Going Missional

As a leader in the Gospel and our Culture Network, George Hunsberger set forth four trajectories of self-awareness for the missional church:

1. “We own our cultural-ness, our own culture.” We join with our secular neighbors in living
within the particularities of the American culture.
2. “We have the habit of continuous conversion.”
3. “We are a living demonstration of the gospel.” More than rational proof, secularized
people want to see whether it is possible to live by the mandates of Christian discipleship.
4. “We structure our lives around being a sent community instead of a vendor of services.”
For many churches, this involves a fundamental shift in identity, pastoral leadership habits,
community formation, and orientation to the church’s mission.

This comes from an essay entitled Preaching in the Missional Church by Ervin R. Stutzman of the Eastern Mennonite Seminary. The essay is around 17 pages of pdf file, and full of interesting insights into the concept of 'going missional'.

Christians and culture

Marshall Shelley, writing from the most recent Catalyst Conference, sends these notes:

Three forms of interaction with culture:
--Separate from that world. “Fight the enemy.” (Theologically, Christians who take this position focus on Fall and Redemption)
--Become like the culture. “Cultural Christians” blend in, becoming indistinguishable from their surrounding culture. (Theologically, their focus is Creation and doing good deeds.)
--Restoration. Pursue being holy and pure in a fallen world, AND restoring culture. (Theologically, this means Fall, Redemption, AND the Restoration of all things--“all things are become new,” the ministry of reconciliation.) These people are not just critics but creators of a new culture. See a role in the bringing of the kingdom of God to earth.

It would be easy to criticise the first two as being insufficiently Christian. That may not necessarily be the case.

Stepping out of the Shadows

I've realised that lately I've been missing adding books to this blog - they've been going in the monthly ezine (contact me on missionadmin@maxnet.co.nz to opt into this ezine) but not always here. So I'm making amends.

Stepping out of the shadows: Insight into self-stigma and madness, Edited by Dr Debbie Peterson and Sarah Gordon.
Contributors: Dr Debbie Peterson, Mary O'Hagan, Sarah Gordon, Dr Lynne Pere, Anne Helm, Vito Nonumalo, Dr Dean Manley, Ivan Yeo, Sarah O'Connor, Dennis Duerr, Niki Smith, Ruth Jackson and Alex Barnes.

This is a book of articles, essays and personal accounts about the effects of the self-stigma associated with mental illness. It is a moving collection of personal viewpoints and insights interspersed with research findings and linkages on the topic of self-stigma and madness. Of particular note is the Discrimination Intervention Model as presented by Dr Debbie Peterson and Alex Barnes for the first time on a world stage.

Sometimes it is difficult to read - not in being too wordy or academic, but in the way that some of the stories reflect very personal instances of tremendous physical, mental, psychological and spiritual anguish associated with self-stigma and madness. The articles written by Dr Lynne Pere, Vito Nonumalo and Ivan Yeo, offer for the first time material from tangata whaiora/ people with lived experience who are not from the dominant culture in this country. There is also highlighted focus on cultural realities, constructs and perspectives on this kaupapa of the indigenous people of Aotearoa, Pacific/ Samoan and Chinese/ Malaysian people in an in-depth way.

Published by CASE Consulting Ltd 2009. Available direct from Mental Health Organisation NZ (doesn’t appear to be available in general NZ bookshops).

Changing face of Priesthood

On the Prodigal Kiwi site a few days ago there was a post in which Jemma Allen reflects on her first ten years as a priest, and looks at what's changed. The post starts with a list of points:

1. The changing face of priesthood (while she reflects on her journey, and it’s changes; the bigger picture is that the role of the priest has changed).
2. What distinguishes a priest when you take away the clerical clothing?
3. The importance of “time for you”; of time for the other.
4. The priority of listening, and of being with others (especially outside of a congregational contexts – Jemma is a University Chaplain).
5. What happens to priesthood when you take away what is regarded as a central function of priesthood – officiating at the Eucharistic table…? The role of priest as “gatherer” is often used to describe this function – they gather a congregation around the central act of worship. What happens to ones identity as "priest" when your context and activity is beyond the edges of a more traditional parish context? What function and role does priestly identity and gifting serve outside of the congregational context?
6. The importance of subverting cultural measures of effectiveness: “busyness” and “productivity”. The importance of offering an alternative way of being in the world.
7. The recognition (albeit, implicitly) that the cultural landscape has changed markedly. As Alan Roxburgh is fond of saying, we live in an “unthinkable world” and there is a need to see “with different eyes”. For me, this includes how we see the contemporary role of the priest, a role that is at once ancient and future, although in contemporary contexts too often the emphasis is on the “ancient” rather than on the “future” and the missional formation of priests.

