The Integrity of CommitmentFORMATION NOT INOCULATION

Who I am (and my limitations)

uMy upbringing

uMy evangelicalism

uMy educational location

uMy research

The Problem under examination

uDoes exposure to Christian faith in schooling help or hinderuEvangelism?uDiscipleship?uCultural Engagement?

uMy mixed experience

This Cultural Moment

Faith Self Christian Expression within the secular age

This Cultural Moment

uFaithuDifference and Dissolution

uRegular experience of “other” perspectivesuUncertainty as to how conviction can work together with

civility

uFaith is fragileu“[Why] was it virtually impossible not to believe in God in, say,

1500 in our Western society, while in 2000 many of us find this not only easy, but even inescapable?” (Taylor)

uThe “background understanding and feel of the world” – the immanent frame

Taylor speaks not of worldviews but “social imaginaries”

u The way we imagine how “things usually go”

u A different slant to “worldview”

u Less philosophical

u Articulated in images, stories, legends (Pop Culture, Rites, Social Media)

u Reflection Exercise: What stories/images articulate the social imaginary of your students?

This Cultural Momentu Identity and Authenticity

u Expressive Individualism - Find your own wayu Exclusive Humanism – no higher goal than human flourishing.

u Sensitivityu Our past sinsu Micro-Aggressions and Trigger Warningsu Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt – The Coddling of the

American Mindu Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning – Microaggression and

Moral Cultures

Lukianoff

u “At present, many freshman-orientationprograms try to raise student sensitivity to anearly impossible level. Teaching students toavoid giving unintentional offense is a worthygoal, especially when the students come frommany different cultural backgrounds. Butstudents should also be taught how to live in aworld full of potential offenses.”

Campbell and Manning

“The emerging victimhood culture appears to share dignity’sdisdain for risk, but it does condone calling attention tooneself as long as one is calling attention to one’s ownhardships – to weaknesses rather than strengths and toexploitation rather than exploits. For example, students writingpersonal statements as part of their applications for collegesand graduate schools often write not of their academicachievements but instead – with the encouragement of theuniversities – about overcoming adversity such as a parent’sjob loss or having to shop at thrift stores.”

How do your students form their identity?

Turning the Critique Upon Ourselves

u Christian Smith – Moralistic Therapeutic Deism

u Baby Boomer Adults leading the way

u Your Best Life Now!

u Taylor – both believers and non believers live within the immanent frame

This Cultural Moment

uChristian Expression in a Secular Age

uThe view from withoutuReligion as noble folly à Religion as suspicious and potentially poisonous

uHow this impacts “values” schooling

This Cultural Moment

uChristian Expression in a Secular Age

uThe view from withinuOften Quiet

u friendship evangelism is complicated in a world needing allies

uConformist (like every generation!)u “performance” of conformity changes in the digital age

u Immature in faith developmentu The difference between reciting answers and a renewed mind

Making Disciples in a Secular Age

u Evangelism

u Discipleship

u Cultural Engagement

1. Evangelism

u Just Give them the Gospel? Yes, but…

u Contextualisation is always happening

u Bible translation

u Dress

u Length of Presentation

u Metaphors

u Questions

Just Give Them the Gospel?

u How does the timeless Gospel intersect with their time?

u Theologising the relationship between felt needs and real needs

u How does the Gospel of Christ crucified and risen speak to Anxiety/Identity/Justice/Addiction/Shame (amongst others)

The Changing Shape of “Defeater” Beliefs

Defeater Beliefs

u Fundamental beliefs which make Christianity implausible

u “A defeater belief is any belief A, that if true rules out or defeats the truth of some other belief B. Each culture has a set of defeater beliefs for Christianity, and if we don’t engage those Christianity will not get a hearing (or a fair hearing)” (Paul Gould, The Outrageous Idea of the Missional Professor)

Credibility Plausibility

Most apologetics throughout Christian history have beendirected at the issue of credibility: “Is it true?” Nowadays,however, we are faced with the prior question, the question ofplausibility: “Might it be true? Is Christian argumentsomething I should seriously entertain even for a moment?”Without dealing with this prior question of plausibility,apologetics cannot proceed to the traditional task of offeringgood reasons to believe. (John Stackhouse, Humble Apologetics)

The Changing Shape of “Defeater” Beliefs

What “defeaters” shut down the possibility of faith in your school?

Know Why You Believe (1968)

u Is Christianity Rationalu Is There a Godu Is Christ Godu Did Christ Rise from the Deadu Is the Bible God’s Wordu Are the Bible Documents

Reliableu Does Archaeology Verify

Scripture

u Are Miracles Possibleu Do Science and Scripture

Agreeu Why Does God Allow

Suffering and Evilu Does Christianity Differ from

Other World Religionsu Is Christian Experience Valid?

