STATISTICAL INFLUENCE OF POSTMODERNISM ON AGAPE LOVE IN CONTEMPORARY EVANGELICAL CHURCHES OF ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Biblical truth of love, especially agape love of Christians towards God was amongst many concepts in the Bible severely attacked by the distorted precepts of postmodernism. Postmodernism is characterized as a relativistic framework of observation and contemplation that rejects the existence of absolutes and objectivity. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the influence of postmodernism on agape love in the contemporary Evangelical Churches in Ethiopia. Mixed method approach with triangulation of data and data quality assurance was used. Survey questions were developed for the quantitative study involving 128 (male and female) evangelical respondents using Likert scale, and ministers participated for the qualitative survey. The quantitative data were fed into IBM SPSS Statistics Version 29 Software for analysis while the qualitative survey utilized Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and Key Informant interviews (KII) using best selected probing questions.Nearly 55% of the respondents agreed that postmodernism is a heresy according to the Bible, and close to 34% respondents had neutral idea on the heretical view of Postmodernism. However, almost 12% of the respondents strongly disagreed that postmodernism is heresy according to the Bible, which means the postmodernist idea has already infiltrated, and believers have already accepted the concept of postmodernism. Almost 90% of the respondents agreed that the teachings focusing on earthly prosperity have affected the love of the believers towards God. These quantitative results were supported by the qualitative findings. The research has been concluded that postmodernism has negatively influenced agape love of contemporary Evangelical Churches in Ethiopia. It is therefore recommended that Ethiopian Evangelical Churches should teach their members about the deceptive ways of postmodernism and its implications on Christianity.