After Samir

Wisdom is so kind and wise that wherever you may look you can learn some thing about God. Why would not the omnipresent teach that way?"[10]

I did it! I invited my new friend to come to an evangelistic meeting. Mark was a thoughtful and generous man. I admired him and wanted him to begin his journey of faith and to come to love God as I do.

Every night, the evangelist conducted a question and answer session. He glided smoothly through the cards, each one with a question about God, the Bible, or faith. These were questions people had submitted the previous day. The evangelist's confidence was impressive. He tackled the most difficult questions with the conviction of a person who has mastered his subject. The highlight of the evening was the sermon that followed, presented with air-tight arguments.

As we walked out of the auditorium I felt triumphant. But Mark was strangely quiet. Restless to hear about his experience, I broke the silence, "So, what did you think?"

Mark slowed down his walk, glanced into my eyes and said, "He seems to have God in his pocket. He has an answer to every question. He has no doubts, no confusion, and no awe. I do want to believe in God, but his god is too small. Something is missing. I felt no wind in his soul."[15]

God who cannot be mastered

In Isaiah 55, the prophet addresses God's people who have all the information about God. But, unknowingly their souls are hungry and thirsty for a deeper faith. So, God rattles their self-confidence declaring, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, and neither are your ways my ways. ... As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:9). In other words, "Don't assume you can master Me!"

God is a mystery. Job asks, "Can you fathom the mysteries of God?" (Job 11:7). In this world God is not as obvious as we often claim He is. Instead, what we do know has a way of creating more roads for our thoughts to travel on in discovery of still more baffling questions.

Bono of U2, in his introduction to the book Selections From the Book of Psalms, puts it this way: "How do you explain a love and logic at the heart of the universe when the world is out of whack?"[20] The predicament of being a creature is that we simply don't have all the answers.

We live in the kingdom of God, and that kingdom was especially ushered in with the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But although real and powerful, the presence of the kingdom of God and the actions of God's spirit are hidden, small like a mustard seed (Mt. 13:31) and invisible like a wind. (John 3:8)

Dancing with God

All told, however, there are distinct advantages to being a human being before a mysterious God.

First, because God is a mystery, we have deeper lives. There is more depth to phenomena such as friendship, art, motherhood, or plant life than any textbook can contain. These subjects are mysteries; they cannot be mastered, yet they are as real as the type we are reading.

So it is with God. He takes more than our reason captive. He rouses our imagination, our feelings, our intuition human faculties that can reach deeper or take one in important directions, inaccessible to mere logic.[22]

Look at how Isaiah describes the way the Word of God affects our world. "[When the Word comes to you] ... you will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands" (Isa. 55:12). The Word makes reality move to its music.

That's what happened when the daughters of Israel danced in celebration with Miriam (Ex. 15:20ff), and when David "danced before the Lord with all his might" (2.Sam 6:14), God was pleased.

That's why in a beloved story about salvation there was a whole village dancing in the celebration of the return of the prodigal son (Lk 15:24ff). That's why Jesus certainly danced in response to the repeated invitation of God to praise Him with dancing (Ps. 149:3; 150:4). Dance involves the whole of a person.[25]

Church father St. Augustine wrote a poem about the relationship of dance and Christian life. It was titled "In Praise of Dancing":

"I praise the dance, for it frees people

from the heaviness of matter

and binds the isolated to community.

I praise the dance, which demands everything:

health and a clear spirit and a buoyant soul.

Dance is a transformation of space, of time, of people,

who are in constant danger of becoming all brain, will, or feeling.

Dancing demands a whole person, one who is

firmly anchored in the center of his life, who is

not obsessed by lust for people and things

and the demon of isolation in his own ego.

Dancing demands a freed person, one who vibrates

with the equipoise of all his powers.

I praise the dance.

O man, learn to dance, or else the angels in heaven

will not know what to do with you." [30]

We are to be people of wonder. As believers in God, we are not only dispensers of answers a body of doctrine that we can demarcate and control, but we are also dispensers of mysteries. We point not only to the answers, but also to the unanswered questions of our faith. As thirst makes us struggle for water and appreciate the rain, these mysteries lead us to experience God in deeper ways.

Those who cannot surrender to music cannot dance. That's why faith is very much like dance.[38] The Word of God wants to have its own way with us and we cannot experience it with out surrender. Without surrender, our desire to control leads to insecurity and awkwardness. This is a picture of a Christian who believes certain information about God but does not see, hear, and touch the beauty of the gospel. For those who let go, there are such things as the Salsa of Grace and the Waltz of the Kingdom.

God who cannot be manipulated

The second advantage of being a human before our mysterious God is that God cannot be manipulated. Sufi poet Rabia (Sufism is a pacifist movement within Islam) wrote a poem titled "Troublemakers": "Since no one really knows anything about God, those who think they do are just troublemakers."[40]

We are not exempt from this. Christians of the past and present who have "mastered God," have done more than their fair share of trouble-making in this world. The personal lives of contemporary people and the records of history are littered with suffering and injustice inflicted by human beings who have made God too just small enough to be packaged and boxed into a government, into an ideology, into a leader, into a religious organization, or into a denomination.

But if God is a mystery, no person and no organization can assume the authority of God over anybody. Nobody can shrink the kingdom of God into their own little kingdom. Nobody has God in a pocket, let alone their pocket.[45]

Because God has a tendency to surprise us at every corner and spill beyond our definitions, we as believers in this God are not called to be master teachers of God, but master learners.