The post continues with some further reflections on the priesthood - and the way in which, being a University Chaplain, her views of the priesthood have had to change. (Since these words were taken directly from Anna's own blog, I've given the link for that. You might just like to explore it a little fur)

Imagination and Culture

Kevin Vanhoozer, editor of Everyday Theology: how to read cultural texts and interpret trends (Baker Academic, 2007) and professor of theology at Wheaton College Graduate School in Illinois talks in an (abridged) interview on Leadership Journal.net about the need for preachers to preach with the culture in mind, exegeting it as well as exegeting the Scripture texts. Some preachers do this as a matter of course; some get more tied up in 'topics' than in text, but there is a need to get a good balance.

One of the more important things Vanhoozer says is this:

Imagination is the ability to grasp things together in a meaningful pattern. Imagination is at work when a scientist develops a hypothesis that enables her to see how something causes something else. We all do that. We all look at the world with a framework of belief and interpretation, and that happens on the level of the imagination. The question is, are we doing it with biblical categories or are we just following cultural templates?

Preachers should not only be trying to take every thought captive to God's Word, but also every imagination. The imagination is the core out of which we live. The problem with culture is how it captures our imaginations through indirect communication. We can spot direct anti-Christian communication; that's easy. It's the indirect propaganda that's harder to spot.

(My emphasis in the above quotation.) The full version of th interview and Preaching Today's review of Kevin Vanhoozer's book, Everyday Theology, is available at www.preachingtoday.com
(However, you have to subscribe to this to read it.)

The Next Evangelicalism

The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity, by Soong-Chan Rah.

This book, critical as it is of American white evangelicalism (and therefore also of NZ white evangelicals) sparks a strong critical review from one Amazon writer, an Assemblies of God pastor. His biggest concern is that Korean-born Rah sees the white culture as one big negative. For him, Rah forgets the very many strong and positive traits of Western civilisation, and lumps all white Christians together as one homogenous group.

That aside, however, he has some good things to say about the book, and admits that in spite of its ‘flaws’ it points out something that is needing to be said in regard to the group that is 60% of the world’s Christian community: the Africans, the Asians and the Latin Americans.

“No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't escape the conclusion that Rah - to a significant degree - is right. The American evangelical church is declining, or at least its Anglo component is. But as Rah points out, the non-Anglo component of the American evangelical church is thriving. This is true in my own denomination, the Assemblies of God.

“…the Anglo evangelical church in America declining, it is guilty - in various parts and to varying degrees - of practicing an individualistic, consumerist, materialistic, and racist form of Christianity. Why do we focus on personal evangelism rather than also on social transformation? Why do we think the three B's - buildings, bucks, and butts in the pew - are indicators of a church's success, if that's even an appropriate word for a church to use? And why do we presume that non-white culture is a mission field that needs our contributions and competence, rather than the other way around?”

To sum up, “correction does not mean the total negation of the one culture nor the total affirmation of the others. It requires a balancing off of weaknesses and strengths.”

Coming apart at the seams...

More than once, Dunedin City Baptist (the church I attend) has provided separate services for young adults (including students through to thirty-year-olds and older). Almost invariably, they've come apart at the seams. The latest edition is just about to come to an end, due to dwindling numbers.

Interestingly enough, Collin Hansen is writing about the same topic on the Out of Ur blog this week, and noting that churches that have set up separate Gen X services have generally come a cropper at some point. Part of the problem, of course, is that Gen X people eventually grow up.

But the bigger issue is that building a service around a separate 'culture' just makes it plain difficult to encourage these people into the main 'culture' whenever that time arrives. DCBC has been fortunate that many of the young people go to the main service in the morning anyway, so they're reasonably well engrafted into the church as a whole. But many other churches have never managed to integrate these younger people into their (whole) church, and at the end of the day, these people drift off, who knows where.

Here's one of the best quotes from the article, from Dan Kimball: "I feel that if we can see church as the people, and not just define church by the worship gathering, a lot would be solved in bridging generations," Kimball said. "We could focus more on the older mentoring the younger, the older opening their homes and being sages and guides to the younger. Instead we focus so much on getting the twenty-somethings into the main worship gathering. But just sitting in a room for an hour and half looking at the backs of everyone's heads does not make something intergenerational."

