Apologetics

I took a class once that devoted a third of a semester to Christian apologetics. I know of other schools that have multiple full-semester classes devoted to the subject. Yet when I have listened to most Christian apologetics it always seems that we are attempting to establish our faith using vague peripheral arguments of Modern science and thought. It's like the kid who starts wearing certain clothes just as they are going out of style, and speaking as if he was doing it from the start. In the class I took we spent a good deal of time arguing for the existence of God, yet I hear less and less about atheism in our day. Our society has moved past atheism on to a prevading agnosticism that leave all of our theistic arguments irrelevant. Today our society is critical not of Christian concepts, but instead Christian epistemology (how we know that what we believe is True). For postmodern culture, all people are equal, which means that the Hindu's idea of truth and the Christian's idea of truth are on equal ground. Equality is something that most Christians are greatly frustrated by. We are used to having our religion start out with an advantage, which made it easier for us to win religious debate. Today we have lost our position of religious privilage, and found that our apologetics are not so dominant when they lose the "one-up" position they had long enjoyed in the West.

Apologetics as it turns out was not always our attempt to dominate religious argument: the first apologists were attempting to simply make Christianity viable in a new paradigm. As Christianity shifted from being a minority Jewish religion to being a Greek/Roman religion, significant changes were necessary. Originally Christianity started out as a religion that fit perfectly into the Jewish context. It's theology was fresh and challenging to those who had followed the Torah their whole life, but when it was taken a few hundred miles away to people who had likely never even heard of the Torah, it did not immediately fit as well. Originally, Paul took the necessary first steps to give Christianity credibility to the Hellenistic (Greek/Roman) culture. In Paul, we have the beginning of a paradigm shift. The worldview of the Jews was vastly different than that of the Greeks and Romans. And, to take Christianity from one to the next we find Paul, and probably many others, making the necessary initial changes to see this happen. Yet, once these were made, there was a long way to go.

And, this was the legacy of the 'apologists'. The concept of 'apology' is closely related to that of 'reconciliation'. That is how the modern since of apologizing has gained the meaning of saying the necessary words to reconcile two people. Yet, before this became 'apology's' primary meaning, it was used in a more broad sense. That's how we get the idea of offering an apology for Christianity. The first 'apologists' were those who attempted to reconcile this Jewish religion to a Hellenistic context. They created theology (it might be better to say 'gave voice to theology') that was credible and viable in this new non-Jewish context. These apologists were men like Justin Martyr, Clement, Origen, and Athenagoras. They all attempted to use Greek philosophy to justify Christianity, and in the process made it acceptable to the Greek mind. About 1700 years later we find that much of our dogma rests on their arguments. In actuality, most of Western Christianity has taken shape as a result of the apologetics of these men.

One key point though is, their arguments did not start out as dogma, but as attempts to reconcile this 'new, great faith' to a culture and context where it otherwise made no sense. What we in the West have gone to war over (literally), started out in an almost experimental attitude.

Here's the question: as more and more Eastern thought weaves into our postmodern (post-Western?) culture, how much can we continue to demand ascent to 1700 year old lines of thought? It seems that the questions that people ask today are different, so can we continue to force them on tangent answers that don't even speak to the uncertainties of their hearts?? People decreasingly require evidence for God's existence, but his nature and his presence are questioned and regarded as 'unknowable'. What is our response? "Well consider the world and think of it like a watch that needs a watchmaker . . . ." Who gives a crap??

We need new apologists. We need a new and radically different apology for Christian faith. I am increasingly convinced it will need to be more holistic and encompassing . . . and humble (which would be quite a change indeed). Thoughts?