At the end of that evening with Mark, I thanked God for Mark's ministry to me. I realized that in the matter of knowing God, it is not triumphalism but humility that takes the day.

Christian theologian Thomas C. Oden writes: "[Our] egocentric temptations are always seeking to inflate the fantasy that one's own time bound, parochial way of reasoning toward or from God is the only way. The healthier the study of God, the more candid it remains about its own finitude, the stubborn limits of its own knowing, its own charades, Band-Aids, closets, masks, and broken windows." [50]

Learning before teaching

What does the mystery of God have to do with evangelism? Everything! When Christianity was about to break out beyond the confines of Judaism, God visited Peter, a leading apostle, and Cornelius, an outsider to established religion. Instead of receiving clear verbal teaching from God, Peter received a bizarre and disturbing vision that surprised, stirred, and mystified him deeply.

He saw a pack of strange animals. He insisted that these animals should symbolize for Peter people different from him; the chosen people God had just included along with the Jews.

With this dream, Peter's established categories were disrupted. He was forced to rethink the ways the good news was in fact being received and by whom. He was accustomed to talking to Jews and arguing them into becoming Christians.

But now, instead of Peter being an evangelizer, and Cornelius being an evangelee, God guides them to become spiritual friends. [60] They are about to discover more about God together.

As he enters the house of "impure people," it is Peter who is stretched first (Acts 10). He is forced to show respect to the people of a "wrong religion." Peter had never done this before and he finds himself off-balance (verses 28, 29). These circumstances oblige Peter to ask, "Why am I here? Why did you send for me?" He is out of his comfort zone and just by being there he violates his previous religious commitments. [63]

In effect, Peter is saying to Cornelius, "I am learning here along with you." To comfort and encourage Peter, Cornelius utters the first teaching about God, "We are here in the presence of God" (verse 33, NIV). It is clear that Peter changes and grows first.

Instead of presenting ourselves as dispensers of answers, we are invited to become spiritual friends and discover the treasure of God in and among other persons. Others don't begin their spiritual journey with us. They are already on the journey and our first task is to listen to their story and discover fresh truths and beauties about God. There are footprints of God in their lives. In any encounter where God is discussed, Christians should be the most ready and eager to learn.

By genuinely receiving more of God from others, we model for them an attitude of openness. We become safe spiritual friends.

That's why Peter proceeds not by preaching, but by conversing, talking with Cornelius, not to or at him (verses 34, 35). Instead of showing them how much they have to learn from him, Peter tells the household of Cornelius about how he stands corrected by God and what he is learning through this experience saying, "I now realize ..." (verse 34, NIV).

And when Peter does begin to teach, he emphasizes not the ignorance of Cornelius but what Cornelius already knows about God. He starts his sentences with, "You know . . ." (verses 36-38, NIV).

Hearing the music vs. winning the argument

We are accustomed to evangelism as an argument. If two people have different views, we tend to assume that one must be right and the other wrong. We begin with the premise that the conversation about God is a showdown to establish who is right and who is wrong. But if God is also a mystery, then humility is in order. We cannot invite a person to make a step toward our point of view if we have painted them into a corner.

Argument is always about winning and losing. Dancing is not. That's why Isaiah describes the Word of Life as a music that comes to us from the heart of God and Zephaniah describes God as rejoicing over us with singing (Zeph. 3:17).

Imagine. God singing! Spiritual friendship is when both sides work together to hear these songs of God and make their lives move to the melody and rhythm of the revelation of God.

For the postmodern person, spirituality is evangelism. [70] Our goal is not to win arguments. Our goal is for everyone to know God better.

In the Bible, the Word of Life comes from some of the most unexpected places and people. The Sovereign God does the same thing today, and we must be willing to receive the Word wherever it is encountered. However difficult it may be to accept, in our meetings with other people there must be a real chance that we will change as a result. If matters of life and truth are discussed and we do not allow for the possibility of our transformation if we are only willing to take the role of a teacher, and not of a learner, then we are simply not fit to teach about God.

The power of humility

Our concept of evangelism has been changing over time. In the premodern world (medieval) the market of ideas was like a long table with a Christian ruler sitting at the head of the table. Evangelism was conceived of as increasing the domination of Christianity, as in a conquest. The establishment of a new Christian kingdom was the goal. Our brothers and sisters of the time often thought, "The more power we accrue, the better off God's mission in this world will be."

The era that followed, called modernity, was ushered in by the Enlightenment, when the believers in empirical science liberated the world from the oppression of such religion and established reason as the ruler at the head of the table of ideas. Under this regime Christianity has been slowly banished to sit in a separate dunce chair and evangelism came to be conceived as a battle of arguments.

We came to think that "the more right we prove we are, the better off God's mission in this world will be." Now we live in postmodernity, a time when trusting reason alone has been found inadequate at best and dangerous at worst. The unexpected happened: The table of ideas itself changed shape. It became round! So now there is no longer a head of the table at which some dominating personage may sit.

Christianity, like everyone else, is allowed back to the table as one of many ideas in the market. This development is a fresh opportunity for us. However, assertions of power or barrages of arguments do not work for people who have increasingly more complex expectations of how a vibrant faith should be validated. The main question the world has for us is, "Can Christianity produce good people?"

Since humility and a willingness to learn are a large part of what it means to be good, we cannot just talk. We have to hear others first. And how ever strange this might sound to us, we must learn about our God from them. We must allow others to impact us and demonstrate the same humility we expect from them.

