Ever since first reading CS Lewis' non-fiction more than a decade ago I've been interested in apologetics. Naturally, it all started when I first read Lewis' "Mere Christianity", the all-time classic Apologetic book.
I think it's important that Christians think through what they believe and why they believe it. I think it's important that Christians know they don't live in a vacuum. We live in a world that we are called to interact with. As such, we will have to be "prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you" 1 Peter 3:15 (ESV). This verse is often used as a basis for Christian Apologetics.
There may be a few of you out there who have read both Lewis' "Mere Christianity" and NT Wright's "Simply Christian". Essentially, Wright wrote his book to be the "Mere Christianity" of
the post-modern age. It is.
Anyway, the point of all this is that I have a little beef with Apologetics and North American Christianity in general: why are we always several decades behind the times?
Have you ever been frustrated at how Christian culture often sees a trend in the world then goes to work making a crappy, B-rate, "Christian" knock-off version of it... and by the time it's out there it's already out of date?
Any examples?
My beef with apologetics is that you can see a similar trend. Every once in a while there is a CS Lewis or an NT Wright who is a true contemporary of his day or even ahead of the times but they are few and far between. It seems as though many, if not most, apologists are still trying to address the questions posed by modernity when the rest of society has moved on to post-modernity.
Thus they render themselves obsolete to everyone but those Christians who read their books and become obsolete themselves.
People won't even consider the church as a source of the answers to life's hard questions if we're completely culturally irrelevant.
Out of date = Out of mind.
Am I being too hard on these people? Probably.
Is apologetics still relevant in a Post-Modern age?
Who is apologetics for; Christians or non-Christians?
Which is more important; "defending" or "commending" our faith?
What examples of crappy "Christian" knock-off trends can you think of?
5 comments:
Here's an excerpt from Jim and Casper go to Church, "Generally speaking, ordinary Christians don't like arguing their friends into becoming Christians. It just doesn't feel right. ... But the idea that we should demand a verdict from non-Christians seems like an approach a lawyer would take... Ordinary Christians like me know that when you start defending the faith, you start losing friends. ... More and more Christians are tired of being perceived as mean, petty, demanding, and "right". For many of us, the only thing that attracts us to apologetics is that it sounds a lot like apology, which is what we actually feel more comfortable doing when trying to explain the church to our friends."
He goes on to suggest that perhaps a better exercise is to find a "conversation partner" from another faith or tradition outside of Christianity and just have a conversation with them, not a debate, a conversation. He views non-Christians as people, not targets, and thinks that we should just show Jesus to people through what we do and our relationships with them, instead of trying to demand a verdict and prove Jesus. I took an apologetics class and it was interesting, but I wonder if it should be updated to Post-Modern Apologetics. Perhaps if we would follow Jesus' example and just hang out with non-believers and have open, non-threatening spiritual conversations, they will see God's love through us.
Tim S.
Preach it, brother!
We've often been frustrated that churches are so slow to accept and use new technology. Sometimes they seem quite threatened by it, perhaps considering it to be worldly, such as those who fought the use of radio and television, and in our day, computer technology. In the end, they just seem very foolish.It would be nice if we could get excited about using new technology for God as soon as it is available. Why should Satan get all the good stuff first?
I think that when we do baby dedications it's like saying, "Satan, you don't get all the good stuff first! This one is for God!" That just came to mind.
I like that, Lisa... especially because we just dedicated Kaleb a few weeks ago.
I think Satan is very intentional about getting to stuff before the church does. 'cause that's the thing about Satan; he can't create anything, he can only mess up the stuff that's already there.
So, I say whatever it is (thoughts/ideas/philosophies, technology, music, anything really) we as the people of God should get there first and see if it can be a tool for building God's Kingdom before Satan can mess it up.
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