Written by Jared Kennedy, managing editor for books and curriculum at The Gospel Coalition
Our culture lacks any coherent, unifying worldview. We’ve moved on from post-truth postmodernism to “Live your truth” metamodernism, where good vibes matter more than consistent ideas. How do church leaders evangelize and make disciples in this confusing, late-modern context? The key is what Tim Keller called “cultural narratives.”
In his 2018 Oxford lectures, Keller explored the concept of cultural narratives—the stories we tell each other, and ourselves, that help us make sense of the world and our place in it. Spoken and unspoken, assumed and promoted, they’re the scripts we live by. We hear them—and speak them—to each other every day.
Here’s an example. In an excerpt from TGC’s new video group study, Making Sense of Us, Glen Scrivener unpacks our culture’s story of progress. Many of our neighbors and friends see the past as dark. But they hope the future can be better. The simple belief that we’re moving onward and upward toward a better tomorrow is baked into modern Western people’s thinking. As Scrivener observes,
You’ve probably heard somebody say “Get with the times,” “That was the Dark Ages,” “They need to update their thinking,” or “Those people are on the wrong side of history.” The progress story is so powerful nowadays that people try to win moral arguments by simply stating the date: “How can anyone believe that in 2026?”
Progress, as Scrivener goes on to point out, is a biblical idea. Christians believe in redemptive history. We don’t see time as a circle, and we don’t think this world will spiral down into oblivion. Instead, we believe God will redeem his creation, so we do have hope for the future.
But we should also recognize that when people sever the story of progress from its biblical roots, they’re left with disaster. In the 20th century, communists and fascists both sacrificed billions of people’s lives to their progressive visions. Thankfully, there’s a better way of progress—the way of Christ, who gave up his life for us. Jesus entered into our decline narrative. He took our sin and death. Then he rose up from the grave, and he now offers us the better future our world longs for.
Follow the link below to read more from Scrivener, and pick up Making Sense of Us to learn more about the scripts behind modern Western culture, and how the gospel provides the better fulfillment we’re longing for.
—Jared
