How about you? Do you know how to make the good news relevant? Do you know how to communicate to people to whom the gospel seems alien? How do you talk about Jesus Christ to . . .
Itâs easy to quote âGod so loved the world . . . ,â but what do the words mean? What can you say that will make sense to these people in their everyday lives?
REALISM IS ESSENTIAL
To begin with, we must be realistic about the world we live in. Times are changing faster than ever before in history. Although Jesus Christ remains the same yesterday, today and forever, these changes significantly color the attitudes and receptivity of those to whom we witness.
My generation grew up playing cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, paper dolls and store. Todayâs children live their lives with a ceaseless background of TV while playing out elaborate fantasies with âsupernaturals,â ghosts and transformers. As they get older, children are becoming all but submerged in an ocean of video games and electronic music.
Todayâs adults have their own sets of electronic toys; each year new ones arrive, outdating last yearâs. In addition, the information explosion has turned the entire world into a single âglobal villageâ and given everyone a front seat at major events around the world. As a result people are exposed to a cafeteria of cultures and mores; all they have to do is choose what to believe. Along with this, the ever-present media spew out images of a future of genetic mapping, brain-code exploration and âgreen machinesâ to produce food from sunlight and air alone. Far and away the most universal change in recent years has been the computerization and miniaturization of every area of life.
But while we have made quantum leaps in our hopes to mold and conquer the universe, the future of civilization seems less and less certain. Is it inevitable that nuclear war will wipe out the whole human race? Will environmental damage threaten the future habitability of the earth? Or will the spread of AIDS bring slow, painful death even if we conquer other threats? And what is the future of the disintegrating American family?
All this reminds us of the little boyâs statement, âIf I live to be a man, Iâll . . .â Inherent in his statement is the crucial question, Will we all survive and will America make it? Until recently, the trend has been to turn to the gee-whiz wonders of science and technology. High tech is everywhere we lookâin the factory, office and home. Its plastic, miracle-working boxes have seduced us into thinking that technology can solve everything. But the truth is, it fails in the most crucial aspect, our need for personal concern and touch. We cannot live by technology alone! Nor can our obsessive consumerism bring hoped-for solace. As a film star once observed, âHow many toasters can one person use?â
Now an alarming number of people are looking for honest answers in the new self-help or human potential movements. On close inspection, these are far from innocent twenty-four-hour cures. They promise personal effectiveness and motivational training through Eastern-influenced âmind controlâ techniques that on the surface appear harmless. Underneath, their values are alien to Christianity. In their groups they spin tales about past lives by using trance channelers, mantras and divining crystals while their Hindu and occultist roots go undetected. Along with this they foster moral anarchy, each person seeking his own truth, blithely bypassing Godâs revealed truth. Philosophically, their base is monism; we are all gods, humanity is god and all religions are one. The fact that the movement has attracted so many followers reveals a yawning vacuum in the lives of people who are reaching and searching for a possible source of salvation.
Salvation? From what? Loneliness and isolation is the answer we hear from young people. In the sixties, young people began their search with demonstrations and revolutions. They hoped to find meaning in doing their own thing. In the seventies, a spent generation turned into the narcissistic âmeâ generation. And that spawned the generation of the eighties which seems to be content, by and large, with a materialistic, value-free society.
Listen to a description of the university world of this decade:
Almost every student entering university believes or says he believes that truth is relative. They fear not error, but intolerance. They ask, âWhat right do I or anyone else have to say one (culture or religion) is better than another?â . . . Spiritual entropy or an evaporation of the soulâs boiling blood is taking place. . . . Respect for the sacred, real religion and knowledge of the Bible have diminished to the vanishing point.1
This comes not from an evangelical preacher but from University of Chicago professor Allan Bloom.
This spiritual entropy, as Bloom puts it, has penetrated every level of our society. For instance, American high school students have all but stated that for them, celebrity counts for everything. A 1987 World Almanac poll listed their ten heroes. In order of preference the winners were Bill Cosby, Sylvester Stallone, Eddie Murphy, Ronald Reagan, Chuck Norris, Clint Eastwood, Molly Ringwald, Rob Lowe, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Don Johnson.2 With the exception of President Ronald Reagan, they are all entertainers or actors. For the high schoolers, the conclusion is unmistakable: if you are not famous (or not in show business), you are nothing. And the implication is that they also admire and would like to imitate their lifestyles.
Adults are not immune to this spiritual entropy either. Time magazineâs cover story of May 25, 1987, tells of more than a hundred government officials who have ethical or legal charges against them. Time also named Wall Street pinstriped millionaires who are under indictment for illegally manipulating millions of dollars to their own benefit. Besides that, Time describes an appalling list of marines, televangelists and presidential candidates indicted or dethroned because of illicit relationships. The writers of Time (not the preachers) headline their story with âWhatever happened to ethics?â
Students, Ph.D.âs, blue-collar and white-collar workers, parents, doctors, statesmen, your neighbors and mine are all mired in the same bog of shifting values.
Todayâs adults
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are hard-working.
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are struggling for financial security.
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can be generous and helpful to neighbors.
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make pleasure and leisure priorities.
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are committed to causes that generally line up with their self-interests.
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hate to be patronized.
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can easily detect a hidden agenda in relationships.
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will resist high pressure from any group.
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if single, may flock to bars for human contact and solace.
Religiously, these adults
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see science as more reliable than religion.
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consider Christianityâs claim to uniqueness to be bigoted in the extreme.
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find their moral certainty has either shifted downward or vanished entirely.
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believe psychology probably has as many answers as religion.
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view God as a stern judge or a benign, distant grandfather.
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believe God is probably irrelevant to their existence.
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rarely see the Bible as a source of help.
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vaguely wonder if there isnât some truth to the new cults.
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see Christians as judgmental killjoys.
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will quickly point to the hypocrisy of so-called people of God on TV who bilk money from supporters.
These same adults
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if graduating from college, fear that they wonât find a job.
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worry about the risks of marital commitments.
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doubt that their family relationships will ever be stable and satisfying.
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are tempted to abandon traditional values.
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face relentless competition for success.
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fear that they will be part of the grim statistics of people pushed out of their jobs after age forty.
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wonder if they will lose their looks and be rejected.
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worry that old age will find them alone and disabled.
This picture, although not comprehensive, is not pretty. It describes, nonetheless, the kind of soil in which we sow the truth of Jesus Christ. These trends and pressures affect Christians as well as those who have not yet trusted Jesus Christ. Furthermore, I have not intended to imply by this picture that Christians are a holy breed free from any flaws. Far from it! We, too, can be caught up by the same pressures and cultural drifts.
