Have you ever thought about going to a nudist beach? We have never enjoyed the fresh air at any of Australia’s 52 nudist (or officially labelled “legal clothing optional”) beaches, let alone thought of going regularly. We imagine we would be welcome. We do not judge those who do go. Maybe one day we might go to one, as a dare, or to see what all the fuss is about. But we don’t spend our waking moments thinking about what we are missing. We don’t honestly think we have a “nudist-beach shaped vacuum” in our life.

Many people in the Western world think about going to church in the same way we might think about going to a nudist beach – it’s simply not on the radar.

This is part of the challenge of evangelism today in our workplaces, neighbourhoods and networks. Many people are not interested in God. Even more are not interested in church. Charles Taylor describes our era as “A Secular Age” (Harvard University Press, 2007); and discusses the place faith has (or does not have) in people’s imaginations today. His basic question is why and how belief in God has become merely one option among others: “Why was it virtually impossible not to believe in God in, say, 1500 in our western society, while in 2000 many of us find this not only easy, but even inescapable?” (p.25)

Taylor argues that “exclusive humanism” and fostering meaning in life without God has become viable because people no longer see nature pointing to something beyond itself. It is not that we live without God in an age of disbelief, Taylor says, but people have learned creative new options of believing otherwise. We cannot simply say that science has disproved God, or reason replaced belief, or the secular overtaken religion, or immanence displaced transcendence. But these things are in a constant tug of war, and most people default to not revolving their life around God and faith. So for most people the idea of going to church to find meaning is as foreign and likely as us going to a nudist beach for a full-body suntan.  

A guidebook to Taylor’s A Secular Age is James K A Smith’s How (Not) To Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor (Eerdmans, 2014; reviewed by Darren in Witness: Journal of the Academy for Evangelism in Theological Education 2016). It helped us to understand why secular colleagues and neighbours aren’t asking the questions or looking for the answers we might think about. Their interest in God or the afterlife is minimal. They construct meaning from a host of other projects and quests for significance. Yet even agnostics feel like there might be something more. Our secular world is more appropriately called “post-secular”, and is haunted by the transcendent. So how do we practice authentic evangelism in secular places where we work and play? We suggest a few hints from our reading of Smith.

 

1. Celebrate the relevance of faith for everyday life and work

Christianity in its essence is a faith about God incarnate – embracing the world. Part of the problem of modern Christianity is we have allowed it to be excarnated. Michael Frost wrote Incarnate (IVP 2014) to urge engaging the world rather than separating ourselves from it or seeing the value of Christianity only in heaven. Part of the good news about Christianity, especially for a secular age, is that God is interested in everyday life and the concerns of this world. The so-called “secular” is not off limits for God. Let’s celebrate a faith that relates to work and play, friendship and family, money and sex – and to the complex and pressing issues of social justice and environmental care. Smith writes:

Many evangelicals reacting to the “dualism” of their fundamentalist heritage that seemed to only value “heaven” and offered no functional affirmation of the importance of “this life.” Their rejection of this finds expression in a new emphasis on “the goodness of creation” and the importance of social justice. (p.49)

Many who have no interest in church are passionate about work that makes a difference, especially for justice and the environment. We want to help people understand how faith in the God of the Bible is integrally related to everyday life and work, especially caring for creation and advocating for a more just world.

 

2. Offer mystical experience

Authentic evangelism in a secular age will engage closely with this world, but still needs to point beyond. One of the fascinating things about so-called secularisation is that people do not totally dismiss the mystical. They suspect and respect that there may be something more than what we see with our eyes and touch with our hands.

 

Part of curating worship is to invite people to really experience God. We give priority to engaging Scripture so people might hear the Bible as the voice of God for them. We also invite people to get a real taste of Jesus with communion, and by exercising gifts of the Spirit, and by setting up a worshipful vibe and contemplative space. In recent decades in attempts to be seeker friendly church architects have given us more factories for churches, but we suspect secular people appreciate the ambience of more traditional worship spaces.  

We want our churches to be relevant to life, but also offer mystical experiences of God – in worship and in the midst of the everyday. We hope our ministries will lift people’s eyes beyond their immanent frame and open them to the transcendent. Part of evangelism, as Smith explains, is to help secular people who value “authenticity” and making meaning understand that the supernatural is possible, and that pursuing something beyond human flourishing is imaginable.

