No clothes
“The Knowing God Personally Booklet is our Bread and Butter”
The modern campus ministry is rooted in the training and use of the KGP to share the “cliff notes” of the Bible with those on beaches and dorm halls.
However, in a post modern culture this method will prove to be less and less culturally relevant and effective. It is not that the approach has become merely unfashionable, needing better graphic design or that the messengers have become less dedicated and courageous needing to just “step out in faith” more often “sharing the booklet and leaving the results to God”.
In fact, the booklet is truly very culturally modern in its approach.
Bill Bright very effectively communicated to his culture, but the west has changed. The booklet offers a rational approach to salvation as it leads you through a logical progression:
1) God Loves You…God gave Jesus so you would have life, abundant life.
2) Man is sinful…You can not experience this life because of your sin.
3) God’s provision…Jesus died on the cross to pay for your sin so you could experience this life.
4) Your response…you must individually receive Jesus to experience this life and God’s plan.
“The modern perspective emphasizes the rational aspect of faith and individual understanding of God. Belief grows out of knowledge and knowledge grows out of study and observation. Modernism seeks to prove the existence of God; but this discussion ultimately relegates God to an idol or a mere concept. Proof uses positively what conceptual atheism uses negatively…in both cases, human discourse determines God.”
Jean-Luc Marion, God Without Being
One concern I have with the modern approach to evangelism is that though a person may understand the "legal" transactions that needed to occur for our attonement of sin...and our "legal" need to place our faith in Christ...they may very well complete this transaction and be one to whom Christ would say, "I never knew you".
As I read more and more about reaching a postmodern generation, I feel as though I have a front row seat watching the Emperor’s New Clothes, or that I am the emperor. What I mean is that we are proudly marching on the college campuses with our tracts and everyone else knows what we are “wearing” (“invisible fabric”=naked) and that it isn’t what postmoderns want. It isn’t that some of these people, believers or not, don’t want Jesus…they don’t want a sales pitch and a booklet (even if in our hearts this isn’t what we are doing – this is what is communicated). This may seem harsh, but it is painful for a postmodern to go out on campus knowing they are essentially wearing nothing…and that their method is actually a barrier for other post moderns to knowing Jesus. Of course, sharing the gospel is a vulnerable thing…but I am speaking of the method when I speak of feeling “naked”, it feels humiliating because it feels inauthentic.
A postmodern needs a relational approach to becoming a believer and disciple of Christ. When I say relational, I do not mean simply, “friendship evangelism” or the “relational model” of evangelism. What I am referring to is introducing a person to the person of Jesus Christ, His story, His teachings, His friendship, His position, His Kingdom, His place in the God Head. Jesus said “I am the way…” The emphasis is on faith in the Person of Christ, rather than principles of Christianity and a list a propositions (even if valid).
posted by Melinda at
4:36 PM
3 Comments:
Hmm...yeah, there certainly is a problem with understanding sin, either the seriousness of it or it's existence altogether, depending on how much the person is a product of the current post-modern culture or the modern one.
Tim Keller, a pastor in New York City commented on this, and I think it is spot on when it comes to discussing sin with people. He said that when he talks to someone from his generation, say 40 and up, about sin being "not morally perfect" or "missing the mark", they get it. But when he talks to someone of the current generation, it just doesn't make sense to them b/c "morals are relative" and "whose to say whose 'mark' you should be hitting anyway". Instead, Keller says, he finds that when he discusses sin in terms of idolatry, looking to activities, relationships, achievments, cool stuff, to make you a whole or valuable person and exalting those things as your "savior" or "life-center", people look at him and say "oh". They get it.
I cut the rest of this reply for the sake of length and put it on my own blog. blogkerby.blogspot.com.
:)
Hey everyone... just a post-crusade missiological geek here.
As far as people's assesment of the problem in sharing christ with pomo-people i agree whole heartedly.
I would be interested with some thoughts leaning towards a solution that that doesn't deny the essence of Campus Crusade.
My largest concern is that content is lost in the contexualization. I see many pomo-evangelists and pastors talking about the Kingdom without the King (Jesus). Talking about communal pilgramages in faith without talking about personal sin and salvation. People hearing the stories of others but not being faithful to plug in the gospel.
I would like to hear how we can remain faithul but contextualize the essense of making Christ-Centered-Laborers.
Also, what kind of resources have you found helpful in thinking about campus ministry on a pomo-campus?
"it feels humiliating because it feels inauthentic." -"that's dirty."
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