Living Under the Reign of God: Gospel, Church & Culture in a Postmodern Context

1. Living Under the Reign of God: Gospel, Church & Culture in a Postmodern Context Baptist Bible College December 2004

2. The Lord Mayor of London

3. The Lord Mayor of London Parade

4. The Church in Crisis • The Movement Inward - Evangelicalism is now one’s personal experience…no longer any cognitive dissonance with our culture…sense of truth and character lost… theology banished to religious aspect of life… • Today’s Heroes - the therapist, the CEO... therapeutic society… nervous search for true self…self-absorption.. • Loss of Truth - shift from Theocentric to self-centered worship…psychologized preaching, pragmatism…

5. The Church’s Cultural Captivity 1. Loss of eschatological urgency… 2. Framed in the normalcy of the present and not the coming kingdom… 3. Derives its status and forms of power from the world… 4. Seduced to turn the world into the kingdom that avoids the cross, conversion, goodnews!...

6. Lessons to be Learned in the Crisis of a Crumbling Worldview • Need to abandon a privatized faith for participation in a radical kingdom community... • Church - culture relationship is not sponsoral, religious servants of, citizens rooted in a foreign land… • Need to recover the gospel, church & the world.

7. The Gospel is ... A Message about God - A Message about Sin - conviction of wrong relationship with God and conviction of sin, sins and sinfulness A Message about Christ - both His person and His work A Message about Faith & Repentance - [J. I. Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God]

8. Post-Captivity Evangelism • Evangelism must be seen as invitation to enter the Kingdom and thus the church. • Converts need to be presented the implications of entering a new race of men. • Can no longer assume that enculturated people have a common understanding of language with us. • Without imposing the gospel, we need to trade on the moral point of contact for the gospel.

9. Point of Contact for the Gospel • Inescapable - Sensus Deitatis • All men know their guilt (worthy of death) & that they are creatures • Agency of Word and Spirit in regeneration • Epistemologically - nothing in common • Metaphysically - everything in common • Moral Point of Contact - Judgment, Repent

10. Implications for Evangelism & Apologetics 1. God redemptively engages people in their history by the grace of the Holy Spirit. 2. There must be a faith community that demonstrates that the gospel is true in practice and thus in reality. 3. By the use of redemptive history we must show the narrative is compelling & coherent on its own terms. 4. Our faith narrative must be presented as encompassing all of life experience. 5. We must honestly & fully hear other faiths. 6. The gospel should be presented without resort to verbal violence against others.

11. A Canonical Theology of Redemptive History Creation/Perfection Fall/Judgment Redemption/Grace Consummation/Restoration

12. Emerging Mission of the Church C H U R C H BETWEEN GOSPEL & CULTURE

13. The Church: an Alternative Culture Matthew 5:13-16 • Salt of the Earth – to become foolish • Light of the World – represent kingdom salvation to the world • City Set on a Hill – issue is seen or not seen • Live in Such a Way that the Kingdom Will Be Manifested

14. Living Under the Reign of God: Gospel, Church & Culture in a Postmodern Context The End Baptist Bible College December 2004