Pursued rightly, this kind of attitude does not relativize what we believe. In fact, it radicalizes what we believe because it establishes God as Sovereign who "shines in all that's fair."[80] Humility and strong conviction are not mutually exclusive. Humility is not a sign of weakness but of strength, and the Bible's call to humility is a call to faithfulness. In fact, genuine regard for what others can add to our faith does not compromise our Christian commitment, but rather expresses it.[90]

[CIAS: after testing only]

Humility is not just another method of outreach. It is a command from God and one of the core teachings of Christianity. John, in his Gospel, comes to a pinnacle of revealing of the glory of God. He introduces the occasion by this statement, "Having loved his own he [Jesus] now showed them the full extent of his love" (Jh 13:1).

What follows is a description of the God of the universe, kneeling down before His creatures and washing their feet. This cosmic servanthood of God is what distinguishes the Christian God from every other. In one way or another, all other deities on this world are described as merely powerful. That's how they get things done. But our God uses humility to get things done. He relies on the weakness and foolishness of love (1 Cor. 1; 2).

Because of the gospel, death becomes life, the last become the first, giving makes one rich and humility becomes the most powerful force in the universe. Through the humility that is at the heart of the Incarnation, God evangelized us. That's why humility holds such promise for the future of Christianity. It does not exclude evangelism but improves its prospects.

Remnant that refuses the compliment

The Bible talks about the remnant that would throughout history be keepers of the truth. One of the first times the concept is mentioned in the Bible is when God speaks to Moses.

Disappointed with the Israelites, God declares His intention to destroy them and make a new nation (a remnant) from faithful Moses (Ex.32). Surprisingly, Moses does not find this apparent favoritism of God toward him to be good news. In fact, Moses declines the invitation and offers his own life to be blotted out of the Book of Life so that the Israelites could somehow stay in favor of God. Moses, much like Jesus himself, interceded for others at the expense of his life. And God loved Moses for this. Remnant people are those who like Moses look for the best in others, finding reasons why others should be saved.

Remnant people are to be defiant includers, champions of lifting others up, even at the risk of losing their own standing with God. Perhaps people who claim to be the remnant over everyone else automatically get disqualified. One of our scholars from Europe[100] once told me, "Our complex of superiority keeps us on the bottom."

Humility sounds timid, but let's not be fooled. Humility is the expression of ultimate courage, and pursuing personal and corporate humility is a means of aggressive evangelism. In the economy of the kingdom of God, the sheer display of power is simply too weak and ineffective. The Bible talks about the Word of God as a double-edged sword (Hebr. 4:12). It cuts both ways. Applying it to our own hearts is the way to successful evangelism. These inner shifts of attitude appear to be small, but are in fact tectonic. They speak louder and longer than programs, events, and campaigns ever can.

We have been given some insight into the mystery of the gospel that even angels long to look into (1.Peter 1:12; Eph. 3:10). We are thankful to God for all the revelation we have. Because of the answers we do have, we trust God from within the mysteries we live with. The time has come, however, to become thankful for the mysteries of God as well as to humbly let others enhance our knowledge. Air-tight arguments give us a sense of being in control, but they keep us isolated and stagnant. Letting the wind back into our souls deepens us.

The Itys and Isms Laid Bare

Last summer I saw a photograph of a white stone bridge crossing over a Florida river. Before Hurricane Mitch, the river flowed beneath the bridge. After the hurricane the direction of the riverbed had completely shifted. A second photograph showed the river flowing parallel to the bridge.

This bridge could serve as a symbol of contemporary Christian ministry, with the hurricane representing postmodernism. The river may be seen as a collection of modern era questions about faith. In the last half-century the old riverbed, caught in the fallout of the hurricane of postmodernism, has radically changed its course; the bridge, symbolic of the ministry and our attempt to answer important questions, has stayed much the same.

Without a doubt, we must remain committed to speaking the "strange" truth of the gospel. Innovation in itself is not the goal. Yet it is precisely because we want to communicate the unchanging gospel that we need to change. We must change not only our methods but also our understanding of how people think and feel and thus how we are to think as we seek to meet their minds and hearts.

The truth is that in many countries of our world, the culture has not merely changed, it has morphed into a humanity with a worldview radically different from the past. The shift is away from the so-called "modern" worldview, which began roughly in the sixteenth century and was built on the Enlightenment values of reason, science, control, and conquest. The postmodern worldview questions all the assumptions, claims, and fruits of "modernism." Because contemporary people are committed to a vastly different way of thinking, a correspondingly different approach must emerge in our ministry to them.

The shift to post-modernity

Modernism began as a freedom movement. It sought to discard the Middle Ages worldview built on authoritarianism, superstition, and oppression. Like the builders of the Tower of Babel, the philosophers and scientists of modernism were no wimps. They thought in new ways. They dreamed of control over knowledge, control over nature, and even control over themselves. This dream trickled down from philosophers and scientists into the daily lives of ordinary people and became dominant in their outlook.

However, after centuries confined to such restricting banks the river of modernity became almost unrecognizable, producing blood and sweat for colonized races through slavery, wars, dictators, ethnic cleansing, urban violence, drugs, poverty, a growing gap between rich and poor, and threatening pollution. While some comfortable citizens in the West have had a hard time seeing the limits and downright evils of modernism, postmodern philosophy and science are rapidly trickling down to all of us, silencing modernism's chants of control, conquest, and consumption. The backlash to this is what has been called postmodernism.

