In search of a new apologetic

With these words Dreamworks is advertising their new film, Prince of Egypt. I haven’t seen the film yet, but on the last day of 1998 I took my children to see A Bug’s Life. At the cinema I saw a huge poster announcing the film with those three short sentences.
They struck me immediately. Now, a couple of days later, they strike me even more. Obviously the people at Dreamworks were trying to capture the imagination of their audience once again, and to stimulate them to go see their movie. For me, however, the meaning of these catch-phrases was somewhat different.

I am always thinking about how we can most effectively proclaim the gospel in the postmodern era. In the past few years I have tried to read everything I can on postmodernism, and I am now convinced that we in the West are entering the postmodern era; indeed, that in many places the transition to the postmodern era is now complete. While there seems to be little agreement on what that exactly means, there does seem to be a consensus that postmodern thinking has become the dominant cultural denominator. The postmodern worldview is taking a solid hold of the people in our societies.
I often wonder about questions such as these: "how we can win postmodern people for Christ? What sort of communication will we need? What arguments will be effective, and which not?" It seems to me that much work needs to be done in these areas. Some have advanced narrative preaching as ‘the way to go’, but there seems to be little definition about what that really means. Obviously these things need to be further explored (and that is precisely what NEXT WAVE wants to be all about).
The three sentences advertising Prince of Egypt struck me because they helped me in that quest for understanding. In the remainder of this article I would like to share my thoughts with you.

The Power is real

A bankrupt apologetic

In the evangelical literature that I have read, much has been made of ‘the Postmodern rejection of truth.’ Postmodernism questions the very notion of truth. People in the postmodern world live by the notion that truth is ultimately not knowable. Postmodern theorists (especially the more aggressive ones) question the very notion of truth.
To evangelicals this is all very disturbing. What, no truth? Truth not knowable? But isn’t the word of God the truth? Is not God true? Is the worldview he gives us in the Bible not the true worldview? Questions such as these lead many evangelicals to the conviction that the proclamation of the truthfulness of scripture is the necessary evangelistic modus operandus. Somehow they believe that people need to believe in absolute truth in order to believe in God. Therefore, they say, it is necessary that we convince people that there is absolute truth, before we can lead them to faith in God. Perhaps I am not putting it as eloquent as they might, but that is what it would seem to boil down to.

I question this idea for two reasons. First, we live in a world of many worldviews. The people in our cities come across dozens of lifestyles and world-views every day. They meet them in shops, airports, going to and from work, at work, and sometimes at home. They see them displayed and analyzed on television, hear about them on the radio, read about them in the newspaper and magazines. Some are different from the others only in degree. Others are stranger. A few are outright weird. And each of these worldviews purports to be true! Adherents of each are convinced they are on the right track. Theirs is the way to go (and please sign here)! Some are quite tolerant of those who don’t agree with them. Others are more cynical or critical. A few are downright aggressive. Some even need to be locked up, for theirs and or benefit!
Each of these worldviews makes their own appeal. Bumper-stickers, giving out free books at the airport, free meals to the homeless, door-to-door visitation, TV-programs, flyers - you name it, it’s been tried! We will serve you, love you , coerce you, teach you, train you, kidnap you, shout at you, pray for you, or burn a candle for you.
How, in such a world, is a thinking person ever supposed to find the true path? How does one see the forest for the trees? Why choose one over the others? A choice for one invariably is a choice against others. Contemporary people feel a sense of confusion at this clamor of worldviews. The only conclusion they can really come to, is that truth is ultimately unknowable. Investigation will only lead you to discover that there is little agreement among these different worldviews! There are no real answers, just opinions! The problem is not that postmodern people don’t think there is truth. Most of them actually think there probably is. But, wherever it is, it is not easily accessible.

