Listen.
Tim Keller, founding pastor of the multi-campus Redeemer
Presbyterian Church in New York
City thinks evangelical churches don't do this very well.
And
if they can learn to listen patiently, he thinks they might stand a better
chance of effectively ministering to skeptics.
"We
could do a far better job of patiently listening. And we should not talk until
we can represent the skeptic's viewpoint with empathy so that a skeptic friend
says, 'Yes, that is my hang up; I couldn't have put it better myself.' Then and
only then should you try to talk to someone and recommend the Christian faith to
them," Keller told
The Huffington Post in a recent interview.
The
New York Times bestselling author of The
Reason for God, published in 2008 and most recently Making
Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical, published in September
2016, is well-known for his outreach to the religiously unaffiliated ― a growing
number of Americans who identify as atheist, agnostic or "nothing in particular."
Keller,
who will step
down from the helm of Redeemer this summer, explained that Americans were
becoming less willing to identify with a specific religion because the culture
was changing and institutions are no longer seen as
trustworthy.
"The
best sociological explanation is that in our society people are becoming
increasingly unwilling to trust or identify with any institution at all. We
shouldn't, therefore, think of this as only a turning away from religion. It is
actually just one aspect or result of what sociologist Robert Bellah and others
called expressive individualism and the weakening of all 'strong ties' in
community," he said.
"Expressive
individualism insists that we define ourselves apart from family, tradition,
religion, or any other external moral source. Freedom no longer is a means to an
end where one is 'free to do XY and Z'. It becomes an end in itself. So now we
fear staying with the same company for over five years, or we don't want to
identify too strongly with political parties, or live our lives near where we
were raised, or trust institutions, especially if they are very powerful or
organized, and on and on," he explained.
In Making
Sense of God, Keller invites skeptics to consider that Christianity is more
relevant now than ever. In his discussion with The Huffington Post, he shared
some of the things he has learned about skeptics over his decades-long career in
ministry.
"One
thing I've learned is that sociologist Peter Berger is right. The reasons for
both embracing and rejecting religious faith are never merely intellectual and
rational. Of course, the intellectual and rational play a role, but the reasons
for all moves or paradigm shifts are also partly emotional and partly relational
— dependent on positive and negative experiences with believers and
nonbelievers," he said. "It is a great mistake to think that deep religious
belief can't be highly rational, or to think that nonbelief can't be largely a
matter of feeling and experience rather than reason."
While
noting that he did not want to "over-generalize" his assessment of skeptics, he
said it was a pattern he observed among the many he has engaged over time.
"I
mention this pattern because I've learned a lot by processing with many people
who reject religious faith because they were raised in an unusually rigid and
close-minded setting. Later they find that they miss what philosopher Charles
Taylor calls the 'fullness' — an assurance that life has ultimate meaning and a
hope that is strong enough to get you through suffering," said Keller.
"When
they realize they have lost something they begin looking in earnest for a
different kind of religious faith than the one they had been raised in. Many
never re-acquire faith, and some do. As I said, I don't want to give the
impression I am talking about all or even most people who have rejected
religion, but, at least in my experience, there are many who have experienced
something like this," he added.
In
the meantime, as the faithful and the skeptics work to overcome hostilities to
better engage each other, Keller said they will also have to learn how to do
this safely in a pluralistic context.
"Nowadays,
I think the difficulty isn't just the hostility; it's also that we as a society
are ill-equipped to really respect, dialogue and learn from each other when we
disagree or have different political or religious views," he said. "I think many
people want a pluralism that's healthy and honoring of each other's differences
but we -– both the religious and the nonreligious –- don't know how to do this
well."
Read more at
http://www.christianpost.com/news/tim-keller-thinks-evangelical-churches-can-help-skeptics-by-doing-this-one-thing-177259/#p6LZYxvwXqUITwJl.99
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