This coming Sunday at Eastbrook Church, I am preaching from Acts 17:16-34 about Paul’s ministry in Athens. I find this episode to be one of the most interesting stories in Acts because it is so unlike other examples from Paul’s ministry journeys.
Here are three observations I have been spending time thinking on:
- Paul doesn’t connect with a Jewish audience, as he does so many other times by starting his ministry in the synagogues.
- Paul does not use Scripture explicitly, but connects with his audience by quoting from philosophers and poets that were common to their setting.
- Paul does not condemn their apparent idolatry, but uses it as a springboard for proclaiming the good news in Christ.
There are so many more things that could be considered from this story, but I have been holding these thoughts in tension around the following question:
How can we find creative ways to connect with people and our culture around us in order to proclaim the message of Christ?
What do you think?
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Matthew Erickson 
It is amazing to see a devout Pharisee approach the marketplace and Aeropagus because Christ changed him to weep for those given over to idoltry. What a passion for his former enemies, the Uber Hellenistic in the heart of Athens. One creative way to connect maybe to understand and weep for those who are lost by better listening and understanding-coming alongside them in love and passion of our Lord!
Adam, what a great point. Too often we focus on what we are going to say without giving attention to the listening that must take place first.
Many times, the best connection is to simply listen … which is what Paul essentially did by walking through the agora in the first place.
matt, forgive the long comment. have you ever heard of the concept of a “second first language”? the idea is that you immerse yourself so deeply in a view of life different from your own that you learn how to (metaphorically) reside in it o…r “speak” it as well as you can your own. it underscores the difficulty of really understanding different ways of life (at least those that are mutually exclusive–i would argue that most western christians share a way of life with pagan neighbors because for most, the main way of life is more determined by the way we understand exchange and the market than the way we love Christ–globalizing consumer capitalism as an alternative that subverts christianity by merely subordinating or privatizing it). i think that often apologetics is characterized by a sort of sophomoric dabbling; people that don’t know what they’re talking about act like christianity is the great answer to all the world’s questions without really appreciating the force of the questions or the alternative answers. the concept of a “second first language” (rare enough–it takes years to acquire) prevents a type of facile imitation of paul and at the same time poses a challenge to those really interested in engaging. it’s an important concept macintyre’s book “three rival versions of moral inquiry”.
as for more general, cultural engagement, the great challenge, i think, is to prevent modes of exchange from privatizing faith (i think that such privatization by the market is exactly what explains this phenomenon: http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/09/18/ready-poll-religion-shapes-views-on-abortion-more-than-views/). if we can make faith the most determinative thing in our lives, then we will already know how those shaped as good consumers to sustain a global market think and desire, and we can begin to engage them as christians. the great obstacle to it is christian formation or catechesis. i am pessimistic about the possibility of mass catechesis in evangelicalism, because i think contemporary evangelicalism derives its coherence almost entirely from the task the formation of good consumers for a global market (much like mainline liberalism derived it from the task of formation of good citizens in a nation-state). i think that it is impossible to think about “culture” without thinking about the way that the economy forms us and it. concepts of culture and economy are as conceptually inseparable as an uncle is inseparable from nieces or nephews.
Sean, this is a great comment which clearly takes this a notch deeper than my original blog-post but is quite welcome.
I am not familiar with the concept of “second first language” but maybe you can help me with growing in understanding. I …agree that many forms of Christian apologetic deal with simplistic approaches to differing worldviews or key issues. This, in the end, does not help us but rather hinders our ultimate connection with the world around us. So, am I understanding you correctly in saying that we can develop a potential “second first language” with the culture around us which takes much necessary sounding out and understanding of the culture in order to be authentic?
I agree with you that we must engage with the basic western understanding of human beings as economic units of consumption. This dehumanizes us and hinders us from living the abundant life that God intended for us. While I agree that christian formation (i.e., discipleship, catechesis, spiritual formation) is the main challenge to combat this, I would disagree that contemporary evangelicalism is finds coherence primarily by forming “spiritual consumers.” While there is a strain of that within contemporary evangelicalism, I believe that there is just as strong of a strain that views formation of disciples as the critical task with attention given to the place of economics.
