Argumentation in a Post-Modern World

This post is more of a commercial than anything else. I have just subscribed to an e-newsletter from Tim Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan. The newsletter is called The Movement and it is geared toward church planters and church planting. However, I would recommend it highly to any Christian who is concerned about reaching postmoderns for Christ. I really think that Keller is the greatest thinker and practitioner of evangelism in America today, particularly in the area of reaching postmoderns. Part of my praise for him is because he is from my own denomination, so I'm biased and am definitely cheering for the home team. That being the case though I think anyone could benefit from reading Keller's thoughts. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.

In the most recent newsletter he discusses the place of argumentation in apologetics in regard to postmodernism.

The conventional wisdom says that apologetics is dead in a postmodern world. Keller appreciates the postmodern's emphasis on relational evangelism and the like, but he also discusses the fact that argumentation still has a place in evangelism. In his article Deconstructing Defeater Beliefs, he says:

Many books on reaching post-moderns today give the impression that people now need virtually no arguments at all. The 'apologetic' is a loving community, or the embodiment of social concern. I couldn't agree more that post-modern people come to Christ through process, through relationships, though mini-decisions, through 'trying Christianity on'. They are pragmatic rather than abstract in their reasoning, etc. But the books that are against any arguments at all seem to miss the fact that the extreme pragmatism of non-Christians today is part of a non-Christian world-view. Our post-enlightenment culture believes what has been called expressive individualism. That is – 'it is true if it works for me.' This obviously is based on the view that truth and right-or-wrong is something I discover within my own self and consciousness.

What then of the claim that "post-modern people don't want arguments – they just want to see if it works for them"? All right – as with any form of contextualization, let us as evangelists enter – adapt partially – to the culture of expressive individualism. Let us show them the reality of changed lives. Let us use narratives rather than long strings of logic. But at some point you must also challenge the sovereignty of individual consciousness. Jesus is Lord, not my personal consciousness. At some point, the idea that "it is true if and only if it works for me" must be challenged. We have to say: "Ultimately that is correct – in the very, very long run, obeying the truth will 'work' and bring you to glory and disobeying the truth will 'not work' and bring you to ruin. But in the short run (like – even throughout all the rest of your life!) obeying the truth might lead to ostracism, persecution, or other suffering.

There have been many times in New York City that I have seen people make professions of faith that seemed quite heart-felt, but when faced with serious consequences if they maintained their identification with Christ (e.g. missing the opportunity for a new sexual partner or some major professional setback) they bailed on their Christian commitment. The probable reason was that they had not undergone deeper 'world-view change'. They had fitted Christ to their individualistic world-view rather than fitting their world-view to Christ. They professed faith simply because Christianity worked for them, and not because they grasped it as true whether it is 'working' for them this year or not! They had not experienced a 'power-encounter' between the gospel and their individualistic world-view. I think apologetics does need to be 'post-modern.' It does need to adapt to post-modern sensibilities. But it must challenge those sensibilities too. There do need to be 'arguments.' Christianity must be perceived to be true, even though less rationalistic cultures will not demand watertight proofs like the older high-modern western society did.

Those are some good thoughts to chew on and there are plenty more in the article and in the rest of the newsletters on the site.

Comments

[Catez]

Brilliant! This together with the "Two Kinds of People" post has cheered me greatly. We can provide an intelligent position to a post-modern world. In many ways the New Testament addresses the post-modern world - first Century Greek culture resembled post-modernism in some ways. Thanks for this! I'm still a relative newcomer to your blog but I'm absolutely enjoying it (joke intended!)
Catez

[Anthony]

I attended Redeemer Presbyterian in New York prior to relocating to South Florida and can tell you that Keller is amazing at entering into the different cultural narratives that encompass New York City. And his preaching is at once intriguing, convincing, compassionate, and cross-centric.

The article on Defeater Beliefs is a must read, especially for those of us who tend to be stale in our evangelism, or who adopt a one size fits all approach, ignoring the diversity in which God has created us.

Much like Paul was able to enter the Greek culture and evangelize the Stoics and Epicureans, so we too must be conversant with postmodernism in America. The advancement of the Gospel depends on it.