I have come to believe that there
is a crisis in field of Christian apologetics. The defense of the Christian
faith has become a confused battleground of pure chaos. Far too many apologists
are woefully lacking in theological acumen, untrained in biblical exegesis, and
employ and rely on pagan philosophy in their respective apologetic methods. But
it is worse than that. Many of these apologists have come to Christ supposedly,
and are convinced that others can come through by way of rational examination.
In other words, they have not a faith that is produced by the power of the Holy
Spirit working in their hearts. The Holy Spirit has not imparted God’s
wonderful gift of saving faith. Many modern apologists have come to Christ in
exactly the same way that many people have come to believe in Islam or Roman
Catholicism or whatever other man-made religion that may come to mind. But
there is another issue in modern, Christ apologetics that few seem to want to
address.
In His famous philosophical
treatise, The Proslogion, Anselm of Canterbury wrote,
Be it mine to
look up to thy light, even from afar, even from the depths. Teach me to seek
thee, and reveal thyself to me, when I seek thee, for I cannot seek thee,
except thou teach me, nor find thee, except thou reveal thyself. Let me seek
thee in longing, let me long for thee in seeking; let me find thee in love, and
love thee in finding. Lord, I acknowledge and I thank thee that thou hast
created me in this thine image, in order that I may be mindful of thee, may
conceive of thee, and love thee; but that image has been so consumed and wasted
away by vices, and obscured by the smoke of wrong-doing, that it cannot achieve
that for which it was made, except thou renew it, and create it anew. I do not
endeavor, O Lord, to penetrate thy sublimity, for in no wise do I compare my
understanding with that; but I long to understand in some degree thy truth,
which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand that I may
believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this also I believe,—that
unless I believed, I should not understand.
It is not difficult to see that
this genus of humility and understanding is dreadfully lacking in modern
Christian apologetics. Young modern apologists are overconfident about the
rightness of their positions, inflexible about their convictions, do not for a
moment entertain the possibility that their position could stand some
fine-tuning or perhaps should even be abandoned.
The great apologetics periscope is
often quoted at its front-end, while the backside is very often neglected and
frequently ignored: but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to
everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet
with gentleness and reverence; 16 and keep a good conscience so that in the
thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in
Christ will be put to shame. Name-calling, oversimplifying, and emotionally
manipulating the conversation constitute some of the ways of not taking others
seriously and creating a shallow substitute for their real positions and the
reasons they might have for them. [The Little Logic Book]
I have experienced just as rude of behavior and poor treatment in discussions with Christian apologists as I have
with atheists. In fact, I have had to block people from conversations after
several attempts and requests were made to get them to change their approach.
It is just as important that we
follow Peter’s imperative to be gentle and respectful, engaging in good behavior
in our interactions as it is to defend Christian truth. Some apologists seem to
stop at the comma in 1 Peter 3:15. And this is unfortunate. Christian
apologetics is in a crisis because modern evangelicalism is in a crisis. We
have spent a few decades now making false converts, preaching a lawless Christ
and a lawless Christianity. We have convinced ourselves that the gospel can be
made attractive to the ungodly through programs and strategies and friendships,
and in this case, the strength of our arguments and the amount of our
impressive evidence. But evangelicals have been on the wrong side of the
biblical gospel. As a result, the churches have been filled with unbelievers
who have come to Christ in the very same fashion that someone comes to Islam or
to Buddhism, or joins a country club. These false converts, in many cases, are
now running around in seminaries, or having graduated from seminaries are
traveling the country and the world, claiming to defend the true Christ of
Scripture when the truth is, they are defending a Christianity that is the
product of Western minds enamored with pagan philosophy. There is a real crisis
in modern Christian apologetics and the question is, “what will you and I do
about it?”
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