Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Dr. Paul Louis Metzger is the founder and director of the Institute for Cultural Engagement: New Wine, New Wineskins, and Professor of Christian Theology and Theology of Culture at Multnomah University and Seminary. Dr. Metzger is also the editor of New Wine's journal Cultural Encounters: A Journal for the Theology of Culture. Integrating theology and spirituality with cultural sensitivity stands at the center of Dr. Metzger's ministry vision. He and his wife, Mariko, a native of Japan, have been active in intercultural ministry in churches in the United States, Japan, and England. Dr. Metzger is the author of Beatitudes, Not Platitudes: Jesus' Invitation to the Good Life (Cascade, 2018); Evangelical Zen: A Christian's Spiritual Travels With a Buddhist Friend (2015); Connecting Christ: How to Discuss Jesus in a World of Diverse Paths (2012); The Gospel of John: When Love Comes to Town (2010); Exploring Ecclesiology: An Evangelical and Ecumenical Introduction (co-authored with Brad Harper; 2009); and Consuming Jesus: Beyond Race and Class Divisions in a Consumer Church (2007). He is co-editor of A World for All?: Global Civil Society in Political Theory and Trinitarian Theology (co-edited with William F. Storrar and Peter J. Casarella; 2011); and editor of Trinitarian Soundings in Systematic Theology (2005). Dr. Metzger is a member of the Center of Theological Inquiry, Princeton, New Jersey, and Senior Mission Scholar in Residence, Spring 2018, at the Overseas Ministries Study Center, New Haven, Connecticut. The Metzgers have two children and one grandchild. He has a keen interest in the art of Katsushika Hokusai and Georges Rouault, the writings of John Steinbeck, and the music of Johnny Cash, The Doors, and Nirvana. Dr. Metzger blogs frequently at ""Uncommon God, Common Good."" Dr. Metzger's present research projects include a forthcoming volume on social ethics inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s personalist philosophy and public theology, most notably Dr. King's prophetic critique of the Vietnam War.

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CONNECTING CHRIST

Thomas Nelson

Contents

Acknowledgments.................................................................................................xiiiIntroduction: Wired for Relationships...........................................................................xvi1. What Is Relational-Incarnational Apologetics?................................................................32. What Are We Making an Apology for Anyway?....................................................................133. Who's the Stumbling Block—You and Me or Jesus?.........................................................224. Why Should We Apologize?.....................................................................................355. How Is Christ's Church God's Apologetic?.....................................................................506. The Jewish Question (Judaism)................................................................................637. Whack Jobs (Islam)...........................................................................................808. The Jesus Box (Hinduism).....................................................................................969. The Dewdrop World (Buddhism).................................................................................10610. Will the real Jesus Please Stand Up—and Sit Down? (Unitarian Universalism)............................11511. The Burning Bosom (Mormonism)...............................................................................12612. All In (Nietzschean Atheism)................................................................................14313. Avatar (Neo-Paganism).......................................................................................15514. All Roads Lead to Wall Street...............................................................................17515. Dead Metaphors and Living Hell..............................................................................18616. The Missing Link............................................................................................19817. Homosexuality, Holy Matrimony, and Hospitality..............................................................21118. Beyond Ned Flanders and the Fascists........................................................................22819. Response to "The Jewish Question" by Adam Gregerman.........................................................23920. Response to "Whack Jobs" by Richard Reno....................................................................24321. Response to "The Jesus Box" by Prema Raghunath..............................................................24522. Response to "The Dewdrop World" by Kyogen Carlson...........................................................24723. Response to "Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up—and Sit Down?" by Marilyn Sewell.....................24924. Response to "The Burning Bosom" by Robert L. Millet.........................................................25125. Responses to "All In" by Thomas W. Clark and Austin Dacey...................................................25326. Response to "Avatar" by Gus diZerega........................................................................257Afterword: An Apology for Prayer................................................................................261Notes...........................................................................................................268About the Author................................................................................................328

Chapter One

Have you ever seen the movie As Good as It Gets, starring Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt? Nicholson plays Melvin Udall, a man who pursues "Carol the Waitress," played by hunt. Until he falls in love, Melvin is rude, insensitive, racially bigoted, homophobic, and severely obsessive-compulsive. As his gay neighbor Simon Bishop explains, Melvin is the worst kind of human. As difficult as it is to deal with Melvin, it is perhaps even more difficult to imagine that this man is a best-selling author of romance novels. In fact, when the female receptionist at his publishing house asks him how he is able to portray women so accurately in his works, Melvin tells her that women are like men, only without reason and accountability.

But what does all this have to do with apologetics? everything. everything, that is, if you want to engage people truthfully and relationally—and not treat them dismissively. That's what this chapter and this book are about. But it's easier said than done. So often I am like Melvin. I talk about romance novels—usually God's love letter to us recorded as the Bible—but I'll never understand the depth of his love. I talk about relationships with people, but I rarely develop them myself. I lecture on incarnational, life-on-life apologetic engagement, but I often fail to respond to people life-on-life, keeping them at a distance. And I know I am not alone in this social indifference.

Conservative Christians often approach people as Melvin Udall does. We can wax eloquent on romance and relationships, but we rarely experience them. We approach Mormons, Buddhists, and homosexuals as Melvin does: categorizing and dehumanizing them until we are forced to deal with them face-to-face. Only then do we see that they are humans and not stereotypes. We may be able to articulate a homosexual worldview in order to dismantle it or set forth the homosexual demographic of a given locale, accounting for their tastes, educational backgrounds, vocations, hobbies, everything except who they are in terms of their deepest values and life stories. In other words, we can know about homosexuals or Buddhists or Mormons as groups, but never really know or engage the individuals. Instead we simply lump them all into one category, as Melvin unceremoniously labels Carol as a waitress and Simon as a fag. But it isn't so easy to label others once we find out who they really are.

People are complex, mysterious, inconsistent, contradictory, wart-infested, and wondrous to behold. in keeping with how Simon views the matter, the longer you gaze at someone, the more human the individual becomes. And if you stare at someone long enough, that individual becomes more than just his or her worldview or demographic. Like God, in whose image everyone is created, each human is too complex to be classified. True understanding requires what Atticus Finch says in To Kill a Mockingbird: "If you can learn a simple trick, ... you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view ... until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."

What will lead us to take the risk to climb outside our shells, peel away the pretense of false skin, climb into someone else's skin, and walk around in it? Usually it takes a crisis to justify such a risk. Melvin does not get close to Carol until she's suddenly gone from his life: she quits her waitressing job for the sake of her sick child, Spencer. Melvin finds a top-notch doctor to care for "Spence" (as Melvin will later affectionately refer to him) so that she can return to her job. At first, Melvin selfishly wants Carol to remain his waitress at his favorite restaurant, but his interest in her deepens as his contact with her increases.

Melvin's crisis with...