The Christian faith is one such worldview, and these days it has much competition. Like others we hold our beliefs to be true, and seek to work them out in daily life. We are not shy of proclaiming them, and asking others to live by them as well.
When we assert that others need to belief what we belief, because what we believe is true, we are only adding our voice to the scores of other voices out there. Our claim of truth is simply one among many, and, regretfully, it comes in many different versions and colors, one for each denomination or tradition. How would one determine which one actually is true? Our claim to truth in fact does nothing to advance our course. Instead, we have succeeded in bombarding people with yet another truth-claim, and this tires them greatly. People today are acutely aware of their inability to know anything absolutely. All we end up doing is further alienating them from us. Shielding oneself from such truth-claims seems to have become a necessary survival skill at the end of the 20^th century…

The second reason the claim of the absolute truthfulness of our message might not be as effective as we hope, is that postmodern people reserve the verdict of ‘truth’ for that which is empirically verifiable. Postmodern people have been raised and trained in our scientific world. They live by the idea that something can only be held to be true after it is verified. The notion of ‘truthfulness’ is reserved for matters that can be verified only by an outside source. Matters of faith are beyond verification, and therefore can not be held to be true or false. One must simply choose to believe or disbelieve.

A better apologetic

So what is the alternative? If a claim of truthfulness is actually counter-productive, then what apologetic would be effective? That is where The Prince of Egypt can actually help. A more helpful apologetic is that ‘the power is real’.

I like this for two reasons. First, Christianity is relevant to unchurched people not so much because it is true, but because it is real. The Kingdom of God has a power that can be experienced. This is not about if you believe the right things or not, but this is about the power of God being released in your life, about you entering a relationship with the ultimate power of the cosmos. And postmodern people hunger for something that is real. Between the virtual images of TV and Computer, and superficial relationships in transient cities people are hunger for connection, for a sense of something bigger than them being real.
The argument over truth is the argument over dogma, and postmodern people feel dogma is stifling. But they love to talk about something that is real, because what is real can be experienced.

And that is the second reason I like this as an apologetic. In talking about a real power, it makes our beliefs a faith that is open to experience. It has been well documented by now that postmodern people search for experience. Some have passed this of as the postmodern search for ‘yet another thrill.’ But the truth of the matter is that the bigger reason probably is that postmodern people are tired of talk and theory. They are educated to the max, and they don’t care about what is true; they care about what works! They know that everything can be made to look wonderful, but the proof is in the pudding!

As evangelicals we run into a problem here. While we are not adverse to experience, we have tended to prioritize knowledge over experience, the mind over the senses. In doing so our faith has become very cognitive in nature, to the point where conversion sometimes meant little more than ‘intellectual assent to these truths.’
Because of our cognitive predisposition we feel somewhat unprepared for the postmodern era. People wanting experience? Some of us cannot remember the last time we ourselves experienced the presence of God in some profound manner. In reality, what happens is that the postmodern is confronting us with a duality that we have allowed into our midst: we have separated what we knew to be true from what we experienced, building up for ourselves clever answers to deal with the difficult situations life sometimes confronts us with. While technically open to the possibility of experience, most of us have quite a skeptical attitude towards any account of a personal experience.

Postmodern thinking tends to search for a holistic understanding in everything. As such it allows no place for such duality. This holism dictates that if it can’t be experienced, it probably isn’t true.. Conversely, if it can be experienced, it might just be real…

To some this may sound troubling. Has now experience become the prerequisite to faith? Isn’t that putting the cart before the horse? I understand it might seem so. But let’s take a serious look at what we are asking people to do. We are asking them to put their faith in the existence of the Lord God Almighty, most supreme power in the universe, who rules even over life and death - and there is nothing to experience? Postmodern people have a hard time not becoming cynical at this point.

It may also sound troubling because many evangelicals feel that they have now become responsible to provide an experience. How do you do that?

Perhaps that we can quickly dispel the main fear there. An explanation of what kind of experience is desired might help. First, in coming into a true Christian community they experience something. Perhaps not quite the high-powered charismatic experience you first imagined when used the word community.

Secondly, in worship they can experience the presence of God. I will never forget Danny, a truck driver who came to a small group I was leading. Every week during our worship time tears would run down his face. Danny was not a Christian, and told me after a few weeks he still didn’t understand much of my teaching (preachers love hearing that!), but he just felt such a wonderful presence of God when we sang.

