The postmodern age is a very strange time to proclaim and defend the Christian faith. In an age when the reality of truth itself is denied, the church finds itself faced with several distinct challenges. In Acts 17:16-34, we find Paul standing at the very center of apologetic ministry in the first century. As we considered yesterday, a Christian apologetic begins in a provoked spirit, is focused on Gospel proclamation, and assumes a context of spiritual confusion.

The church is faced in the postmodern age by several distinct apologetic challenges. Internally, the church must defend the faith against ignorance, against compromise, against doctrinal apathy, and against denial. Externally, the Gospel must be defended against secular atheism, postmodern relativism, naturalistic scientism, materialism, and current syncretisms. This is where the task of Christian apologetics begins. In the Apostle Paul we find a model of Great Commission proclamation matched to an apologetic argument–an argument in defense of Christian truth.

“There are three states of the soul — ignorance, opinion, knowledge — those who are in ignorance are the Pagans, those in knowledge, the true Church, and those in opinion, the Heretics.” –Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata.

Christians today are called to serve the cause of Christ at one of the crucial turning points in human history. The generations now living have witnessed an explosion of knowledge, the collapse of distance, the rising and falling of empires. Cultures and societies have been radically transformed, and expansive wealth has brought great material comfort even as the most basic structures of society are undermined. Families are fractured, lawlessness abounds, violence invades, and the media bring a constant stream of chaos into our lives.

My commentary for Friday, “Division at Dartmouth–A Christian Speaks His Mind,” deals with the controversy over Noah Riner’s convocation address at Dartmouth College. Noah was my guest on Friday’s edition of The Albert Mohler Program.

How will evangelicals respond to the challenge of the Homosexual Movement? And how will the evangelical Church respond to those persons struggling with homosexuality? These are critical questions that, when answered, will indicate the larger direction of the evangelical movement.

Few modern concepts have been as influential as the psychosocial construct of sexual orientation. The concept is now firmly rooted in the national consciousness, and many Americans consider the concept to be thoroughly based in credible scientific research. The concept of sexual orientation was an intentional–and quite successful–attempt to redefine the debate over homosexuality from same-gender sexual acts to homosexual identity. That is, from what homosexuals do to who homosexuals are.

The issue of homosexuality is a “first-order” theological issue as it presents itself in the current cultural debate. Fundamental truths essential to the Christian faith are at stake in this confrontation. These truths range from basic issues of theism to biblical authority, the nature of human beings, God’s purpose and prerogatives in creation, sin, salvation, sanctification, and, by extension, the entire body of evangelical divinity. Put bluntly, if the claims put forward by the Homosexual Movement are true, the entire system of the Christian faith is compromised, and some essential truths will fall.

In every age the Church is confronted with cultural and ethical challenges which test both the conviction and the compassion of the Body of Christ. Since World War II, American Christians have struggled with issues of racism, war, abortion, and sexuality in successive and overlapping waves of moral confrontation. In the end, the issues of abortion and homosexuality are likely to prove the two most divisive issues Americans have faced since the Civil War.