It takes no effort to agree with this. My boss has a saying: the whole church resourcing the whole church. This applies here, too: the whole church, young and old, serving/resourcing the whole church, young and old. The young have gifts, the old have gifts. Let's share them around, rather than separate them off.

After McDonaldization

After McDonaldization: Mission, Ministry, and Christian Discipleship in an Age of Uncertainty, by John Drane.

John Drane's acclaimed "The McDonaldization of the Church" identified the catastrophic trend of Western churches offering uninventive, pre-packaged worship to dwindling congregations. Since its publication, church attendance has continued to decline even though increasing numbers of people are searching for spiritual integrity and turning to "spirituality."

In "After McDonaldization," Drane argues that the continuing impact of globalization and consumerism has been joined by a post-9/11 culture of fear and a search for truth. He asks what it means to be Christian in a post-Christendom context. Where are today's mission opportunities, the places where God is at work? In our fragmented society, how should Christian community be shaped? And what values might inspire the leaders of the twenty-first century?

As he addresses key questions for Western Christianity in a global context, Drane presents a case for a more practical theology, a reinvigorated style of ministry, and a restatement of classic Christian beliefs for the twenty-first century. "To continue as we are may be comfortable, but could also be institutionally suicidal," writes Drane. "Our options are simple. We either do nothing, and the decline continues, or we ask fundamental questions and take whatever steps may be necessary to re-imagine church life."

By way of advance notice...

I've just become aware of the following conference:
World Wide Scripture Engagement Consultation

Hearts Burning: Exploring Scripture Engagement for the 21st Century

Sunday 4 - Friday 9 October, 2009

Melaka, Malaysia

Sponsor: Forum of Bible Agencies International

Just some of the topics being looked at are:

• Unlocking the Bible in a non-book culture
• Contextualising Scripture in cultures condemned as irredeemable
• Building bridges between HIV and AIDS and the Bible
• Using poetic storytelling and music in helping people encounter Scripture
• Engaging visually with Scripture
• Creating safe and sacred spaces for young people
• Building interpersonal biblical conversations among lay people
• Helping pastors overcome the “Big Man” syndrome through participatory learning
• How NOT to impose prejudice and cultural assumptions on engagement
• “Open source” on-line engagement resources
• The challenge of Scripture Engagement among believers in secret

A good number of workshops are already in place, under the following four headings (click on any one of them for further information):

• Scripture Engagement in Churches
• Scripture Engagement among Marginalized Peoples
• Scripture Engagement among Children and Youth
• Scripture Engagement in Post-Christian Societies

In the last of those four, Mark Brown and Stephen Opie, from the NZ Bible Society, will both be involved.

For details about all other aspects of the conference, click here.

Where does the food come from, Mummy?

As they see it, agriculture is not an industry on the periphery of modern civilization. It is a fundamental act that determines whether we as a society will live or die. What binds these [farmers] is not a particular farming method, but rather the conviction that as humans, the contributions they make are essential.... In quiet ways, in quiet places, they have set about correcting the damage that has come from believing agriculture could actually be reduced to numbers alone. The first step: reclaim their place in the center of the equation.

A quote from Lisa M. Hamilton's book: Deeply Rooted


This quote came to me via the daily ezine, Culture is not optional

When the trees bend in the forest, there is always a reason

Two reports are now available online regarding the mental health of Pasifika people living in New Zealand. The first reports on a mental health study over the period 2003/4, so no doubt there have been some changes since the study was done.

The second has a particular focus on the first dedicated Pacific child, adolescent and family mental health service in Porirua, which was established in 2005

Exploration of Pacific perspectives of Pacific models of mental health service delivery in New Zealand, by T. Suaalli-Sauni and others.
This report was first published this year in the Pacific Health Dialog, volume 15, number 1, and summarizes the 2004 study, 'Pacific Models of Mental Health Service Delivery in New Zealand' which looked at concerns about the mental health of Pacific Islanders in New Zealand, and the way in which the various Pacific Island groups are not being well catered for in the general health system. There is discussion of the ways in which mental health has been dealt with traditionally, and how to a degree this still suits the older generation. However, it is not longer ‘a neat fit’ for the younger people.
Another issue is the fact of very different cultural viewpoints amongst the range of Pacific Islanders living in the country. One model will not suit all. There has already been a good deal of work done to bring traditional models together with contemporary viewpoints, and the study acknowledges the part Christianity plays in the lives of Pacific Island people.

