Curious Christian

Reflections on culture, nature, and spirituality from a Christian perspective

Apologetics: A Personal Perspective

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Matt Stone

2006-10-21

What is apologetics?

‘Apologetics is telling someone why you’re sorry you’re a Christian’

‘Apologetics is making someone sorry he asked why you were a Christian’

Is that true?

Given recent discussions on apologetics I though maybe I should elaborate on what I understand apologetics to be all about. In this respect I am indebted to John Stackhouse Jr. who has written what I consider to be the most excellent book on the subject, certainly the most excellent book I’ve read so far anyway. It’s called ‘Humble Apologetics’, and yes, that’s not an oxymoron.

So what is apologetics? Stackhouse writes:

‘Usually, of course, apologetics has been understood to be a branch of theology or philosophy, of rational investigation or argumentation … however, I want to explore apologetics beyond these modes since, again, Christianity itself speaks to much more than the intellect. Thus I suggest that anything that helps people take Christianity more seriously than they did before, anything that helps defend and commend it, properly counts as apologetics…’

Underline that word anything. If someone were to ask me ‘why do you follow Jesus?’ whatever I say next is an apologetic response. If my response is a highly formal legal-historical defence, yes that is apologetics. But if my response is an informal, ‘well because the teachings of Jesus strike me as beautiful and helpful’, well that is just as much an apologetic response too. The question I have is: What makes a good apologetic? What makes a person glad they asked?

Here are some guidelines I would offer the Emerging Church

Listen if you’d like to be listened to. Actually this goes way beyond passive listening. The real art is active listening. Drawing out the deep questions that people didn’t even know they had. Show people you truly value their questions. Show people you truly value them. That is a good apologetic practice.

Inform, don’t assume people understand. It is amazing how many difficulties people have with Christianity are based on false pictures of Christianity. It could be a hated denominational idiosyncrasy they have projected onto the movement as a whole. It maybe something that’s a complete misconstrual of Christianity teaching and practice altogether. Wouldn’t it be a shame if we put together some hugely creative alt worship installations yet failed to connect simply because we assumed too much and didn’t take the time to make sure we’re on the same page? I see this happen all the time with generic use of the word ‘god’.

Offer, don’t demand. Stackhouse writes, “No human being knows anything for certain. So we don’t argue with our neighbours as if we have ‘evidence that demands a verdict’. Instead we simply offer what reasons and stories and aspirations we have. But just because we cannot know everything or prove our case with absolute certainty does not mean we can be content to know little and demonstrate even less. All this means is that we are called to do the best we can given the actual limitations of the situation, including our own.”

Reason, in so far as it’s reasonable. Remember that we are post-rationalists, not anti-rationalists. Reason still has its place within post-modern discourse even if it no longer takes pride of place. There are limits to logic, true. But there is no virtue in refusing to explore questions of logic when people honestly raise them, or offering logical explanations when they would honestly help. Even Derrida used logic when it suited him. So be ready to reason when it’s appropriate.

Even if we don’t establish our way is certainly true, is it even plausibly true? Issues of certainty aside, is Christianity even on the shelves in the spiritual supermarket? In some quarters it is considered so false, bad and ugly, that it’s the last option that people would consider. Sometime apologetics is about little more than establishing basic street cred.

The beauty and goodness of our way is as much an issue as the truth of it. A lot of people seem to be under the impression that apologetics is all about the truth and nothing but the truth. But that’s not true. Russia was converted through exposure to Orthodox icons which convinced the opinion leaders that Christianity was a beautiful pathway. Note that a big reason why I oppose Christian kitsch is because it is so apologetically horrendous. And consider goodness. A correct paedophile is still a paedophile. No one is going to be converted by a pervert, no matter how well he reasons. Re-establishing some basic ethical credibility is one of the most important apologetic issues facing western Christianity today.

Arouse curiosity, don’t be pushy. Arousing curiosity in the message of Christ is apologetics too. All I’ll say here is that this is totally behind our use of tarot cards in gospel presentations at alternate spirituality festivals. And I am talking about the genuine Rider-Waite deck. It sure gets people asking questions.

Respect the journey of the person, always. This can be difficult but consider how weird bodily resurrection sounds to non-Christians.

Respectful disagreement is not an oxymoron. Honouring a person’s questions does not mean we have to say, “yeah sure that’s cool”, to everything they say. We should be open to critiquing individuals as well as society. The important thing is to make sure it is constructive and caring.

Focus on Jesus. Again Stackhouse writes, “People should become Christians primarily because they want to follow Jesus as the way, the truth and the life. So leave aside secondary issues if you can. To put this another way, avoid the popular apologetic zones located at the beginning and end of the Bible. And avoid airy abstractions about “religion-in-general” if we can move to consider the specific and supremely important person of Jesus Christ. Various apologetic problems change when referred to the subject of Jesus. The problem of God and evil, for one, changes dramatically when the discussion changes to God-as-presented-in-Jesus and evil.”

