What are some challenges you’re facing? II
People are evolving in the way they approach truth. It must be experienced, tactile, self-authenticated, rather than revealed through some outside authority. This is challenging to those of us who believe that faith comes through revelation (the light came into darkness), through God’s incarnation, through living and telling God’s story, through the Son who is Way, Truth and Life.
I’m not saying that Christianity shouldn’t be existential. The Relationship must be lived and the Will carried out. But the new creation in Christ calls us to pour our experience through the filter of the Message, rather than the Message through the filter of experience.
Most Europeans believe that they have already heard the story and are not open to hearing it again. We tackle that problem through the formation of youth who experience the story as new. They are already capable of reaching their peers (who do not think in the same way as we older folks). What we strive to do is to form the mind, not by the means of today’s thought, but through the transformation of thinking that comes about through Gospel. Postmodernism will pass away. The Message, and its transforming power, will not.
October 26th, 2007 at 6:39 am
“Most Europeans believe that they have already heard the story and are not open to hearing it again.”
You can replace “Europeans” with “Americans” and it will still be true, sadly. Many people in the US, as with Europe, have heard all the great Bible stories (OT and NT). You can even say to someone, “Jesus died on the cross for your sins” and that statement would not be new to them. Brady, you are not alone in facing this problem.
We shall continue to pray…
October 26th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
It’s a great point that postmodernism will eventually fade. These ages we find ourselves in seem eternal. But they are seconds from God’s perspective.
October 27th, 2007 at 1:25 am
“…………my words shall not pass away.” What a comfort. I pray for you. God bless.
October 27th, 2007 at 1:34 am
Reaching the youth has always been a key.
Whether we’re doing it or not is another question.
“S” n “B” beat me to the point about America.