The Exclusivity of Christ

Intro:

We Must Understand Our Culture

Theology, if true to its nature, must be missional, and, therefore, we must seek to understand both Christ and culture, both the Word and the world. - Justin Taylor, The Supremacy of Christ a Postmodern World

Ancient (pre-500 AD)

Skepticism: the idea that we should abstain from making truth claims

Epicureanism: happiness is the greatest good, seek to remove fear and bodily pain

this is done by gaining knowledge of the world, and leading a simple, moderate life that minimizes desires (we would call this minimalism)

Hedonism: Pleasure is the most important pursuit of mankind.

Medieval (500-1600 AD)

Highly influenced by Christianity

Focused on proving the existence of God and reconciling ancient philosophy to Christianity

People you may have heard of: St. Anselm, Thomas Aquinas

Laid the foundation for schools of logic

Modern World

Renaissance (1400-1600)

Begins a departure of Christianity in favor of Humanism

Humanism is a human centered not religion centered though

Humanism has ultimate faith in mankind and believes we have the power or potential to solve our own problems through reason and the scientific method

Age of Reason (1600’s)

Empiricism: All knowledge comes through what we experience with our senses (John Locke, David Hume)

Rationalism: Knowledge can come through deductive reasoning. Reality has a rational structure that we can understand through mathematical and logical principles. (Descartes)

Heavily influenced the American Revolution and political thought

Enlightenment (1700’s)

“The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement, developed mainly in France, Britain and Germany, which advocated freedom, democracy and reason as the primary values of society. It started from the standpoint that men's minds should be freed from ignorance, from superstition and from the arbitrary powers of the State, in order to allow mankind to achieve progress and perfection”

The church’s influence decreased

Increase in individual freedom to the governed

Revolutions and overturning of traditions

Modernism(1800-1960ish)

Industrialization changed everything: families, work life, urbanization,

Globalization

Individualism

War

Rejection of tradition

Reason and Science are the primary means of understanding

Meaninglessness

The removal of religion compounded with the suffering of the world creates a meaningless sense amongst people

Nihilism - The idea that nothing has meaning

Eat and drink for tomorrow we die

This is where consumerism, drug addiction, sexual desires come from. An attempt to find meaning or at least cover the feeling of meaninglessness.

Post-Modernism (1960ish-today)

Rejects the concept of a “grand narrative”

Idea’s that postmodernists claim are unfairly said to be true for everyone

Examples:

Hard work leads to success

Practice makes perfect

American Exceptionalism

Grand narratives are only popular because the ruling group wants them to be (This idea is very Marx)

In terms of the church, the clergy push Christianity because it keeps them in power (because you know, pastors make so much money).

A lot of the skepticism toward Christianity comes from a distrust of the intentions of leadership of the church

They will even go as far as to say, the “grand narrative” is so pervasive in society that people follow it without knowing it (unconscious bias)

We see this in ideas of Privilege

Because the “grand narrative” influences every field, even fields like the sciences are tainted

ex. Lucy Irigaray: fluid dynamics are a less researched scientific field do to male engineers preferring solid mechanics as it more resembles the male genitalia.

The winner writes the history, but also the science and all ideas

Reject the idea of objective truth, thus rejecting enlightenment values

"all truth claims are seen as constraints and power plays"

Man is born free yet everywhere in chains - Jean Jacques Rousseau

Two main reasons for rejecting objective truth

An Increase in voices

Who’s telling the truth? CNN or Fox? The View or Ben Shapiro?

Exposure to new ideas and religions (We are the most religiously diverse population in the history of the world)

Language Theory

Words have no meaning except the meaning we place upon them

The word “APPLE” may mean red and sweat to me or green and sour to you and may even mean computer to a third person.

Gad Saad’s story:

Gad Saad story: in 2002 a student had just defended his dissertation and he took him and his date to dinner. He warned Gad that she was a grad student in cultural anthropology, postmodernism and feminism. He was basically saying “be good.” Gad brought up her post-modernism and said “so there are no universal truths?” and she said “no” He asked if she would mind if he asked her a few questions about it. First question: Is it true that in homosapiens only women bear children. Is that not true. She responds “absolutely not because theres a tribe in Japan where in their mythological narrative the men wear children so by restricting it to biological realm that’s how men oppress women.” How about a different example, is it true that from the vantage point of anywhere on earth sailors have relied on since time and more that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west? She replied using deconstructionism and she said “well what do you mean by east and west? Those are just labels and what do you mean by that which you call the sun”1984 exploded in popularity recently because of this.

“That’s your truth

The irony is, while trying to tell us our truth is only good for us, they are at the same time requiring we follow their truth.

This postmodern thought is found everywhere within our culture.

Bluey- Are our rules better then their rules?

This lack of meaning is what David Wells refers to as “the void”. It’s an existential crisis within the heart and soul of every person.

All this to say, we live in a world where traditional evangelism, outreach and sharing faith isn’t going to be as effective.

The day’s of “putting up a sign,” sending a post card and building a building to grow a church are over.

Those things may still work for some, but not the culture as a whole.

Things Professing Christians Believe

72% argue that people are basically good

66% say that ‘having faith’ matters more than which faith you pursue

64% say that all religious faiths are of equal value

58% believe that if a person is good enough, or does enough good things, they can earn their way into Heaven

57% believe in karma

George Barna at the Arizona Christian Research Center

What Does Jesus Say?

Christianity stands in stark contrast to the world around us.

Instead of living in a world that accepts the fundamental truths of Christianity, we live in a world that rejects them.

No longer can we say things like “The Bible says” and expect to have it’s authority accepted.

I am the Way

The Greek word “hodos” meaning road

Matthew 3:3 “3 For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’ ””

Matthew 7:14 “14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

Acts 9:2 “2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.”

I am the Truth

The Greek word “alethei” meaning truth

According to Oxford “true” means “in accordance with fact or reality”, “accurate or exact”

I am the Life

The result of following Jesus down the way and believing His truth is life.

The importance of the word “The”

I am a way, I am truth and I am life would all be interpreted differently

But Jesus is making an exclusive claim to being the only way to the father. The only truth to believe and the only way to receive eternal life.

“No one comes to the father but through me” completely rejects our worlds idea of pluralism(many ways and many truths)

Mutually exclusive

Either Christ is true and the word wrong or there are many paths to God and Christ is wrong. Both cannot be true.

What Do We Do?

If the world and the Word are so opposed to each other, what do we do?

Dare to be different

And what will prove to be even more momentous in the evangelical world than its engagement with the other religions, I believe, will be whether it is able to distinguish what it has to offer from the emergence of these forms or spirituality. Therapeutic spiritualities that are non-religious begin to look quite like evangelical spirituality that is therapeutic and doctrinal.

A lot of churches look like the world. I do not mean in the music or dress, but in their doctrine.

They teach we have the power to fix our own problems.

They teach we are special and Jesus needs us

Examples:

“Because the voice you believe will determine the future you experience.” - Steven Furtick

“If you want more, you have to require more from yourself.” - Dr Phil

2. We Have To Give them Jesus

The only thing we have to give people is the supremacy of Christ. When we try to give them life skills (be a better parent, etc) we forget the one thing we really have…when asking formerly unchurched why they came to church it was to learn doctrine. (Thomas Reiner book). -David Wells (video)

Podcasts on fatherhood 170 in 1 search alone

Podcasts on parenting: as of 2022 there were more than 2000 podcasts about parenting

Books on personal finance: over 30,000 on Amazon

Almost infinite amount of YouTube videos

The world has an endless amount information to help solve peoples problems, what they do not have is a way to find forgiveness for sin.