Entanglement of the church with modernism

No question: postmodernism disturbs many in the contemporary church, and for good reason. It mocks authority, questions moral absolutes, and destabilizes the knowledge that we have accumulated over time. From the biblical perspective, postmodernism is seriously flawed, but so is the modernism that has shaped so much of our thinking. The problem is that we, as Christians, have bathed so long in the stream of modernity that we have learned to think, talk, and accept modernism as an integral part of our faith.

"We can hardly conceive," wrote Brian McLaren, "of a postmodern being able to become a Christian without becoming modern first (or immediately after); similarly, we can hardly conceive that our way of seeing Christianity is not the only way, but rather the modern way."1 One of the best illustrations of this reality is found in the way the missionary movements of the last century largely insisted not only on the acceptance of Christ, but of the modern Western world itself. Modernism used to be "a beast" that intimidated Christians, but over the centuries Christians worked to tame it like a household pet, so that it became peaceful and domesticated in our house as part of the household.

Christians can't pass judgment on modernity because it is so much of who we are, at least in the West! From Constantine onward, the church ceased to be the counter-cultural movement committed from its inception to turning "the world upside down."(Acts 17:6) Instead, it couched itself into the mainstream, first within the Roman Empire, and many centuries later it amalgamated in a similar manner with the modernist dream. The Christian of today comes dangerously close to being the definition of a well-adjusted citizen of the modern world. We have formed our apologetics, structured our theology, and devised our church growth techniques based upon the paradigm of the modernist experiment.

Thus, to relate to people today, we have much that we must learn from the postmodern critique. In preparation for the second part in this two-part series (where we will deal with the practical ministry adjustments that are needed to understand and meet the postmodern mind and heart) here are three conceptual shifts we need to make to increase our understanding, respect, and compassion for postmodern people.

From triumphalism to humility

One of the early definitions of the postmodern worldview was "incredulity toward grand narratives." Postmodern philosophers have observed that every human system legitimizes itself and subordinates all other lesser narratives through an authoritative story named the "grand narrative." When first presented, each new grand narrative made sense, but it soon became a tool for power, con quest, and control. For example, as American society celebrated the 500th anniversary of the "discovery" of America by Christopher Columbus we praised "the grand narrative" of progress. But the party was disrupted by postmoderns insisting that the event of 500 years ago began a chronicle of cruelty, oppression, and genocide in America a large-scale ethnic cleansing (involving the virtual obliteration of many of the peoples then occupying the North American continent). These contemporary critics of modernity mourned, rather than celebrated, the anniversary of such a con quest.

It is becoming easier to understand why postmoderns have abandoned their search for "one true belief system." They have been burned and disappointed by ideologies, religions, and political ideas, and have ultimately lost trust in humanity itself. In their view, anyone who claims to possess "the ultimate grand narrative" lacks either intelligence or humility. For many Christians, including Seventh-day Adventists, this is disturbing to say the least.

Here are some questions we need to address.

1. Can we envision and describe our ministry in a language other than one of conquest and control?

2. Can we conceive of ministry as a two-way exchange where we both teach and are taught?

3. Is it possible that our present denominational configuration actually serves by acquiring personal or corporate power over others?

4. What would be compelling to a postmodern person? Our stories of superiority and triumph or the story of the humility and authenticity of One like Jesus of Nazareth?

From Rationalism to Mystery

The modernist dream was to enclose the world within a rational, absolute system that would be true at all places and in all circumstances. Modernists like Immanuel Kant and Georg Hegel developed a version of Christianity that explained Christian faith in a logical, self-contained system. Building on Thomas Aquinas, who held that all faculties of humanity are fallen except the intellect, they believed that rational thinking can make sense of God. "A Modern Minister" was one who . . . promised to remove mystery through research, leaving only clean doctrines and sterile principles where there once were questions, pain, wonder, and longing. . . Performed in the study, not the lab, and with Greek and Hebrew, not test tubes ... [he would] tame the wildness of his subjects God and life through late Industrial Age know-how. But imagine: Taming God! And life!

Seventh-day Adventist ministry (which began a mere century and a half ago) developed in the context of the modernist worldview and thus, predictably, relied heavily on proofs, reasoning, and structure. In contrast, the postmodern world is breaking away from an obsession with reason and is equally trusting of ambiguity and mystery. Today many Christian ministers continue to "rationalize" faith, while the vast majority of Western society has lost interest in that approach alone. And when these people don't listen to us, we incorrectly conclude that they have no interest in spirituality. Further, when we look at a biblical text or a life issue that does not seem to fit into our "complete" belief system, we do everything possible to "make it work." In contrast, postmodernism is not inhibited by the confining walls of rugged rationalism, it opens its doors to mystery, embracing it as an integral part of the life of faith.

Don Hudson writes: "Postmodern thought comes upon the scene to remind us that faith is the dance of presence and absence, grace and tragedy, assurance and doubt.... [It] critiques the arrogance of modernism, and in so doing, offers the church one of its greatest opportunities to present the gospel. ... If modernism at its extreme can result in the triumph of reason over ignorance at best, but at worst the triumph of reason over mystery and faith, then postmodernism can be the invitation to mystery alongside reason and thus fresh opportunity for faith."

Are we terrified by postmodernism because it reminds us that with all our theological knowledge, organizational structure, and church growth strategizing, we find ourselves without the ability to really control anything? What are the ways we can introduce our faith to postmoderns while embracing their sense of mystery? Would we lose our own faith if we were to admit that we don't have all the answers? Are we assuming that God can only use "the river of the rational" to reveal Himself? Can we reclaim the rich tradition of Christian mysticism that we were so embarrassed about during the age of modernity?

