Why Evangelism Needs Genesis

Instead of primarily wondering “Where will I go when I die?”, in a secular, post-Christian culture, it is more likely to find people asking “Who am I while I am alive?”

For this reason, in this presentation I argue that faithful witness in our day must recover a Christologically grounded account of the imago Dei which proclaims salvation as the restoration of human identity, vocation, and destiny through participation in the self-giving life of God.

This account of God’s purpose for humanity offers a much-needed corrective to the moralized anthropology of many contemporary evangelistic approaches. Such methods produce a “shrunken gospel” that is ill equipped to respond to the crisis of identity and meaning that pervades the contemporary West.

Presented at EMS Canada 2026.