Development of a child, adolescent and family mental health service for Pacific young people in Aotearoa/New Zealand, by Allister Bush and others.
While there is a mixed PI population in the Porirua area, the report tends to focus on the Samoan people and their approaches to children and family in the mental health context. This perhaps gives it a more specialised focus than it might otherwise have, but it also helps to show that each Island group needs to be addressed in a different way. This report has a number of 'stories' of different children and families that have been helped by the service.

Neither of these reports is long, but each of them gives considerable insight into the cultural needs of people groups that are now an established part of New Zealand's multicultural makeup. And there are many insights into the way in which we 'palangi' need to be aware of Pasifika traditions, spirituality and behaviours.

Link to the photo's original site

Power/less

When God acts in culture, he uses both the powerful and the powerless alongside one another rather than using one against the other. To mobilize the powerless against the powerful would be revolution; to mobilize the powerful against the powerless would simply confirm "the way of the world." But to bring them into partnership is the true sign of God's paradoxical and graceful intervention into the human story.

Andy Crouch
Culture Making

Check out a shortish review of this book in an earlier post.

Colin Greene

“…I firmly believe God is raising up a new generation of prophets and visionaries who are what I call ‘brokers of a new reality’. In other words they really want to know what is going on in our world on all kinds of levels, politically, economically, spiritually and culturally. They want to know what are the contours of the cultural space we presently inhabit and they want to be able to celebrate what is good about that process of rapid globalization, as well as critique what is dangerous and reckless about it. As an Anglican I want the Anglican church in the West to stop re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic and accept that the Christendom ship is now sinking very quickly and will soon be gone below the waves of rapid fundamental change and innovation. The Anglican Church requires a new missional imagination and to do that it must re-engage with the biblical narrative in such a way that it can discover new ways of being church among the cultural refugee’s and spiritual seekers of our generation…”

Colin Greene, author of Metavista: Bible, Church and Mission in an Age of Imagination (Faith in an Emerging Culture Series)

Alan Hirsch calls this book: Well written, theologically stimulating, meticulously researched, and will no doubt be an authoritative text in its genre. But the best thing about Metavista is that it is simply great missiology in the Newbigin tradition.

Newbigin on the Net

Via a blog leading to another blog leading to a link, I came across the Newbigin.net site this morning. Lesslie Newbigin is one of the best-known mission thinkers of the 20th century and we can boast a direct connection to him through one of the people working in this office. (What's that about six degrees of separation?)

Here's the information about the site:

Newbigin.Net is a dynamic searchable database concerned with the writings and life of Bishop J.E. Lesslie Newbigin. It includes both a comprehensive bibliography of his writings and a wide-ranging collection of texts written by him - over two hundred in all. It also contains some significant interactions with his thought.

Newbigin.Net provides researchers with extensive tools for the in-depth study of Newbigin's thought, including such areas as the theology of mission, ecumenism, and "Gospel and Culture".The website contains the full text of many hard-to-find or previously unpublished items.

A DVD titled "Bishop Newbigin in India" is now available. Containing 72 slides, it includes commentary by Lesslie Newbigin describing mission and ministry in the Church of South India. Produced and mastered at World Mission, Church of Scotland, from feature material assembled by Time Life Magazine about 1958. May be ordered by email from: Rev’d Murdoch Mackenzie or by snail mail from: "Torridon", 4 Ferryfield Road, Connel-by-Oban, Argyll PA37 1SR, UK.

Why not celebrate?

Last month I wrote about an article by Mark Judge on a spontaneous celebration of music at the NEA Heritage Awards. The following letter to Books and Culture magazine affirms the value of such celebration and wonders why the Church doesn't celebrate her own artistic heritage. The letter was written by artist Makoto Fujimura

I was delighted to read the article "A Holy Joy" by Mark Judge about the NEA Heritage Award celebration at the Strathmore Music Center. As a National Council member for the last six years, I have seen these small miracles regularly in the proceedings of the endowment, and the story of the turnaround of the NEA itself is miraculous, made possible by the visionary and faithful leadership of Dana Gioia, a former business executive and a nationally recognized poet.