Olivia Smith was talking to a close school friend who told her she was losing her faith, because of studying evolution. Olivia offered to pray. The friend teased her: “who are we going to pray to?” Olivia said she still had her faith in an awesome God, and prayed “Show this friend that you are here.” Then she opened up the Bible to a random verse, and their eyes fell on Psalm 73:2: “But I had almost stopped believing. I had almost lost my faith.” They were both amazed that was an exact verse the friend needed to hear. It is significant that it was an experience of God’s encouragement, not apologetic argument, which encouraged Olivia’s friend to persevere.  

 

3. Tell an alternative story

The other clue about evangelism in secular times is that it is not so much superior scientific argument that will convince people about God, but an alternative story that has potential to capture their imagination. Smith wrote:

Taylor suggests that those who convert to unbelief “because of science” are less convinced by data and more moved by the form of the story that science tells and the self-image that comes with it (rationality = maturity). Moreover, the faith that they left was often worth leaving … the Christian response to such converts to unbelief is not to have an argument about the data or “evidences” but rather to offer an alternative story that offers a more robust, complex understanding of the Christian faith. (p.77)

A generation ago “Evidence that demands a verdict” was all the rage, as evangelists such as Josh McDowell articulated intellectual responses to any objection to the credibility of faith. We spent hours talking to our friends in high school along these lines. But today it is more about the “Story we find ourselves in”, as postmodern evangelists such as Brian McLaren invite people to see the narrative of God’s work in the world and God’s invitation to people to join in on fostering God’s dream for the world. The story God invites us to become part of is not just about getting out tickets for heaven, but joining with God in bringing heaven to earth – the Kingdom of God. That is a story worth revolving our lives around!

 

4. Recognize the difficulty of belief

Faith from some angles is simple. Yet faith does not come easy for many people. We have had numbers of people come to our churches who describe themselves as atheists because they say they simply do not see the evidence for God or have not yet had a convincing experience of God. Others have wanted to experience God, but God still seems distant to them. Faith and belief are not straightforward for everyone, and perhaps for most of us. 

Anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann asks in When God Talks Back: “If you could believe in God, why wouldn’t you?” but concedes at the same time: “It ought to be difficult to believe in God.” Smith discusses this tension and suggests that to live in a secular age is to inhabit just this space and tension (p.6). Our evangelism needs to be honest about the difficulty of belief. Rick Richardson, evangelism professor at Wheaton, comments, “In the past, being an expert and having the answers were what built credibility and a hearing. Today, having the same questions, struggles and hurts is what builds credibility and gains a hearing” (Evangelism Outside the Box, IVP, 2000, 48). If we can be honest, even about our own difficulties and doubts, we are more likely to be able to come alongside and help others who are on a journey towards faith.

 

5. Invite conversation

The most important framework for evangelism in a secular age is conversation. We can never presume that faith sharing is one way speech. We have to start with questions to understand where people are coming from and where they have already experienced God. This is why the L for Listen is just after Beginning with prayer – to prioritise a posture of listening to people and our communities. We listen to others for their stories, and then share our story of God. It is a conversation of mutual interest in identifying and pursuing a life-giving spirituality. Smith comments that evangelism in a secular age must be a form of conversation and that unapologetic “witnessing” involves attentive “listening”:  

Taylor insists that, while he believes a Christian “take” can account for aspects of our experience that an exclusively humanist “take” cannot, he is not primarily interested in winning an argument. Rather, his concern is to foster a “badly needed” conversation. (p.120)

This is the posture that has been so transformative at CityLife Casey. The church supports St Kilda Gatehouse, a safe place of advocacy and hospitality for prostitutes.  By listening to the stories of the women, Gatehouse identified that sexual exploitation of them as girls is what usually started them on the path to prostitution. Gatehouse started an outreach in Dandenong for young girls, and volunteers from CityLife and elsewhere listen to the stories of the young women as they cook and share a meal together, without judgment or Bible bashing. The conversations have helped the team understand where the girls are coming from, and what they really need.

Connecting effectively with people from any sphere of society, and at any stage of faith, starts with a conversation. It recognises the difficulty of belief, shares an alternative society not just a logical argument, and invites people to a mystical experience of God as well as celebrating the relevance of faith for everyday life and justice.

Kim Hammond is Forge’s International Director and serves as Pastor of City Life Casey, a campus of the second largest church in Australia with 10,000 people across four sites. Darren Cronshaw serves as Pastor of AuburnLife, a small but vibrant multicultural community, Mission Catalyst – Researcher with BUV, and Head of Research and Professor of Missional Leadership with Australian College of Ministries. They wrote Sentness (IVP 2014), and this article is an excerpt from their next book Sharing Life (IVP, forthcoming 2018). Write to us via pastor@auburn.org.au. This article was originally published in Crossover PRAC Issue 74 (Summer 2016), 5-6

Source: BUV News