From Objectivism to Other Ways of Knowing

Modernism boasted of its objectivity. The scientific method sought to find the truth by removing all irrelevant factors from the research. But according to postmodernism we always speak from an angle. We learn about the world from maps someone made for us, we study historical records written for us, and we observe life through the glasses of our personal history, personality, and experience. Postmoderns believe that "every point of view is a view from a point" and that any group of people you belong to pressures you to observe reality from their common point.

While this line of reasoning may feel threatening, we must admit that "God's point of view" belongs only to God. While radical postmodernism attacks Christianity by denying objectivity, in reality most postmoderns are just asking for gentleness and humility in these matters. They deeply doubt humanity's ability to understand, to remember, to transmit, and to communicate in an absolutely accurate way. What most postmoderns are rejecting is not absolute truth, but absolute knowledge.

Postmoderns plead with us to consider other ways of knowing besides being "objective." They would agree with Paul (who said: "I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know ... [Eph. 1:18,, NIV; emphasis added]) that there are other valid ways of knowing that modernism dismissed as subjective. While modernism was built on Decartes's maxim "I think, therefore I am," the postmodern would add: "I make choices, therefore I am. I feel, therefore I am. I believe, therefore I am. I experience, therefore I am."[155]

To remain true to the faith revealed to us, we don't have to advocate less than objectivity, truth, and propositions, but more! Jesus' statement "I am the truth" claims that truth is not found in an objective concept or principle, but in a Person. And He is an ultimate subject that cannot be compartmentalized and objectified. We can't objectify God who is at heart a relational being. We can acknowledge that this subjectivity in fact is not a bad thing, not an embarrassment to be covered up, it is rather a necessary thing, a reality that the Bible actually assumes, since it is a "premodern" text.

The Opportunity

Postmodernism is not dangerous, not for One "'who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty'" (Rev. 1:8; Rom. 5:14). It is we who have planted ourselves into one period of time. The hurricane of postmodernism has moved the riverbed. The old "bridge of answers" we built so carefully, prayerfully, and methodically, can no longer bring people from disbelief to belief as it used to. The river has moved and a new river now flows wide and deep. Was the church in fact originally called to remain unchangeably a bridge but nevertheless to be a movable or adjustable bridge? We do have innately in the Christian faith, the tools and the materials to reset the bridge of answers so that it will astonish post modern seekers. I have experienced it in my ministry in the postmodern culture of downtown Manhattan, and I have found peace with my Adventist faith in this postmodern world. In the next article I want to share with you what I have learned along more applied lines.

Modern times, what characterizes them? We may have heard it being said, while modernism was built on Decartes's maxim "I think, therefore I am," the postmodern would add: "I make choices, therefore I am. I feel, therefore I am. I believe, therefore I am. I experience, therefore I am." - - To remain true to the faith revealed to us, we don't have to advocate less than objectivity, truth, and propositions, but more! Jesus' statement "I am the truth" claims that truth is not found in an objective concept or principle, but in a Person. And He is an ultimate subject that cannot be compartmentalized and objectified. We cannot objectify God who is at heart a relational being, someone we relate to. We can acknowledge that this subjectivity in fact is not a bad thing, not an embarrassment to be covered up, it is rather a necessary thing, a reality that the Bible actually assumes, since the Bible is a "premodern" text. - - Therefore, Bible believing Christians ought to be aware that we cannot plant us into one age, one way of thinking advocated on earth over the past centuries - trends like Renaissance, Humanism, Modernism, Post-Modernism, etc. We must learn how to see through it and direct attention to the written word in a way so that those steeped in the trends can relate to the truth of God's word in a non-threatening way. - - Postmoderns maintain that the world is not there to be dissected, discussed, and exploited, but primarily to be cared for, enjoyed, and protected, so effective postmodern evangelism seeks to make sure that people are not there to be targeted and "statistically converted," but primarily to be valued and cherished. When postmoderns find faith, they want it to be made of the stuff of life. Theology in the modem era lusted to emulate scientific certainty, and to give an objective, sanitized, and plausible explanation of God largely divorced from personal subjective variables. In modernity, subjective variables were considered a contamination in the process. So while we labored to put the "correct" map of Christian life together, we often excluded the data coming from the landscape of life itself. And life is always more complex, more perilous, and more beautiful than the maps our modernist theology has provided. For postmoderns, if the map does not fit the landscape, too bad for the map.

Look at the Bible. It is almost entirely made of poetry, personal letters, stories, and other forms of writing that include all the messy personal and relational variables. The Bible does not present situation-sanitized information about God. In modernity, this "messy" form of the Bible was an embarrassment to us. To enhance our credibility we wanted the Bible to be more like a scientific textbook, a meticulously written, aseptic paper, a kind of legal, prescriptive code book. But what we have in fact in the Bible is a patch work, a marvelously woven composite of complex, down-to-earth, divine-human interaction, which has as one of its central messages: God comes to us not as an object to be studied, He comes into and through the stuff of our particular lives.

We have tried to teach people to study the Bible removed from their biases. But to study the Bible without our subjective variables is to try to study it without ourselves! It is asking people to have a relationship with a series of concepts instead of with God Himself in whom "we live, and move, and have our being," (Acts 17:28).

