A New Evangelism, Understanding the Post-Modern Mind
“You can’t preach it on a street corner anymore.”
How to share the gospel with a post-modern society. Here lies the challenge we face. Postmoderns live in the left hemisphere of their brain. They live in an abstract reality that they’ve created for themselves. They have done this to make a space they can be comfortable in, where they feel no threat. Berdyaev and McGilchrist both speak of this phenomenon in great detail.
So what problems does this create for the evangelist?
Each side of your brain has a specific function and is designed to work together. Unless we operate in both hemispheres neurologically, we don’t experience the world and society around us. McGilchrist speaks to this clearly in his book The Master and His Emissary, as he explores the history of western cultures and stroke victims’ damage to the brain. After many years of research, he points out that the current postmoderns are not firing on all eight cylinders. We were only, generally speaking, using the left hemisphere of our brain, our nervous system. Each side of our brain has a specific function and is designed to work together.
Back to evangelization, if we speak and share the gospel with an unbeliever, we have to be able to share the rationality and reasoning of the message with the unsaved. We talk about a story of God's relationship with us for several thousand years. So, what is the challenge to the postmodern?
The gospel is a whole-brain gospel. The gospel isn’t rational. It isn’t black and white. The gospel message is spiritual—one of reason and faith. We need to understand our human nature to see that we need to be saved; we need a messiah. Postmoderns can’t go there because they are locked away in an objective, rational brain. The good news doesn’t appear to be good news at all. As far as they are concerned, they are living in the good news. Things are going well for them. They don’t need a savior because they don’t understand the nature of their ontology. They don’t see themselves fallen. So, don't bother them with the gospel message. Their left hemisphere, the objective brain, can’t understand these constructs. There is no understanding of God speaking to them out of love. “The Emissary doesn’t trust; it needs a black-and-white world to feel safe.” McGilchrist tells us. The Emissary doesn’t need a savior. It's not relational. Why do you think the divorce rate is so high? We don’t know how to be vulnerable or intimate with each other because we are operating out of the left hemisphere, the Emissary.
I talked with a friend about how he was committing to be available to a young man he knew, who came from a dysfunctional and most likely an abusive family. Yet, the young man projects a persona of wellness and functionality, having locked the trauma memories away in his right hemisphere, hoping he can forget about it. Sweep them under the rug if you will. He also claims to be a born-again believer. In his self-constructed world, he has found an abstract reality in which he feels safe and doesn’t want to be disturbed; those of us looking in know better. The truth is, he has swept all his trauma and pain away in his right hemisphere and locked it away. That's how the post-moderns do it, unknowingly. Now the evangelist comes along and shares, say, Pauls words out of Galatians, stating, “stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has set us free from the yoke of bondage,” and to the postmodern, these words make no sense. The bondage is blind, the pain is locked away, and they don’t want to deal with it; they aren’t going to grieve it, period.
Love your neighbor.
Let your life be a witness.
Let your relationships be a witness.
Ask for inspiration from the Holy Spirit.
Pray for your loved ones, and speak the truth to them.
Be patient.
Listen to their pain as it appears.
Understand they don’t realistically see the world truthfully.
Understand they are handicapped.
Understand they are most likely in pain and don’t know it; see through the rationalist thinking.
Understand the spiritual battle being waged against them to keep them in bondage.
Understand that our postmodern culture was designed to keep humanity in bondage.
Take every opportunity to break down current events to help them see what they can’t see or understand.
Explain the circumstances in light of the spiritual battles waging against us.
Speak of what drives our culture, explaining the Marxist, socialist theology that has invaded, and infiltrated every aspect of our society to destroy our country, our families, and our present lives. “For the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy.” John 10:10
Unless they ask about the gospel and its message to humanity, we may have to be patient. And it may be that they will be lost for the duration of their lives.
The post-moderns replace the spiritual/relational with the concrete. God is to be proven, not experienced. Thats what they trust. They lost their sovereignty, the mystery of being, long ago with the message of Darwinian evolution. They have depersonalized the relationships they have. Their world is modeled on the mechanical.
“You're not going to preach the gospel from the street corner anymore.” It just isn’t going to happen.
McGilchrist, Iain, “The Master and His Emissary, The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World,” Yale University Press, 2009
Berdyaev, Nicholas, “Slavery and Freedom,” Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1944
