Comments on: “You Must Admit You Are A Sinner!”: Why This Doesn’t Work in Post Christendom Evangelism

By: Links Links Links « Thinking Out Loud

Links Links Links « Thinking Out Loud — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:25:57 +0000

[...] David Fitch at the blog, Reclaiming the Mission suggests that a staple of evangelism, getting people to admit that they are sinners, doesn’t work with postmoderns. [...]

By: Jeff Andrews

Jeff Andrews — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 14:05:13 +0000

Great post, Dave.

The method of witness encouraged in InterVarsity while I was a student and staff was to have students invite non-believing friends to take a look at the life of Jesus with them in the Gospels. This assumed that students would have non-believing friends that they could invite.

The idea behind these groups was that if people could have an actual encounter with Jesus Christ they would be drawn to Him and to a community that is sincerely trying to embody His teachings.

This doesn’t really bypass the sin issue, but it does help nonbelievers encounter the real Jesus in community. Sin comes to light soon enough for many people in this situation, as they engage with this community of believers. At this point, surrounded by a group of believers who love them, sin becomes something they can accept as part of their nature.

By: Eleanor Burne-Jones

Eleanor Burne-Jones — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:37:47 +0000

I live in Cornwall, a very beautiful county in the UK where people are generally very aware of environmental and climate issues. I find that using the way we have done damage to the earth as an example of wrongdoing enables people to connect with the idea of sin more immediately and naturally. It seems the most sensible starting point as there is already common agreement on the need to act responsibly and what that means in practice. Recycling and acting to reduce CO2 emissions is a good example of practical repentance, and then it all starts to fall into place.

By: K. Rex Butts

K. Rex Butts — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 18:48:33 +0000

It seems that any engagment of non-Christians from a foundationalist epistemology (the appraoch be taken to intellectually prove a person guilty of sin) may prove to be a frustrating endeavor. In my experience a relational-dialouge has been more helpful…so it is not just me deductively and showing with syllogistic reasoning why all people are generically sinners and therefore person X is a sinner. Instead, we both are iductively learning about our specific lives where we find them as we find them which takes into account the complexity of sin, some of which is true in our lives but some of which is not entirely true (i.e., I am a sinner but I am not the same as someone like Charles Manson or Ted Bundy who are not the same as someone like Mic Jagger or John Lennon who are not the same as….).

Does that make sense?

Grace and peace,

Rex

By: Where Does the Gospel Start? — Ben Sternke

Where Does the Gospel Start? — Ben Sternke — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 11:03:20 +0000

[...] few days ago David Fitch wrote a post on evangelism for post-Christendom cultures. In it he said this: Traditionally, the first move in evangelism is [...]

By: davidfitch

davidfitch — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 21:13:36 +0000

Matt … “sin therapists” … therapists who help people see their sin through reflecting back, and helping then learn the skill of using the language of sin enough to locate their own sin … Obviously not the method most used by modern therapy… so thanks for the clarification

By: len

len — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:34:05 +0000

Also remember Dallas Willard’s thoughts on “the gospel of sin management”…

I can’t help thinking that we majored on sin when we reduced the gospel to personal salvation. That played into individual (Cartesian) anxiety about eternal destiny. But if we step back and take a more communal view and a broader view of redemption involving all creation, that is.. if we remove SELF from the center of all this — we start with different questions, more in the direction of “justice” and God putting things to rights (implied connect to NT Wright .. yes).

By: len

len — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:18:30 +0000

Also see Scot McKnight http://tinyurl.com/qcj5b6

At the CPC congress Stuart Murray took on the issue with similar conclusions.. of course the UK being even further along than Canada in this. But what is striking is how far the church in general lags behind in this engagement. As someone has quipped, “Generals lose new wars because they are still fighting old battles.”

By: DaveR

DaveR — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:41:31 +0000

Just this thanksgiving weekend at the parallel Bible study hour at our community (not to be confused with http://www.communitybiblestudy.org), our discussion revolved around a Keller chapter that reflected on people like the one you mentioned, agitated over the focus on sin, hell, and the like. So your post was quite timely.

I’d like to go back the the question you presented, “What do you say to this woman?” Even though my ‘favorite’ form of a gospel presentation is the one-verse method based on jn 3:16 because I prefer to know one method well than knowing several partially. I really like James Choung’s Big Story too. I have no problem with a 3 minute presentation because I see a gospel presentation as a “crossroads” that introduces several important themes rather than a complete picture of anything. …and pragmatically, if you can coherently talk about something for 3 minutes you can probably do fine in a 2-hr conversation–the reverse is often not true.

A secular/postmodern/post-whatever person isn’t going to start with a high view of scripture or God, so the Big Story starts with presenting a messed up world and then goes into broken relationships and so on. I think agreeing on a messed up world is common ground for almost everyone. It is a non-badgering way of presenting “Christians believe X, what do you believe and why”. Part of our ultimate process is recognizing that our starting point doesn’t hold up and changing our mind/attitude/action to True Truth.

By: Maria Kirby

Maria Kirby — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 03:36:27 +0000

I ran across this talk a few months ago. http://www.ted.com/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil.html From a Christian point of view, I understand the Lucifer Effect as without the power of God in our lives we are subject to doing evil if we are in an environment that promotes evil.

I thought it was very interesting how psychology could demonstrate something we understood from the Bible. I think if we talk about the ‘depravity of mankind’ in modern/post-modern psychological terms such as the Lucifer Effect then we might have a more open/understanding audience.

I have also found it interesting that the Quakers start not from a depravity point of view, but that we all carry the light of God within us. As different and apparently conflicting as these two points of view may be, I believe they are both true.