This post was written by Mark Hansard on July 23, 2008
Christianity Today recently interviewed Pastor and author Tim Keller on his book, The Reason for God, and how he approaches conversations with intellectuals who don’t believe in Christ. We have already posted a positive review of Keller’s book on the blog here.
I believe Keller has some excellent practical wisdom in this interview that is quite applicable to reaching academic colleagues for Christ.
First, notice that he discusses the plausibility of the Gospel, and how it differs from culture to culture. Some in Eastern cultures will have different intellectual barriers to coming to Christ than others in Western cultures, (or university cultures, or scholars in a particular field, for that matter). Since the plausibility of the Gospel varies for different groups of people, we ought, with the guidance and help of the Holy Spirit, to adjust our God conversations accordingly. And we can see the Apostles did this in Scripture, as they related the Good News to various groups of people. For example, if we compare Peter’s speech in Acts 2 with Paul’s speech at the Areopagus in Acts 17, the speeches are quite different because the hearers came from different cultural backgrounds (pious Jewish backgrounds and Greek philosophical backgrounds, respectively).
As well, Keller has some wise practical advice on keeping certain political and theological issues out of a conversation about the Gospel, because they are peripheral to the issue of the acceptance of Christ and who he was. Certain political ideologies, or particular views on creation and intelligent design, for example, while important, are not essential for a person to know the Lord.
|
