Sharing the gospel in a multicultural world

Who is your neighbour? I’ve enjoyed living in some very mixed neighbourhoods: Cantonese families next to Pakistani families, Ukrainian young professionals sharing housing with Indian graduates. In a culture which is growing increasingly fearful of the foreigner, the church has an amazing opportunity to share the gospel globally by sharing it locally.

But how? If, like me, you have existed within Western culture your entire life, we have been submerged into the waters of modernity. The very way that we see the world sits within the frame carved out by Plato, Kant and Nietzsche. We cannot help it. As Christians the way we think, feel, and see the gospel also sits within this frame. So how can I possibly share the gospel in a way which connects with someone who sees the world in a different frame? Someone who thinks, feels, and sees the world in a different way to me?

I think the answer lies not in what is different, but in what is the same. This is where the Dutch Reformed theologian Johan Herman Bavinck can really help us. In his careful reading of Romans 1v18-25 he begins to unpack that God is always revealing something of Himself through general revelation. In short: God is already speaking to everyone; this is culturally universal.