Witnessing To Postmodern People

Our message this evening is entitled, “Witnessing to Postmodern People.” As we seek to understand how to better share our faith in today’s western culture, we must begin with a discussion on modernism and postmodernism. Modernism and postmodernism are eras, or time periods of societal thought and belief. Now, I’ve touched upon this subject before, so some of the information I will share in our introduction will be a review; but I am convinced that we cannot be effective in sharing our faith until we understand the mindset of today’s culture.

Michael Crichton wrote Jurassic Park to represent the modern world and mindset. It is a dream of control. It is technology for fun and profit. But it is a dream gone bad. Nature, it turns out, has a stream of chaos running through it. And the modern story, it turns out, shows that the would-be circus masters are really just part of the circus – not so big or strong or wise after all.(1)

Doc Thorne, one of the main characters, said after overhearing a conversation, “Are you listening to all that? I wouldn’t take any of it too seriously. It’s just theories. Human beings can’t help making them, but the fact is that theories are just fantasies, and they change.”(2)

Jurassic Park is a criticism of the modern era. In the modern age, which was around the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, people placed a huge emphasis on scientific theory. Science was thought to contain very predictable rules and laws that did not change, and thus science was seen as a source of reliable and unchanging truth. Science became the religion of the day. This was the period in which Darwin came out with his Origin of Species, and Nietzsche claimed that “God is dead.”

We now live in what is called the postmodern age. So, what does post-modern mean? It means “after” the modern era or age. Remember, modernism and postmodernism are time periods of societal belief.

In the postmodern age – which is now – we live in a time where people have seen that science is not as predictable as it was once thought to be. Theories change all the time. People feel that we can’t really know anything for certain, asking, “What is truth?” and saying, “There is no absolute truth. We define our own truth. I have my truth that works for me; however, it might not work for you. You can go out and define your own truth.”

A truly postmodern person doesn’t believe in one set way. One article states that in postmodernism “all beliefs are equally valid, unless you actually believe them.” And “all beliefs are equally valid except those that claim to be true.”(3) In other words, you can believe what you want to believe, and I’ll believe what I want to believe. Just don’t tell me that your belief is the only correct view. This is the reason why we have no moral compass in our society.

This notion of defining our own truth that has arisen in this postmodern age is called “relativism.” In relativism, truth is relative to our own personal likes or dislikes, and truth is relative to our own life circumstances or our own point of view.

So, how do we proclaim Jesus who is “the way, the truth, and the life” to people who are skeptical of certainty? This is a really good question to consider. We are going to look at an example from Paul’s ministry and see if we can gain some insight into ministering to the people of today’s postmodern world.

All Beliefs Are Equally Valid? (vv. 16-21)

16 Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. 17 Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there. 18 Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,” because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? 20 For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean.” 21 For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.

It is interesting that when Paul tried to preach Jesus to them that they did not know who He was. Here we see a city in which people’s delight came from discussing new ideas and topics of religion, who were culturally advanced, merchants and traders who traveled abroad, and yet they had never heard of Jesus. Though we live in a country, which was originally founded on Christian beliefs, and in some places there is a church on every street corner, surprisingly you still find people who have never heard of Jesus. Even in churches there are those who don’t know the truths of the gospel.