Tim Keller: 'Find whatever the culture is looking to for meaning. Then show how Jesus Christ fulfils that aspiration'

Ranked as one of America’s most influential Christians and with a ministry reaching sceptics from Manhattan to Mumbai, Tim Keller talks to Justin Brierley about inspiring a new generation of intellectually engaged evangelicals

I’m not the first person to draw comparisons between Tim Keller and CS Lewis, but when I mention it to the New York pastor himself, he almost falls over himself to downplay the similarities. While acknowledging a debt of inspiration to the British author, he insists that it is ‘silly’ to equate his work with the apologetic genius of Lewis, and that such comparisons owe more to overenthusiastic book cover publicity than reality.

Despite his protestations, I’m still inclined to see the resemblance. Keller is an intellectually compelling preacher and author with a similar ability to Lewis to help thinking people, including the sceptical, to understand and embrace Christianity. There are differences, of course. Unlike the bookish Oxford don, Keller is an urbane and culturally savvy communicator, as evidenced by the growth of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, which he founded in New York after moving to the city with his wife Kathy and their three children in 1989.