With that said, I am hearing you say that this is often in a personalized or privatized way that gives little attention to the broader issues of culture and economics and how the christian community takes shape as a counter-cultural community of individuals within that culture. I think this is a struggle across all church traditions, but I am interested to hear how you think this can best be addressed.
matt, thanks for your response. The idea with the second first language is that the intellectual aspect of apologetics becomes a species of friendship. One opens oneself to anther and allows that other to challenge one’s own conceptions of …the other, one’s conceptions of oneself, one’s conceptions of the other’s beliefs, and even one’s conceptions of one’s own beliefs. So say you are in a community of buddhists. Developing a second first language would be learning the deep “grammar” of buddhist thought. what motivates it? what is its history? what are its main ideas? how do those ideas get worked out in relation to other aspects of life, etc. The deeper one goes, the less “accent” one has when talking to others. You know you’ve acquired the second first language “buddhism” when you can talk to a buddhist and the buddhist affirms that you can “speak” buddhism. Just like bad friends start critiquing and judging too early, so with bad apologists. Only after one has developed a sort of intimacy with the alternative way of thought and life is one in a position to relate it to one’s own views. Very few would actually be able to be apologists against other religions on this view. I think that would be good. Christians are too frequently presumptuous about the beliefs of others. But maybe there are ways that christians could be more careful about the way that they relate other views of life to their own. It would cause them to be more self-conscious about the nature of their own christian identity. The idea would be to distinguish from culture so as to better unite, engage, etc. with culture. Of course, one can’t completely separate from one’s culture. But through study of what motivates one’s own faith, the history of that faith, and its central ideas and practices, one can progressively better become the type of person who can be more hospitable to the other.
In summary, my idea is to turn apologetics into a type of hospitality or friendship, that respects differences, is careful about presumption, and is yet willing to engage an other as an other, to challenge the other, and ultimately, to invite the other into the degree of intimacy possible. Sometimes it may mean conversion. Other times, it might mean a greater degree of understanding. We might just find that we have more in common than we first thought! The intimacy is a good in itself, and can produce a type of fruitful engagement that makes the world a more peaceful place. I think Christians will find it easier to be intimate with Jews and Muslims, who share, in different degrees, holy books and belief in the only God there is. Righteous pagans will also be more available for friendship than other types of pagans.
You are right to interpret me to be saying that the concept “spiritual formation” or “formation as disciples” is influenced by a preconceived notion of what counts as spiritual, which is almost always formally private. the question is, what is public? almost always, what’s most public is a mode of exchange. of course, this is broad and sweeping. but generally that’s the compromise the world has made to limit religious violence, but it’s not working out so well anymore. i add that my claim about economic formation is a formal claim, whereas yours about spiritual formation is more a material claim. it explains what evangelicals talk about. the two claims are not necessarily conflicting. but my construal is of course easily complicated.
as for alternatives, i think the hard work of awareness of the problem is a first step (why is spirituality so often thought to be without public significance? why is personal opposed to public?). The next step is to be clearer about Christian social obligations and to do our best to establish social teaching from scripture and the tradition. There are also a set of practices that form how we think of the social teaching. jesus outlines them in Matthew 25: when i was hungry you gave me food, etc. I think that the work of catechesis (close to spiritual formation), which is the slow entrance into a set of beliefs and practices, eventually transforms people so that they start thinking and living differently. i could go on about what type of church results from such catechesis, but that’s what i’m trying to write about for my dissertation and this comment is already too long. the key would be, however, to stop thinking of feeding a hungry person or providing care for a sick person as a private, discretionary, charitable act. to get that result, however, takes a lot of work.
here’s an example of what i’m talking about with catechesis. http://pauljgriffiths.com/2010/07/18/bazelon-on-abortion/
Hi Matt:
Just a short answer.
In a recent one hour conversation with a top leader in a secular non profit organization: The leader knew my background from my linkedin profile, website and blog. Could easily identify me as a “Christian”. In the course of our conversation…probably 1/3 of the way through our meeting, I mentioned that I didn’t necessarily want to be known as a “Christian”, because of possible negative connotations, but as a follower of Jesus, that there was a difference. No reaction.
Had great meeting and will be probably working together in some way. She accepted where I was coming from. I planted a seed. Don’t know if this could be classified as a “creative” way of connecting with people. It just happened naturally.