Connecting Christ encourages believers to be not only better communicators and witnesses but also listeners to people of other worldviews and traditions---skills that are crucial in defending against today's negative connotations and ineffective approaches associated with Christian evangelism.
What does Christian witness look like in an increasingly multifaith society?
While it is more important than ever to preach the Word of God, as Scripture exhorts us, it is also important that we dialogue with people from diverse perspectives. Unfortunately, too often the evangelical movement has been guilty of monologue in its engagement (or, more often, its disengagement) of people from other religious traditions and worldviews.
This book is designed to help evangelical Christ-followers remain orthodox while entering into meaningful discussions with people from other faith walks. We live in an age of extremes, where people tend toward monologue or dialogue: a cold turkey, drive-by-shooting evangelistic approach or a lifestyle, relational approach that avoids verbal witness.
This book promotes evangelism and dialogue, not one to the exclusion of the other. And as such it also promotes the need for thoughtful, sensitive communication during a time when our nation is reeling from the onslaught of the culture wars. The problem has not been our God or the Bible, but our approach to God and the Bible. As a result of our inauthentic witness, our God has looked all too common rather than as the uncommon God revealed as Jesus Christ. In light of this spiritual and biblical gut check, our witness in the twenty-first century will likely look very different.
As Metzger says, "I want Jesus to be the stumbling block to faith, not me."
