Church Voices

Christian apologetics isn’t about arguing that other people are wrong (although it is true that it is intrinsic to apologetics that somebody is wrong).  No, Christian apologetics  is about answering the deep questions of life.  Many times it requires a defense of the answer and sometimes a refutation of another worldview’s answer, but ultimately it is about the answer.  Tim Reed’s recent post points out the dangers and consequences of our faith being defined by our opposition to the answers of others instead of our answers being defined by our faith. 

But apologetics is more than just about having an answer to the deep questions.  James Emery White in his book A Mind for God puts it this way,

As Thomas Oden has observed, the fact of the resurrection may be maintained in the church, but there is often little interest or communication regarding the significance of the resurrection.  Jesus was raised from the dead.  So what?  The Bible is true.  So what?  You can have a personal relationship with God.  So what?

This is what the Christian mind must understand in order to challnenge the world’s mind to consider.  If we cannot rise to this task, we will have lost our place in the most critical of conversations–indeed, the only conversation that matters.

There is a reason for our answers, a goal.  We enter into the conversation seeking life transformation.  This is what Christian apologetics is about, and this is what we are all called to participate in.