For postmoderns, there is no such thing as an abstract truth. Truth does not exist apart from a person or a community. This is affirmed in the teaching of Jesus who said, "I am . . .the truth," and to the teaching of the New Testament that God's church is the embodiment of Jesus Christ (John 14:6; 18:37). Truth to postmoderns must be incarnated to be communicated. Many of us are uncomfortable with this because we want truth to be laid out somewhere so that we can pursue it, control it, and hire good presenters to give it to others. On the contrary, postmoderns rightly seek the "embodiment of the truth." "Christ himself was the living embodiment of the truth he taught, the essence of all spiritual life, example of the peace which he promises to all who come to him." {ST, December 14, 1891 par. 1}

Jesus clearly approves of this approach. He repeatedly asks his followers to judge who has the truth on the basis of their fruits (Matth. 7:16-29). This is very unnerving to denominations that have based their claim to recognition merely on having a correct doctrine without a track-record of thoroughly changing people's lives. But the only truth that can actually be communicated to postmoderns is the one that is embodied in the life of a believer and in the life of a faith community.

Weaving the Stories

The modernist mind-set was extensively influenced by "foundationalism." Modernist scientists and philosophers held that a scientific theory or philosophy must have a logical structure built from the foundation up. Postmoderns think differently. They can hold quite contradictory beliefs without feeling discomfort or dissonance. They might believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior, but not believe the Bible is inspired. Or they might believe that it's wrong to kill, while holding to the relativity of many moral principles. If they were to attend an evangelistic series, they might be convinced that the presentations are coherent and persuasive, but fail to think they should become believers. Why?

We assume that making rational arguments will convince people. We believe we can "corner" them by demonstrating that the prophecies have been fulfilled. Then we launch into further arguments of Christian apologetics. Traditionally, we have worked to discredit peoples' belief systems and then replace them with another one. Because we believe that belief systems are built on the foundational model, we launch an artillery attack on the belief systems of others thinking that they will crumble, and we are mystified when this does not happen.

Instead of using the modernist conception of building a foundation of belief and placing upon it further layers of teaching, today we can instead conceptualize a person's belief system as a web of belief similar to that introduced by American philosopher Richard Rorty.

A web consists mostly of holes with its strength in the connections. The threads of this web are composed of hopes, feelings, events, dreams, statements, facts, observations, stories, and fears the elements of the daily experience of each of us, and such contradictory experiences do coexist in the personal web of a per sons' belief experience. As God's word puts it, "The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands; The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings' palaces." Proverbs 30:27,28.

And Isaiah writes, "Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear. For your hands are defiled . . . None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. They hatch cockatrice' eggs, and weave the spider's web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper. Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands. . . ." Isa. 59:1-6.

We often have the feeling that contemporary people always seem to be contradicting us. Actually, that's not the case. What they are doing is "weaving their web." They collect everything they hear, see, and feel and weave it together. But instead of compiling a list of concepts about God, they question us as they explore how we have woven God into our lives. They cannot develop a relation ship with concepts, but they can let God and the faith community enter and change the story of their lives.

A deep abiding relationship with God is the most important experience we can share. It includes theology, feelings, and experience, in fact, everything our lives are made of. In a postmodern context, evangelism is "weaving our lives with nonbelievers," another metaphor for what Jesus described as being "salt" or "light" to and in the world.

Jesus was a master web weaver. With His parables, with His proclamation, with His care, with His judgment, with His blessings, He wove the kingdom of God into people's lives. He would say, "The kingdom of God is like . . ."In this way He said, "Let Me weave one more thread into your soul." We are to do the same. We ought to bless people's lives, their families, their businesses, their dates, their art, their hopes, by helping them connect these things with the kingdom of God.

When we transparently weave our lives into the company of other Christians and non-Christians, our sins and weaknesses become visible because the weaving takes place at close range. This is the sticky part, but it is the premiere work of the Kingdom. It is absolutely crucial to grasp that our imperfect, broken, individual lives are our primary apologetics. It leads to a whole new way of doing church.

Questioning the Assumptions

Every worldview has its idols. Modernism's obsession with analysis, individualism, and technique has been replaced in postmodernism with a fascination for experience, personalized spirituality, the idolatry of art, and cynicism. One of the ways we can approach contemporary people is to challenge the idols of postmodernity and explore the underlying assumptions of their worldview.

As argued before, for postmodern philosophers, all truth is created for the service of the powerful. Nietzche, the grandfather of postmodern philosophy, taught that any religion, any morality, any claim, and any answers to any question are all forms of accruing power. As a result, postmoderns have been led to believe that they can stand in a lofty position above all such truth claims. But their position has a major flaw, for there is no greater power trip than the one which says that every truth claim is a power trip except mine!

Further, it is an illusion to think that people can live without commitments and beliefs. To believe that everything is relative, simply justifies a lifestyle without responsibility to anyone but oneself. To put it bluntly, the claim that everything is relative is a claim with profound religious implications; it is dogma. Those postmoderns who honestly analyze their relativistic presuppositions become aware of that reality. Such relativism easily becomes a self-justifying doctrine under which one can oppress any other, because by its nature it must also allow for a relativization of oppression.

To say that nobody can know anything definite about God is itself also a statement of dogma. Such a person is sure nobody else can be sure. And to say, "You must not persuade others to believe what you believe" is a dogmatic statement affirming, "You ought to see things my way. I have a relativistic view of reality and you ought to accept it." Such people do the very thing they forbid in others. The only difference between relativists and Christians is that, although both have dogmas, Christians are open about it and relativists are in denial.

