Reaching people where they are at!

CMI on the cutting edge of creation evangelism

by Paul Price, Gary Bates

Our world is changing fast, and it is a challenge trying to keep up. One of the quickest ways any organization (be it companies, ministries, or whatever) can become irrelevant is being ‘stuck in the past’. As apologists, we have to communicate effectively in ways that people will understand. For example, missionaries have to adapt their message to be understandable to the culture they are trying to reach in order to most effectively communicate the Gospel.

While Christ “is the same yesterday, today and forever” (Heb. 13:8), the popular culture of our audience is not. We are told that atheism (supposed to be a disbelief in God or gods) is on the increase—but it is a fundamentally unstable belief system. Despite the rhetoric, many attempt to fill the void with all sorts of things. For example, former atheist Justin S. wrote to us some years ago and said:

New ‘fad’ religions

Atheism can also lead people to other faith commitments, like a sort of ‘halfway house’ between Christianity and paganism. Scripture reveals that it is only human nature to want to believe in, and worship something (Ecclesiastes 3:11). This is where new trending worldviews come in. Having renounced the Christian foundations on which our culture was built, people in the west are coming up with all sorts of substitute religions in attempt to provide meaning and purpose. For example, the Hoylites (named after astronomer Fred Hoyle—see creation.com/cosmic-biology) believe in a kind of eternal, uncreated energy or life force that is seeded continually on the earth by comets, and which explains the origin and complexity of life. We discussed this on an episode of our brand-new podcast and YouTube show, Creation Talk (our new initiative to reach younger audiences)¹.

Another suggestion gaining traction is that human beings are in the process of building a god in the form of artificial intelligence (AI)! They have even gone so far as to start a church called ‘The Way of the Future’ dedicated to worshiping AI.² Complete with a novel a ‘gospel’, they encourage their members to share their faith!

Have you heard of ‘Simulation Theory’? Some people, like the famous Tesla automotive CEO Elon Musk, suggest that we all may be living in a Matrix-style simulation! Maybe we are just figments of the imagination of some ‘alien overlord’ programmer somewhere, and are all just stuck in some computer being tinkered with by a teenager in their parents’ basement!³

These ideas would have been hard to imagine only a few years ago, but this, too, is being seriously debated and considered as a possibility. Again, once you jettison the truth, some false story has to take its place. Maybe that’s why our existence here on this planet seems so improbable? As one famous saying goes, “When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing— they believe in anything.”

Keep highlighting the truth—it sets people free!

Producing all this content and moving in all these different directions is certainly no easy task. But today, more than ever before, people are turning to a wide variety of different mediums to get their information. Some are even saying our culture is becoming ‘post-literate’, with podcasts and YouTube videos supplanting reading as the primary way people get their information. Following suit with this trend, we are doing our best as a ministry to vary the means by which we supply our life-changing creation apologetics material. A viewer recently commented on one of our Creation Talk videos, “I’m not Christian & I find this video really good.” We are reaching new audiences!

Did you know we are a faith-funded ministry?

At CMI, we continue to work hard at being faithful servants in this modern age like the Apostle Paul who wrote “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22). We want to equip you as a believer to be ready for whatever this world may throw your way. Thank you so much for your continuing support of our efforts, both by spreading the word about our ministry to your friends and family, and by donating financially. Without your support, we could not do what we do.