Wim Verboon, ‘Rational or Practical: Communication of the Gospel Today’ (25 Apr 2012)
Rational or practical: Communication of the Gospel today
Lecture given at the European Conference of the ICRC
Kiev, April 25, 2012
Wim Verboom
A fluid culture
In Western Europe and certainly in the Netherlands we live in a culture whereby most people do not have a clue of what it is to live with the Lord, the God and Father of Jesus Chris, our Savior. The Jewish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman rightly typifies our culture as a fluid one. The most important characteristic of this culture is that it is unceasingly in motion and continually changing direction. Unchangeable matters do not fit such a culture. That certainly explains the ill fit of what God has revealed in the Bible as His Word and what constitutes His unchanging truth. For contemporary people, truth is not necessarily true even though I do not experience it as true (objective truth). But to them, truth is something that is true because they experience it as true (subjective truth). Only this belief gives modern individuals meaning and satisfaction. Therefore is the belief in an eternal God not necessary. It is much more an obstacle.