The Athenians and their tourists loved to spend their time telling or hearing something new -- but not this new. Americans are consumers of meaning even as they buy cars and clothing. They will test drive new spiritualities and try on a whole series of lifestyles. To many, the Gospel is just too strange, too countercultural, too propositional, too exclusive.

Paul was brought up on charges and gained a hearing at the Areopagus. "May we know what this new teaching is which you are proclaiming?" he was asked [v. 19]. The one offense certain to bring charges against the evangelist in our generation is the claim to objective, absolute, eternal, universal, exclusive truth. Polytheists, syncretists, and secularists are untroubled by the promotion of one more deity or spirituality in the cultural cafeteria. But preach Jesus Christ as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and the Gospel as the only message of salvation, and you will find yourself hauled off to the court of public scorn and derision.

To contend for biblical morality in this culture is to run the risk of being cited for "hate speech." We must assume a context of spiritual confusion, and this is often now a hostile confusion. The Gospel sounds not only strange, but threatening to the local deities.

The above is Part Two of a three-part series. Click here for Part One. Please view other entries on Dr. Mohler's blog.

R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. For more articles and resources by Dr. Mohler, and for information on The Albert Mohler Program, a daily national radio program broadcast on the Salem Radio Network, go to www.albertmohler.com . For information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to www.sbts.edu . Send feedback to mail@albertmohler.com .