Telling the Truth: Evangelizing Postmoderns
Ebook
Overview
”A pre-modern baseball umpire would have said something like this: ‘There’s balls, and there’s strikes, and I call ‘em as they are.’ The modernist would have said, ‘There’s balls, and there’s strikes, and I call ’em as I see ’em.’ And the postmodernist umpire would say, ’They ain’t nothing until I call ’em.’“ With that humorous quote, Ravi Zacharias illustrates the challenge postmodernism poses to Christians passionate about evangelism. How do you communicate truth to a world that isn’t sure what truth is--or even if truth is? How do you commend spiritual absolutes to people who insist there are none? If you’ve puzzled, even struggled, over such questions, the book you hold in your hands is required reading, Telling the Truth provides informed insights on the heart of the Gospel, the soul of postmodern culture, and their complex interface. This book is a compilation of thoughts and strategies from twenty-nine prominent practitioners of contemporary evangelism. Originating at a three-day conference held at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Telling the Truth draws on knowledge gained in the trenches by Ravi Zacharias, Kelly Monroe, D.A. Carson, Ajith Fernando, and other notables. It will open your eyes to how the contest for souls is fought, guerilla-style, at a multitude of fronts: relationships, the university, ethnicity, reason and emotion, the pulpit, communications . . . in short, the broad spectrum of human experience and values. You’ll be challenged to discern between the unchanging Gospel and the flexible means by which we communicate it. Telling the Truth can help you lay the groundwork necessary to point biblically uninformed, postmodern men and women toward an encounter with non-negotiable truth -- an absolute revealed in the Bible that points to the reality of sin and the need for a Savior.
TABLE OF Contents
Preface
Contributors
PART 1:Opening Plenaries
1.An Ancient Message, through Modern Means, to a Postmodern Mind 19
Ravi Zacharias
2.The Touch of Truth
Ravi Zacharias
PART 2: The Challenge
3.Why Is Religious Pluralism Fun and Dangerous?
Harold A. Netland and Keith E. Johnson
4.Epistemology at the Core of Postmodernism: Rorty, Foucault, and the Gospel
Jon Hinkson and Greg Ganssle
PART 3: Critical Topics
5.Why Should Anyone Believe Anything at All?
James W. Sire
6.Two Ways to Live and Biblical Theology
Phillip D. Jensen and Tony Payne
7.Keeping Christ Central in Preaching
Colin S. Smith
8.The Uniqueness of Jesus Christ
Ajith Fernando
9.Communicating Sin in a Postmodern World
Mark E. Dever
10.Turning to God: Conversion beyond Mere Religious Preference
Michael P. Andrus
PART 4:Crucial Passages
11.The Gospel Paradox: Declaring Sinners Righteous (Rom. 3:21-26)
John W. Nyquist
12.The Ambassador’s Job Description: 2 Corinthians 5:11-21
Colin S. Smith
PART 5:Church, Campus, Ethnicity
13.Church/Campus Connections: Model 1
Phillip D. Jensen and Tony Payne
14.Church/Campus Connections: Model 2
Mark Gauthier
15.Penetrating Ethnic Pluralism: African-Americans
Charles Gilmer
16.Reaching Out to Postmodern Asian-Americans
Peter Cha and Greg Jao
PART 6:This Relational Age
17.Faithfully Relating to Unbelievers in a Relational Age
Susan Hecht
18.The Lifestyle of the Great Commission
Robert E. Coleman
19.Authentic Church-Based Evangelism in a Relational Age
Ron Bennett
PART 7: Experiences and Strategies
20.Finding God at Harvard: Reaching the Post-Christian University
Kelly Monroe
21.Ministering in the Postmodern Academy
Walter L. Bradley
22.Examples of Effective Evangelism
Andrea Buczynski
23.Generating Hope: A Strategy for Reaching the Postmodern Generation
Jimmy Long
24. William Carey Revisited: Going after Every College Student 336
Mike Tilley
25. Evangelizing Postmoderns Using a Mission Outpost Strategy 343
Don Bartel
26. The Gospel for a New Generation 352
Keith A. Davy
PART 8: Closing Plenaries
27. The Urgency of the Gospel 371
Ajith Fernando
28. Athens Revisited 384
D. A. Carson
Notes 399
Index 407
Product Details
- Title : Telling the Truth: Evangelizing Postmoderns
- Author: Carson, D. A.
- Publisher: Zondervan
- Publication Date: 2009
- ISBN: 9780310860426
D.A. Carson (b. 1946) is one of the most respected New Testament scholars in the world. A respected teacher, author, and speaker, he is currently research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and the president of The Gospel Coalition. He has served as pastor of Richmond Baptist Church and as the first dean of the seminary of Northwest Baptist Theological College, now known as Northwest Baptist Seminary. Logos has collected his sermons—including audio—in the D.A. Carson Sermon Archive.
Carson lectures in academic and church settings around the world, and is the author of more than 50 books, including Exegetical Fallacies, Pillar New Testament Commentary: The Gospel According to John, The Gagging of God, Showing the Spirit: A Theological Exposition of 1 Corinthians 12–14 and the Intolerance of Tolerance. He is the editor of the Pillar New Testament Commentary series, and coedited of the Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament with G.K. Beale, and the Studies in New Testament Greek series with Stanley Porter. You can find more of Carson’s work in the Baker D.A. Carson Collection (15 vols.).