People do not doubt Christianity out of thin air. All doubt is rooted in a commitment to some other belief or viewpoint. Postmoderns will ultimately realize that they have been indoctrinated, that they have dogmas they believe in, and be ready to question them. Many are returning to Augustine's realization, "I believe in order to understand." Deep inside they are saying: "We have lost our faith in unfaith." And here is their great predicament: while despising religion, they are haunted by the need for spirituality. In modernity, their trust in organized religion has been destroyed, but they still want God. They feel the need for God, but have learned to mistrust anyone who teaches about God. What can they do with such a dilemma?

They can meet Jesus. Reflective and sensitive contemporary people often hate religion. And it is wise to listen to them. Why? Because Christians are not here to defend religion either. Christ did not defend it. He viciously and relentlessly attacked it as a way of self-salvation. We, as with any other human group, can become entangled in building a religious system instead of building the kingdom of God. We can easily shift our energies into defending and saving our doctrines, traditions, and organization, instead of saving people. Postmodern people have a nose for this and are able to detect it from a great distance. So they have a way of grabbing us by the throat and throwing us to the ground with their questions until we realize we have been enchanted with our religiosity rather than with God. And when we repent not only of our sins but also of what we consider our virtues, the only thing left to show them is Jesus Christ. And He is every thing they are looking for!

Suggestions for Effective Ministry in A Culture of Postmodernity

And so the question arises, How can we minister to these people? Below are a few points to consider:

1. As modernistic Christians we are immigrants in the culture of postmodernity. Instead of reaching for our techniques and imitating the success of others, it is better to "get stuck" with just the Bible and with the people we are attempting to reach. It will take more time than we might wish, but it is the shortest way. If we do this we must be ready to be considered unfaithful or impractical by many of our fellow Christians.

2. We should not think in terms of the postmodern mind. Instead we should think in terms of the post modern person. Experiences, feelings, intuition, and choices count as much as reason.
   
3. We must not merely try to make our church a more accepting and loving place. Cultural engineering is futile. Spending our energy and time changing and growing personally, deepening our community; this is what matters. We can work courageously on adapting organizational and financial structures if we remember that just working on appearances is counterproductive. We are to make disciples, not just nice people.
   
4. Postmoderns prize experience and need to "try on Christianity" before they can believe it. As they come into our churches, we can include them in activities, bringing them close to the fire next to which we warm our own souls. We can let them participate at the Communion service and prayer meetings as a part of their exploration. Participation always precedes transformation.
   
5. Be authentic and transparent. Invite nonbelievers everywhere, perhaps even including church business, planning, and general meetings. Invite them in. Don't spin-doctor anything about your local church or the denomination. Tell the story of your faith and your church that is unforced, unhyped, unedited, and unsanitized. Honesty always empowers ministry.
   
6. When guiding postmoderns on their journey to God, avoid giving direct answers and advice. That disengages their minds and hearts. Instead, help them to interpret their lives in the light of the stories of the Bible. Help them face themselves and God so that their lives can be woven into the story of salvation. Analyze less, identify more.
   
7. When they tell you that all stories and belief systems are relative, and therefore equally valid, don't panic, don't attack. Instead, ask them: "My faith commitment is grounded in history, embodied in the community of my Church and verified in my personal experience. What is the basis of your faith?" Wait for their answers.
   
8. Don't be anxious about their indifference or antagonism towards the doctrine. As they deconstruct their dogmas they will thirst for the power and beauty of clear teaching.
   
9. Remember that one of the great est needs of a postmodern person is spiritual: they are in need of a god (God) who can argue with them. Deep inside they fear that without something or someone to yield to, or submit to, they are running into the danger of having their own mind acting as God in their lives. And as they come to a realization that the gospel is made of something sterner than them, they hunger for it!
   
10. Come to terms with the fact that the Adventist Church exists to serve a larger reality than itself. We as pastors, our local churches, and the denomination exist to invite people to be a part of something far larger - namely the kingdom of God. We are calling people to sign up in the fight against evil wherever it is found: evil in the world, evil in our own hearts, and evil in our own religious community. That kind of appeal will win their allegiance.
    
11. Don't present the Christian life only in terms of victory, clarity, and peace. We must let them see our brokeness, tears, and doubt. They don't expect or value simplistic answers. Only when they see our brokeness will they be able to discern the extraordinary hope, joy, and assurance that God brings into our lives. A crucial part of the witnessing process is enabling people to identify with our weakness and brokenness.
    
12. We need to resist the urge to just teach people what they need to know. We must conceptualize evangelism as a two-way street. They are seekers, and so are we. They are learning from us as we are learning from them. We need to think of conversion as a radical change that can happen at any time, any place, and in any manner.
    
13. The world is different from what most of us want to believe. We must think, with our churches, about what we are going to do with such a world. We need to ask God to give us the humility to learn and serve contemporary people, and the courage to walk out of our subculture into their world, as Christ walked out of heaven and entered earth. Postmodernity is not good or bad. It simply is. It is the water in which we catch fish. And we have to catch them on their own terms, where they are, not where we want them to be. We must fashion the right kinds of "hooks" (find the right answers) for them.
    
14. Finally we are to remember that God does not subscribe to modernism, postmodernism, or any other worldview we humans have constructed. The genuine article of Christianity is far ahead of the times. For us, the ultimate reality is the one of the kingdom of God. It is real, present, and it is going to completely take over one day.

