Renewing the Christian voice, conscience, and imagination so that we can become compelling witnesses of the Gospel in today's culture. Christianity has an image problem. While the culture we inhabit presents us with an increasingly anti-Christian and disenchanted position, the church in the West has not helped its case by becoming anti-intellectual, fragmented, and out of touch with the relevancy of Jesus to all aspects of contemporary life. The muting of the Christian voice, its imagination, and its collective conscience ...
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Renewing the Christian voice, conscience, and imagination so that we can become compelling witnesses of the Gospel in today's culture. Christianity has an image problem. While the culture we inhabit presents us with an increasingly anti-Christian and disenchanted position, the church in the West has not helped its case by becoming anti-intellectual, fragmented, and out of touch with the relevancy of Jesus to all aspects of contemporary life. The muting of the Christian voice, its imagination, and its collective conscience have diminished the prospect of having a genuine missionary encounter with others today. Cultural apologetics attempts to demonstrate not only the truth of the Gospel but also its desirability by reestablishing Christianity as the answer that satisfies our three universal human longings-truth, goodness, and beauty. In Cultural Apologetics, philosopher and professor Paul Gould sets forth a fresh and uplifting model for cultural engagement-rooted in the biblical account of Paul's speech in Athens-which details practical steps for establishing Christianity as both true and beautiful, reasonable and satisfying. You'll be introduced to: The idea of cultural apologetics as distinct from traditional apologetics. The path from disenchantment with how we understand reality to re-enchantment with the reality of the spiritual nature of things. The practical tools of good cultural engagement: conscience, reason, and imagination. Equip yourself to see, and help others see, the world as it is through the lens of the Spirit-deeply beautiful, mysterious, and sacred. With creative insights, Cultural Apologetics prepares readers to share a vision of the Christian faith that is both plausible and desirable, offering clarity for those who have become disoriented in the haze of modern Western culture.
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People need to see the good, the true, and the beautiful. But most of us live in a disenchanted world. Due to scandals, arguments, and lack of conviction,Ã? "the church's prophetic voice, once resounding with power on issues of slavery and human rights, is now but a whimper" (18). Many are failing to give a high view of God that changes us to really be more like Christ. In the land of YouTube, the church just can't compete when it comes to entertainment. But it was never supposed to.
Gould argues that we need to employ cultural apologetics, "the work of establishing the Christian voice, conscience, and imagination within a culture so that christianity is seen as true and satisfying" (21). Anyone can use this method, even normal folk like me. It operates on two levels:
1. Globally: pay attention to how the culture thinks and lives, and then we work to create a world that is welcoming, thrilling, beautiful, and enchanted (more on that soon).
2. Locally: We remove obstacles that prevent people from coming to Christ and offer positive reason to believe in him so that people will see Christianity as true, satisfying, plausible, and desirable (23).
We want need to show how living as a Christian is better and more desirable than not. Everyone wants truth, justice, beauty, and goodness. We resurrect relevance by showing how Christ answers our human longings. We resurrect hope by "creating new cultural goods and rhythms and practices that reflect the truth, beauty, and goodness of Christianity" (24). All good stories point us to Jesus, even if they do so indirectly. Fictional stories are windows to another world, beckoning for us to look through for the One who offers us joy unending. (113)
Recommended?
This was a good push toward thinking about how to influence within culture. While Paul does say the cross is foolishness (aka undesirable), Gould gives a helpful perspective on thinking differently about our faith and how we are called to live as Christians among our neighbors.
ZEDSREVIEW
Feb 6, 2021
Christianity Appeal to Truth, Goodness, and Beauty
Paul GouldÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢s Cultural Apologetics is a combination of some classical arguments for God, such as inherent morality in humanity, with contemporary approaches, such as addressing the paradigm of postmodernism. Primarily, Gould argues that Christians, today, need to be able to present Christianity as reasonable and desirable, contrary to what many non-believers might think of Christianity at present. Gould emphasizes how Christianity appeals to the universal desires for truth, goodness, and beauty. So believers should assert this. The author states the importance of doing this by engaging with culture. He defines cultural apologetics as Ã?¢ââ??¬Ã?"the work of establishing the Christian voice, conscience, and imagination within a culture so that Christianity is seen as true and satisfyingÃ?¢ââ??¬Ã?Â? (21). The author acknowledges how influential culture is, and presents an alternative to the Benedict Option Ã?¢ââ??¬" working within it, rather than withdrawing from it. A very good book.