As Judge noted, the arts can surprise us by giving us a glimpse into the transcendent: This influence into the broader culture is precisely why the church needs to continue to encourage her congregants to preserve, create, and celebrate culture. Instead of merely complaining about or boycotting art, we need to create art that reflects our values and faith, undergirding freedom and commonwealth, the twin engines of democracy. Many times, listening to the grant reports of the NEA's remarkable staff—experts in music, literature, visual arts, media, dance, and education—I have come away with a renewed conviction that the church could very well lead in the conversation on diversity, excellence, and transcendent art. But the reality is that the church seldom celebrates her own heritage, honors her artists, or gives public acknowledgement of her legacy. I hope that this article will encourage all readers to experience the arts in their own local arenas and, most important, recognize and champion the artists in their own congregations. Perhaps we can even go further and celebrate artists outside our faith perspective, to give recognition to the common-grace splendor of our God, who is himself an artist.

Randall Prior

The keynote speaker at this year's Presbyterian General Assembly (in Wellington, New Zealand) was Randall Prior. Randall focuses a good deal on Gospel and Culture, on Church and the Future. In his addresses to the PCANZ, he spoke specifically about the Future of the Church. Although his talk had some Australian focuses, it was very applicable to the New Zealand scene (and in fact, to a much wider scene). You can download the talks here, or obtain them as audio files.

In one of the footnotes to his second talk, he notes: In my view there is still some considerable ‘dying’ of the present form of the church yet to take place. It is not a simple matter to anticipate a future shape of the church but the indications are that the church’s place in Australian [for Australian read, New Zealand, USA, UK - anywhere else where institutional churches are struggling] society will be:
as one faith group in a society of several faiths and religions;
the church will be marginal to the main interests and activities of our society;
there will be a diversity of forms and styles of church life;
congregations may be increasingly dependent on lay leadership;
there may be little interest among church people in denominational loyalty; there will be fewer resources to maintain the structures and activities and buildings which we have known in the past; for some church communities, there may be only a loose connection with buildings.

It would probably be unwise to takes these notes alone, without reading the rest of the talk, particularly because Prior is talking of the Future of the Church, not its death.

Making It New

In his review of Andy Crouch's new book, Culture Making: recovering our creative calling, Gideon Strauss writes:

[Andy] Crouch argues that American Christians adopted broadly four stances in relation to culture during the course of the 20th century, in each case taking an appropriate gesture toward certain elements of culture and inappropriately expanding it into a comprehensive posture toward the common culture in general. While some cultural products (like sex trafficking) demand outright condemnation from Christians, a posture of condemnation fails to account for the goodness of culture, warps Christian testimony to hope and mercy, facilitates hypocrisy, and—particularly in response to artistic works—comes across as "shrill and silly." Critique, by contrast, is an entirely appropriate response to works of art, the more so the better the art. But a posture of critique diminishes the delight to be taken in many good products of culture, and encourages a certain kind of cultural passivity that overemphasizes analysis and underappreciates participation and production. A pot of tea, a loaf of bread—the best first response to these is savoring consumption. But a posture of consumption limits us to living "unthinkingly within a culture's preexisting horizons of possibility and impossibility." Consumerism is capitulation to the existing culture at a deep level, allowing our very identity to be defined by what we can purchase. Copying from a culture is, at best, a recognition of "the lesson of Pentecost that every human language, every human cultural form, is capable of bearing the good news." But copying as a posture produces inauthentic, dated, and tame results.

Instead, Crouch says, the cultural postures Christians should adopt are those of cultivation and creation. Cultivators are "people who tend and nourish what is best in human culture, who do the hard and painstaking work to preserve the best of what people before us have done." And creators are "people who dare to think and do something that has never been thought or done before, something that makes the world more welcoming and thrilling and beautiful."

Andy Crouch has a blog site, also called Culture Making

GloboChrist

GloboChrist: The Great Commission Takes a Postmodern Turn (The Church and Postmodern Culture) by Carl Rashke.
Here's what the blurb on the book says:

The rise of the Internet and the proliferation of digital technologies have profoundly affected the world; it is not only smaller but also more interconnected. What role does the church play in this multimedia-dominated globe?

In GloboChrist, Carl Raschke tackles the subjects of globalization, postmodernism, and information technology and their impact on missions and evangelism. In addition, he addresses the role that Christianity plays in an increasingly pluralistic world, providing concrete strategies for confronting the challenges. In short, GloboChrist helps Christians respond to the tectonic shifts of the twenty-first century.

