Tom, these people are trying to make excuses for turning away from the Bible and coming up with something else in order to deal with their problems, the same old thing as “Christian” psychology.

Tom:

Well, Dave, those who are leaders in this emerging church movement, they believe they recognize that the post-modern generation is interested in things spiritual.Let me give you a quote from one of the leaders.He says, “The changes in our culture are influencing emerging generations to crave a raw and vintage approach to Christianity and church.Therefore, contemporary seeker-sensitive methodology goes against what connects with them most deeply.”Now, I’ve read the books.I’ve followed some of these leaders in terms of what they’re offering.Dave, it’s amazing because it goes back to what I grew up in.It goes back to, you know, what do they mean by “authentic” and “vintage” Christianity?They mean Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Russian Orthodoxy.They’re talking about ritualism, they’re talking about sacramentalism, they’re talking about all the things I grew up in.

Dave:

Right.So, Tom, how is that a post-modern?

Tom:

I have no idea.

Dave:

It goes way, way back.So, this is skewed thinking.They’re not even logical or rational, but they’re certainly not biblical.We were talking about homosexuality a little while ago.You know what they say about that.We could quote one of the leaders or more than one of the leaders saying, well, now, is anything wrong with homosexuality, should that be accepted and should there be homosexuals in the pulpit, etc., well, we can’t come to a conclusion on that just yet.It’ll probably take another five years and then we may be able to come up with a conclusion, and if we haven’t reached it then….So, what does that mean, Tom?The Bible is very clear.So these people do not believe the Bible.They’re not willing to obey the Bible.They want to twist it around some way to escape what it says.Therefore they come up with these terms, “post-modern,” “emerging” whatever and they’re going to use that as an excuse for escaping what God has clearly said.

Tom:

Right.So this approach, which pretends to bring a generation, this generation, to truth, what truth are they bringing them to, Dave?Certainly not biblical truth, that’s the problem.

Dave:

They have abandoned the Bible.I think when the Holy Spirit inspired the Scriptures, I would say that would be the clearest, best way it could be said.God knows our hearts.He knows the needs of every generation.And He gave it to us like we need to have it.We can’t be massaging the Bible around and changing it.It is supposed to change us.

Tom:

Dave, I don’t know how the church can reflect the culture and deliver the culture from its sin and bring the solution of the gospel.I don’t see how that can happen.

Dave:

Very good point.