The Reason for God (2008)

u There Can’t be Just One True Religionu How could a good God allow Suffering?u Christianity is a Straitjacketu The Church is Responsible for so much

Injusticeu How can a Loving God send people to Hell?u Science has Disproved Christianityu You Can’t Take the Bible Literally

Making Sense of God (2016)

u A Meaning that Suffering Can’t Take from Youu A Satisfaction That Is Not Based on

Circumstancesu Why Can’t I Be Free to Live as I See Fit, as Long

as I Don’t Harm Anyone?u The Problem of the Selfu An Identity That Doesn’t Crush You or Exclude

Othersu A Hope That Can Face Anything

Tim Keller

u Contextualization is not — as is often argued — “givingpeople what they want to hear.” Rather, it is giving peoplethe Bible’s answers, which they may not at all want to hear,to questions about life that people in their particular time andplace are asking, in language and forms they cancomprehend, and through appeals and arguments withforce they can feel, even if they reject them.

u Keller, Timothy. Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City (Kindle Locations 2249-2253). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Tim Keller

u Have you ever sat through a sermon that wasbiblically sound and doctrinally accurate — yetso boring that it made you want to cry?... Thelistener says to himself or herself, “You’ve shownme something that may be true, but in any caseI don’t care. I don’t see how it would actuallychange how I think, feel, and act.”

2. Discipleship - Interrelationships between Christian thinking and practices

Apologetics/Evangelism

Spiritual FormationTheologyEthics

The Interrelationships between Disciplines

uApologetics is spiritually formative

uEthics is theological

u Ethics is apologetics

u Spiritual formation is theological

2. Discipleship

u What happens when the Christian answers feel implausible?

u A better story which resources distinct Christian living

u The example of sexual ethics

u What has been your biggest learning about sexual ethics in the last 10 years?

u Mine - A deformed theology of sex and theological anthropology

2. Discipleship

u We had a more conservative practice ofsexuality, but we largely endorsed the sameunderlying story

u We configured marital sexuality in relationship toself-fulfilment and human flourishing.

u But according to this story, Christian restrictions onsexual practice begin to make no sense.

2. Discipleship

u In the end, what keeps me on the path I’ve chosen is not so muchindividual proof texts from Scripture or the sheer weight of thechurch’s traditional teaching against homosexual practice. Instead,it is, I think, those texts and traditions and teachings as I see themfrom within the true story of what God has done in Jesus Christ – andthe whole perspective on life and the world that flows from thatstory, as expressed definitively in Scripture. Like a piece from a jigsawpuzzle finally locked into its rightful place, the Bible and the church’sno to homosexual behavior make sense – it has the ring of truth, as J.B. Phillips once said of the New Testament – when I look at it as onepiece within the larger Christian narrative. I abstain from homosexualbehavior because of the power of the Scriptural story. (Wesley Hill)

Discipleship for Deviantsu Forming people to belong to a cognitive minority – “a group of

people whose view of the world differs significantly from theone generally taken for granted in their society” (Peter Berger)

u To the outsider, such groups easily look “deviant”

u Hence the biblical importance onu embrace being “strangers” without trying to be strange (see 1 Peter)

u The vital importance of humility and hospitality as core virtuesu Identity formation in Christ and the strength of living according to a

different story

3. Cultural Engagement

u How everything affects the social imaginary

uTechnology

uPolitics

uProsperity

uArt

3. Cultural Engagement

uEvery Christian organisation seems to want to change the culture (James Davison Hunter)

uVery few understand how culture works

uMost Christian visions for transforming culture end up threatening our conformity to Christ

3. Cultural Engagement

uCultural Engagement as Public Discipleship

uVarious Models for Cultural EngagementuWithdrawal (e.g. Benedict Option)uTransformation (example - Wilberforce Option)uFaithful Presence (Hunter)

3. Cultural Engagement

u Affirmation and Antithesis/Critique and Contribution

u Various examples of Scriptural and Theological resources for cultural engagementu Genesis 1-2

u Israel in Exile (e.g. Daniel 1-6; Jeremiah 29)

u Gospels (the pattern of Incarnation)

u What about the book of Revelation?

3. Cultural Engagement

u Applying the text first to ourselvesu Admitting faultu Sharing the challenge of our obedience in all the spheres we

speak to.

u Taking the roof offu Challenging the inconsistencies of the secular ageu Showing how the answer to their deepest desires is Jesus

u Transcending Partisan Politics

The role of schools?