AP211 Show and Tell: Apologetics in the Postmodern Context
Overview
Dr. Jim Belcher’s course offers a necessary look at postmodern culture and how living in this time affects believers, unbelievers, preaching, apologetics, and the future church. He begins with the philosophical and social background to postmodernism, considers characteristics of postmodern people, and suggests the consequences for these individuals and the community. Finally, Dr. Belcher provides a solution for sharing Christianity in this context.
Top Highlights
“‘Culture is popularly conceived narrowly—as language, music, art, food, and folk customs—but properly understood, it touches every aspect of how we live in the world.’” (source)
“‘The great missionary task is to express the gospel message to a new culture in a way that avoids making the message [unnecessarily] alien to that culture yet without removing or obscuring the scandal and offense of biblical truth.’” (source)
“‘Premoderns placed their trust in authority.’ We saw that feudal authority, the church authority, the authority of the Bible. ‘Moderns lost their confidence in authority and placed it in human reason instead.’” (source)
“But there’s another danger that Keller talks about. He calls it to ‘under-contextualize’ the gospel. Newbigin said this is where the church becomes irrelevant because we’ve so pulled away from the culture and have made no attempt to understand it and to communicate things in ways that the culture and the people and the world around us would understand. This is often called ‘tribalism’: when the church pulls back into its little tribe and stays away from the world so that it’s not contaminated in the world.” (source)
“He found commonalities. He found where their heart was located, their beliefs and their customs, and their cultures. He looked for places that matched up with their hopes and their dreams. He found commonalities. But he also didn’t stop there because that would be over-contextualization. He also critiqued the culture. He also pointed out their idols or where their cultural stories would fall short and wouldn’t satisfy them in the long run and certainly wouldn’t save them.” (source)
- Title: AP211 Show and Tell: Apologetics in the Postmodern Context
- Author: Jim Belcher
- Series: Logos Mobile Education
- Publisher: Lexham Press
- Print Publication Date: 2015
- Logos Release Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Courseware
- Subjects: Apologetics; Postmodernism › Religious aspects--Christianity; Education › Apologetics; Education › Postmodernism--Religious aspects--Christianity
- Resource ID: LLS:AP211BELCHER
- Resource Type: Courseware Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-02-11T17:02:55Z
Dr. Jim Belcher (PhD, Georgetown; MA, Fuller) is president of Providence Christian College in Pasadena, California and former associate professor of practical theology at Knox Theological Seminary in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. His first book was the widely acclaimed and award-winning Deep Church: A Third Way beyond Emerging and Traditional (InterVarsity Press, 2009).
Dr. Belcher is the former founding and lead pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, California, where he served from 2000–2010, and led a period of steady growth. He was the cofounder of the Restoring Community Conference: Integrating Social Interaction, Sacred Space and Beauty in the 21st Century, a conference for city officials, planners, builders, and architects. He and his wife, Michelle, have four children and live in southern Florida.