Worship God. Remember, if you are loving God and loving your neighbour through apologetic conversations, that is worship, in Spirit and in truth. Offer your conversations up to God in the spirit of worship.

Tags Apologetics

4 responses to “Apologetics: A Personal Perspective”

sally

2006-10-21

like this linking to it! Hope thats OK!

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Matt Stone

2006-10-21

Sure Sally, be my guest 🙂

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philjohnson

2006-10-21

Matt
Perhaps a less “attractive” path is to also look at the history of apologetics and that kind of survey has been undertaken in Avery Dulles, A History of Apologetics (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 1999; reprint of the same book published in 1971). At least one gets to see from Dulles’ survey that a wide and diverse range of approaches, styles, methods and attitudes have subsisted in the discipline. Apologetics then is not just a modern day rationalist enterprise substituting reason for faith, or boorishness for hospitality and decency.
It also helps to see that the enterprise has ensued hand-in-glove with the church’s missions and with its theological reflections and formulations. So it helps to be reminded that the early apologists dialogued with the Gnostics (for example), and their contributions were important for the life of the Church. we can learn from our forebears even though our time and problems are very different.
But for those who might prefer a reading challenge, after looking at Stackhouse’s text one can graduate to another book that is slightly earlier and topic-specific, namely Paul J. Griffiths, An Apology for Apologetics: A Study in the Logic of Interreligious Dialogue (Maryknoll: Orbis,1991). While I do not agree entirely with Griffiths, his book is a good example of how apologetics can be pursued with integrity and why it is necessary in a religiously diverse world.
Griffiths has taught at Chicago Uni and wrote as an Episcopalian (now he is a Roman Catholic), and one standing outside the sectarian strife of modern American evangelicalism. Griffiths is well known for his writings on Buddhism, and on “faith meeting faith”.
Griffiths observed:
” ‘Apologetics’ has itself become a term laden with negative connotations: to be an apologist for the truth of one religious claim or set of claims over against another is, in certain circles, seen as not far short of being a racist. And the term has passed into popular currency, to the extent that it has, as a simple label for argument in the service of a predetermined orthodoxy, argument concerned not to demonstrate but to convince, and, if conviction should fail, to browbeat into submission.”
Griffiths argues against these tendencies and carcicatured profiles. He firmly rejects the degenerate form into which apologetics is sometimes carried out and then becomes understandably loathed.
He maintains that apologetics is something that takes place between entirely different religious communities (Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Christian etc) when representatives of each community find it necessary to dialogue about their respective and conflicting religious claims. There is a large corpus of literature by Hindus, Buddhist and Muslims commending and defending their beliefs over against other religions, and much of that literature involves exchanges with Christian beliefs.
Griffiths is not arguing for tempestuous denunciations, ridicule, or who can shout the loudest and “win” the argument. That is the stuff of “question-time” in Parliament. Instead Griffiths talks about positive and negative components that may make up an apologetic discourse, and he sees a place for both elements. However he makes it clear that this is not done in a tirade. He says that conceptually the principle of the necessity of interreligious apologetics is “to show how religious communities should relate themselves to one another”.
For Griffiths interreligious apologetics is a duty that all religious communities engage in (so it is not a one-sided initiative taken by Christians intent on beating all-comers). He says that when representative intellectuals from a specific religious community discover that their own beliefs seem incompatible with another community, then this is the stimulus for respectful and earnest dialogue. He says that “when representative intellectuals of religious communities find themselves in the situation described, they should engage in apologetics.” For Griffiths there is an ethical duty and in philosophic term an “epistemic duty” to engage in “proper apologetics.
Griffiths goes on to say that while a vindication of belief may occur in the exercise, that the conscious expectations of the apologist must go much further “to learning and problem-solving.” He says that the “expectation of learning and of problem-solving will thus be among the primary motivations and expectations of the proper apologist.” In his model the apologist may be passionate and yet along the way may also discover that he/she needs to modify or even abandon some statements and attitudes. In other words the best way to learn whether one’s “doctrines” have any “traction” is when in dialogue with someone who holds an entirely different set of “doctrines”.
Apologetics then carries with it the implication that the apologist is going to learn, grow and even change for the better, and with it one’s beliefs may be found vulnerable, or in dire need of revision. In other words the apologist who goes out with an overdose of certitude (thereby negating the essence of trust in God) may indeed exhibit invincible ignorance or obstinacy, but that is a degenrate version of the proper discipline.
Interreligious dialogue must necessarily then involve listening, respect and empathy for the other, and understanding of the other’s views as essential prerequisites. So one has to think about those practices and convictions that the other holds to before there is any proper discourse. The discourse is not about “winner takes all”.

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John Smulo

2006-10-23

Matt,
This is a very helpful post on apologetics. I think that apologetics has a lot of potential, but when people think of what apologetic is about they often think of more confrontational or adversarial forms of apologetics. Thanks for helping us see it can be something that is respectful, effective, and meaningful.

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