"GloboChrist is the unconventional title of an intriguing inquiry into postmodern patterns and ideas and the challenge to mission. The book is a confident statement for these uncertain times, a troubling of the waters that will stir complacent Christians in their assumption."--Lamin Sanneh, Yale University

"For those who have tried to follow the intricacies (and vagaries) of postmodern thought to find out what it can tell us of the night, this vigorously discerning volume offers a glimpse of the global dawn. Drawing on many resources and a focused evangelical faith, Raschke lays out a case for a Christian perspective on globalization as a dynamic development that opens reconstructive (post-deconstructive) possibilities for pursuing the Great Commission. Globalization is not essentially an economic issue. The 'GloboChrist' is sweeping the world in a post-postmodern way in spite of militant Islamism, Christian fundamentalism, modernist liberalism, and secular economism. This is the best book on globalization I have read by an overtly Christian thinker. It complements and challenges my own efforts to discern theologically what is at stake in globalization."--Max L. Stackhouse, Princeton Theological Seminary; author, Globalization and Grace

"I'd hoped to give GloboChrist a quick read, but after picking it up I simply couldn't put it down; it is elegant, clear, and provocative. Raschke not only helps us see Christ and mission afresh in our hi-tech, pluralistic, postmodern, and global context but also equips us with engagement strategies."--Dwight J. Friesen, Mars Hill Graduate School, Seattle

Andrew Jones writes very positively about it on his blog - he's planning on using it at a missional entrepreneurs meeting he's holding in Europe next week.

Wasting money on short term missions?

Andrew Jones on Tall Skinny Kiwi tackles the issue: Are Short Term Missions a Waste of Money?

I've been inclined to think they are, but Andrew makes ten points mostly in favour of short term missions, obviously feeling that the gains outweigh the losses. I've just given the beginnings of each point. You'll find the rest on his site.

1. Short term missions might be an expensive past-time but if they are a far better alternative to overseas vacations and holidays.

2. A cross cultural experience, even if only for a week, is good training for a career in overseas social enterprise or preparation for long term missions.

3. The fall in number of long term missionaries worries me but I am encouraged by the number of missionaries being sent out by the global south.

4. We should send out young people for longer periods of time.

5. Short term mission should be more relational.

6. Missions today is multi-directional and it is a mistake to talk about missions only in terms of our country sending missionaries to others.

7. Pilgrimages and self-guided mission experiences sometimes offer a better posture of learning and receiving hospitality than traditional short term missions.

8. Churches must stay involved in both sending overseas missionaries or they will lose their vision within one generation.

9. Partnering with an established mission organization is a good way to get some cross-cultural sensitivity training for the team.

10. And lets not forget the massive resource we have with retired missionaries now living back home.

So are we postmodern or not?

It isn't always worth quoting things out of context, but hopefully the following few paragraphs will give you enough of William Lane Craig's argument to get the point. (You can read the whole article: God is Not Dead Yet here.)

...Don't we live in a postmodern culture in which appeals to such apologetic arguments are no longer effective? Rational arguments for the truth of theism are no longer supposed to work. Some Christians therefore advise that we should simply share our narrative and invite people to participate in it.

This sort of thinking is guilty of a disastrous misdiagnosis of contemporary culture. The idea that we live in a postmodern culture is a myth. In fact, a postmodern culture is an impossibility; it would be utterly unlivable. People are not relativistic when it comes to matters of science, engineering, and technology; rather, they are relativistic and pluralistic in matters of religion and ethics. But, of course, that's not postmodernism; that's modernism! That's just old-line verificationism, which held that anything you can't prove with your five senses is a matter of personal taste. We live in a culture that remains deeply modernist.

Otherwise, how do we make sense of the popularity of the New Atheism? Dawkins and his ilk are indelibly modernist and even scientistic in their approach. On the postmodernist reading of contemporary culture, their books should have fallen like water on a stone. Instead, people lap them up eagerly, convinced that religious belief is folly.

Seen in this light, tailoring our gospel to a postmodern culture is self-defeating. By laying aside our best apologetic weapons of logic and evidence, we ensure modernism's triumph over us. If the church adopts this course of action, the consequences in the next generation will be catastrophic. Christianity will be reduced to but another voice in a cacophony of competing voices, each sharing its own narrative and none commending itself as the objective truth about reality. Meanwhile, scientific naturalism will continue to shape our culture's view of how the world really is.