[10] St Catherine of Siena, "Wherever You May Look," in Love Poems from God Twelve Sacred Voices From the East and West Daniel Ladinsky, transl (New York Penguin Compass, 2002) 191.

[15] While there may be room in Adventism for a uniquely prepared minister to try and reach these groups of people discussed in this article, the message the Bible emphasizes for our days is directed at the churches via the `Three Angels Messages' which must go into all the world. Why? There are many in these religions and churches who never really learned the reasons for their religion or denominational faith. They just belong without knowledge why. They are followers, not bookworms to study things out.

[20] Selections From the Book of Psalms: Authorized New King James Version (Grove Publishing, 1999) VII.

[22] Does God work with His people through feelings? Well, the word "feel" comes up only seven times, and not in the type of context very helpful on this subject. The word "feeling" comes up only twice. That means both of these words are not a hot subject in the Bible. It means it is better to use other terms when it comes to talk of man relating to Bible truths. - Feeling can easily lead one astray for everyone feels differently. We are to rely on God's Word and not on feelings when it comes to faith in God and His Word.

[25] CIAS: It is more of a gladness in the heart that is emphasized rather than excitement and girating hips and dance floors with modern music.

[30] St. Augustine, Daily Dig (newsletter from ), June 24, 2003.

[38] Actually the Bible seems to rather emphasize the heavenly choirs, the singing around the throne of God more than dancing. Today, speaking of dancing is not the same as in Hebrew times when the erotic angel was not used in Israel. Therefore, just to speak of dancing today without explanations is not adviseable.

[40] Ladinsky, 27.; CIAS: Only by knowing Christ can we know God. Only by the law and the testimony do we have light.

[45] "Thus the Lord had given Paul his commission to enter the broad missionary field of the Gentile world. To prepare him for this extensive and difficult work, God had brought him into close connection with Himself and had opened before his enraptured vision views of the beauty and glory of heaven. To him had been given the ministry of making known "the mystery" which had been "kept secret since the world began" (Romans 16:25),--"the mystery of His will" (Ephesians 1:9), "which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ by the gospel: whereof," declares Paul, "I was made a minister. . . . Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." Ephesians 3:5-11. {Acts of the Apostles, p. 159.2.}

[50] Thomas C. Oden, The Living God: Systematic Theology, Volume One (New York: Prince Press, 1998), 406.

[60] For ideas about spiritual friendships and the problem of evangelism as an argument I am indebted to Brian McLaren, More Ready than You Ralize: Evangelism as Dance in the Postmodern Matrix (Grand Rapids: Mich,: Zondervan, 2002).

[63] "To those assembled, Peter spoke first of the custom of the Jews, saying that it was looked upon as unlawful for Jews to mingle socially with the Gentiles, that to do this involved ceremonial defilement. "Ye know," he said, "how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation; but God hath showed me that I should not call any man common or unclean. Therefore came I unto you without gainsaying, as soon as I was sent for: I ask therefore for what intent ye have sent for me?"
Cornelius then related his experience and the words of the angel, saying in conclusion, "Immediately therefore I sent to thee; and thou hast well done that thou art come. Now therefore are we all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God."
Peter said, "Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him."
Then to that company of attentive hearers the apostle preached Christ--His life, His miracles, His betrayal and crucifixion, His resurrection and ascension, and His work in heaven as man's representative and advocate. As Peter pointed those present to Jesus as the sinner's only hope, he himself understood more fully the meaning of the vision he had seen, and his heart glowed with the spirit of the truth that he was presenting." {AA 138.5}]

[70] Statement by John Dybdahl at the main presentation on Dancing With God, RE-CHURCH conference 2003, Lake Arrowhead, CA (Re-Church).

[80] Verse from the Christian hymn This Is Our Father's World, for discussion of common grace see Richard J. Mouw, He Shines In All That's Fair: Culture and Common Grace (Grand Rapids, Mich. Eerdmans, 2001).

[90] Brian McLaren, Generous Orthodoxy (Grand Rapids: Mich.: Zondervan, 2004), 264.

[100] Milorad Kojic, Cornell University, New York, 2002, Personal Communication.

[155] The word "feel" occurs a number of times. Who was Decartes? He must mean the French man Rene Descartes (1596-1650), called a (unoriginal) free lance philosopher.
Here is what EG White researchers said: "The theme of Ellen White's educational model is imago Dei, restoration in humanity of the holistic image of God. (Ellen G. White, Education (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1903, 1952), 15, 16.) The challenge to the accomplishment of that anthropological center of purpose is found in her larger framework: the conflict between Christ and Satan. Central to this framework is the authority of Scripture, which declares

1. Christ as Creator of all,
   
2. the Sabbath as the culminating commemoration of the six literal day Creation event,
   
3. the complete restoration of Eden in the second dominion, including unveiled God/humanity communication, absence of death and predation, and
   
4. the continuance of 7th day Sabbath memorials to God's creation initiative. In White's great controversy framework, Satan continues with increasing intensity his diabolical efforts to thwart those purposes.

[200] What could be the dangers with `Interfaith Get Togethers'? Dangers might arise when the good and well meaning originator makes consequential errors or is not part of such an organisation any more and a successor changes the agenda perhaps in a harmful way. Also realize, dealing with some religions and societies you deal with Satan himself. How can you tell when that happens? See here.
But in the end we are to know if something is of God or not by the fruits it will bring about, Matthew 7:19-21.