Last week I wrote about “The Columbo Strategy”: rather than maximizing the differences between Christians and non-Christians, we need to find our common threads, then tug at them. Please keep in mind this is a strategy for effective conversations with non-Christians, it’s not a strategy for thinking through our own worldview. I have no real interest in cozying up to secular elites just to be in their good graces. My interest is in translating the gospel, full stop. I think when folks have a hard time understanding this, it says more about how little we evangelicals care - as a whole - about the well-being of our neighbors. I have no doubt that if Paul were to articulate his ministry strategy today, several loud evangelicals would accuse him of trying to placate the liberals:
To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. 1 Corinthians 9:20-22
“Look at Paul, trying to curry favor from the libs,” they’d say.
And to that, I think Paul would say, “Say what you want. If you can’t possibly conceive of knowing Christ in such a way that you deeply want your neighbors to know him, perhaps you should ask how well you really do know Jesus.”
Okay, enough with my phantom interlocutors. I spend too much time with them. This is why I put a picture of them at my work desk:
You, dear readers, are all nice people who would never say such things. So let me get to the practical stuff.
What are some practical ways we might apply the Columbo strategy (at least the way I articulate it. Some of you have pointed out that this is a tired metaphor, used by RC Sproul and others. I like Sproul a lot, but my strategy is actually miles apart from Sproul’s own. He’s more combative/interrogative. I’m trying to be more subversive.)?
The first step is learning what our secular neighbors care about. Learn their story. Learn their values. Learn what makes them angry. Learn what makes them sad. Learn about why they’re lonely, because they are. Also learn what stories they pay attention to. Are they newspaper junkies? Read along. Film goers? Grab a ticket. NPR nerds? Tune in.
What are we listening for? Remember Paul in Athens. He was listening carefully for how God was already at work in the lives of his hearers. But he was also listening for how the deepest aspirations of the Athenians were cuckolded by their deepest beliefs. They “worshiped God”, and they knew God was in all things: “in him we live and move and have our being.” But this conflicted with their mode of worship: they bowed down to statues made by hand.
“How,” Paul asks, “Can these two beliefs be held together? They can’t. Only the Jewish story of Messiah enables you to worship without relying on physical statues and temples - which is far more consistent with what you know, deep down, to be true.”
You see the nuance, here? Paul’s picture of the men of Athens is that of a group of people who suppress truth, not people who know nothing. He finds the disparities between their deepest aspirations and their shallow lives. He calls them toward a coherent narrative of life.
I realize this is all theoretical, so today I want to sketch out what this might look like. For you, it will look different. But for me, here are ten “pinch points” I’ve used in conversations over the years, so I’ll write this out by way of example. Remember, I’m not trying to agree with my neighbor on these topics. I’m trying to find where the narrative of their lives isn’t making sense, and invite them to see that the gospel makes the most sense of the most things. Keep in mind, I’m probably disagreeing with deep swaths of what my secular neighbor believes in these categories. But that’s not my focus. My focus is on the way their own passionate values don’t align with the narrative they’re telling themselves. Paul could have surely picked apart the theology of the Greek poets, but he chose instead to find the common thread, and unravel it. That’s because he wasn’t trying to trounce his Greco-Roman neighbors, but to translate the gospel to them.
So here goes nothing.
1. Feminism. “I see you really care about women’s value. Did you know that in Greco-Roman culture, women were considered second-rate citizens? Plato once is purported to have said: "I thank God that I was born Greek and not barbarian, free and not slave, male and not female, but above all that I was born in the age of Socrates." Do you know why that changed?’ (Answer: it changed because of the Christian movement. The New Testament is a radical example of dignifying women in a culture that degraded women).
2. Science. “You have such a wonder at the world around you, especially the way it holds such order and beauty. You love the way things operate consistently, which is why you tend to think about the world in terms of the scientific method. But do you know how the scientific revolution - and the scientific method - began?” (Answer: it began in 17th and 18th centuries by Puritans and German Piests, who believed the universe would be 1. Consistent 2. Intelligible and 3. Orderly. These were assumptions based on God’s Divine character.)
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