The fourth way in which people experience God, is indeed through a personal encounter of some kind. One cannot organize those, but one can certainly pray for them to occur! And examples abound of people who have met Jesus Christ personally in some form or fashion, and come to Christ as a result!

The Story is forever

The second catch phrase is The Story is forever. Again, I think this can help us make a step forward in our apologetic.

Postmodern people love stories. They read stories, they watch stories, they tell stories. They see their lives as a story. They see their world as a story, with actors and actresses, heroes and villains, and plots with twists and turns. Of course they are seldom sure of the outcome, but they hope that their story will be one of the ‘happily-ever-after’ kind.

This story perspective was partly brought on by anthropologists. Anthropology is a relatively new field of scientific inquiry that sprung into life when we discovered that other cultures were not just primitive, not just waiting to be developed. We started seeing that other cultures had a richness to them. Anthropologists moved all over the globe, started living with tribes in the bush, thus immersing themselves in these cultures.

Then we started seeing commonalties between cultures. We saw that every culture had their own value-system, rooted in a myth. This myth, often historical, held tremendous power over its people. It explained their life, their behavior, their values and their beliefs. The myth itself, anthropologists suspected, was the product of generational story-telling, getting more significant and powerful with the passing of time. As such the story wasn’t absolutely true, but it was true in the sense that it held tremendous power over its people.

Initially many evangelicals resisted the idea that ultimately everything is a story. After all, we had the scriptures! We had a theologically-informed worldview that matched reality seamlessly (right?)! Until someone pointed out that the Bible is a story par excellence! Not only does it have stories, but is a story. It starts with the creation of the heavens and the earth, and it ends with the creation of the new heaven and earth. In between it tells the story of the redemption of man, the emergence of the Kingdom of God, and the inception of the Church, the Bride of Christ. If that is not a story, then what is?

Of course we agree that there is much theological understanding in the Bible. There is much talk of God, the spiritual world, moral behavior and purpose. But we should not forget that the book God gave us was not a treatise on systematic theology. The whole study of theology is in the end a delineation of principles and concepts that we have extracted from the Bible, and as such it should never take the place of the Bible itself!

In fact, as Christians we can agree with Anthropologists: the scriptures are the story of our community!

Our story has an eternal perspective. It starts with a God who has always been there, and who will always be there. It concerns itself with the here and now, and brings to our time focus and purpose. The story is not irrelevant to our time; it is forever, and it is current.

The time is now

I doubt very much that the Dreamworks marketing team meant anything else with this sentence than that everyone needs to go see this movie right now. And yet I think that their sense of urgency should be part of our apologetic. 

This story is relevant now. It has implications now. God is now. Grace is now! There is no time to waste. The Day is approaching. This is not a movie, this is real!

Conclusion

I believe every age needs its own apologetic. In this article I have attempted to construct one that was inspired by Dreamworks media campaign for a movie that is a take-off of scripture itself. Is it me, or is there something strange in that?

1. Brian McLaren, in his book Reinventing the Church, makes a statement that helps us better understand the postmodern view of truth. He writes: "I believe that postmoderns care about truth so much that they don’t want to pretend a subjective opinion or ‘view from a point’ is more than it really is. And they care about truth so much that they question the ability of language to convey it sufficiently." Brian McLaren, Reinventing Your Church (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1998) 173.

2. I have just finished reading Servant Evangelism by Steve Sjogren. This book outlines a simple but effective evangelistic strategy that is probably going to be quite helpful in the postmodern era. (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Servant Publications, 1993.

3. See Roy Wagner, "The Idea of Culture", The Truth about the Truth, ed. Walter Truett Anderson. (Putnam Books, New York, 1995.) 53-57.

4. Brian McLaren, Reinventing Your Church (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1998) 71-85.

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Rogier Bos and his wife Sophie live in Palm Desert, CA. They come from Amsterdam, the Netherlands. They hope to return to Europe later this year to be involved in church planting and leadership. Rogier is currently finishing a M.A. degree in world-evangelization. Rogier is the editor of NEXT WAVE.

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