Systems of Belief

I'm reading a collection of 3 works by Francis Schaeffer called Trilogy, which starts with The God who is There. J.I. Packer, author of the popular Knowing God and listed among Time's top 25 "Most influential Evangelicals", wrote the introduction and lauds the genius of Schaeffer's philosophizing, specifically his focus on reasoning ones way to faith. He has the following to say in summarizing Schaeffer's philosophy:

"So the first task of evangelism, in the modern West or anywhere else, is to persuade the other person that he ought to embrace the Christian view of reality. And the first step in doing this would be to convince him of the noviability of all other views, incuding whatever form of non-Christianity is implicit in his own thinking."

I can agree with the first sentence - it's practically a definition of evangelism - but not the second. It helps illustrate an issue I think the Christianity has been struggling with for a while now - a collision of modernism with post-modernism - and so I think it's worth talking about.

Before I get into this, I know I'm treading into rough water. I'm no philosophy expert by any means, so please forgive me if I overstep my intellect here.

It seems to me that Packer assumes two things. First, he assumes that everyone approachs the world with a system of beliefs - it's popular to call this a "world view," at least in the Christian circles I was raised in. Second, he assumes that if one holds a system of beliefs that is shown to be inconsistent, one will naturally favor a more consistent framework. And that's where I have to disagree.

I think the modern Church's failure in the post-modern world revolves around it's refusal to accept the fact that people don't like systems anymore. The Englightenment is over, and people are now convinced that the world is too complex a place to fit neatly into organized boxes. Christians have known that people don't like systems for years, but rather than trying to re-interpret their message and philosophy in light of that fact, they resort to complaining about the prevalence of "relativism" in our world and wishing for a time long gone when we could all sit around and rationally argue about whose world view was better than whose. It's just not going to work anymore, and sitting around whining about it isn't going to help.

"Reasoning" with people, having a "discussion" takes on a different meaning in our post-modern world. Rather than logically describing and defending our positions, it seems more important to me that we focus our discussions on trying to understand other people - where they've come from, what's lead them to believe what they do about life and God, and where they think their lives are going. It's connecting with people and providing a sense of community - fighting nihilism and fragmentation - that minds are met in our post-modern world. Pointing out the logistical inconsistencies in someone elses framework seems to do little more than cause most people to ignore us.

Reason isn't dead, and logic isn't done for. The post-modern age hasn't done away with a reliance on reason - only superceded it with the desire for communication and friendship. I don't know if I have much more to say on this, but here's one closing thought: there's a good reason that the song doesn't go, "And they'll know we are Christians by our well-reasoned systematic theologies."