Apologetics Is for Everyone, Not Just Experts and Nerds, Pt. 2

Let’s revisit the apostle Peter’s famous dictum: “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, but with gentleness and respect. (I Peter 3:15)” Though we can’t ignore the formal connotations surrounding the word defense (apologia in Greek), if we approach this verse with poise, we must also take into account the fact that Peter is speaking to all believers. Quite simply, we’re not all doctors, professors, lawyers, scientists, and philosophers. In fact, the foregoing sentence constitutes a vanishingly small group of men and women.

Another way of saying this is that all of us are apologists, but not all of us are called to the  field of apologetics  any more than a general responsibility for physical health obligates everyone to be a physician. It’s true that the contemporary church doesn’t always celebrate the life of the mind. But it’s also true that the current picture of the apologist as a kind of intellectual savant who whips congregations into shape when she’s not vanquishing unbelieving opponents is as rigid as it is naive. It’s also insulting to everyone but the apologist.

To the people who don’t have the time, the patience, or the capacity to gobble up philosophical tomes, absorb reams of worldview curriculum, or dive into the intricacies of ancient languages, the answer cannot simply be, “Train harder to defend your faith!” This is a bit like pushing a kid with no interest and no athletic ability onto a basketball court and instructing him to “try harder!” Apologetics includes the academy, but it isn’t limited to it. Consequently, any definition that emphasizes nothing more than intellectual prowess is profoundly short-sighted, emboldening a small group of talented thinkers, while excluding the majority of ordinary believers. This scenario can’t be what St. Peter had in mind.  

You may have heard it said that everyone's a theologian. Obviously, such a statement doesn’t imply that all of us teach New Testament studies at divinity schools and do our morning devotions in Koine Greek. It means, of course, that it’s incumbent on all Christians to properly order their thinking about God, both in their communities and their individual lives. It’s in this broad sense that we can say that everyone is an apologist. Just as the cultivation of properly ordered God thought and God talk holds for every believer, so the cultivation of fluency in our relationship with Christ holds for all of us who are numbered among his disciples. And a holistic definition of Christian apologetics simply is fluency in one’s relationship with Christ. 

Since this definition is liable to meet with some surprise and even perplexity, it’s worthy of further elaboration. C.S. Lewis offers a helpful distinction on the nature of Christian belief that has a bearing on our discussion of apologetics. Specifically, he distinguishes “assent” from “adherence.” In broad strokes, assent pertains to our intellectual satisfaction with Christianity, while adherence refers to our ongoing fidelity to Christ. Assent is largely propositional; adherence is inherently relational. According to Lewis, Christianity is treated as a “speculative question” mainly by seekers and skeptics in the time before they give their assent. If they become convinced by the evidence, they give their assent, at which point the nature of their belief undergoes a radical transformation: “You are no longer faced with an argument which demands your assent, but with a Person who demands your confidence.” 

Given the nature of their work, formal apologists often aim at assent. In this effort, they also adopt the speculative view on Christianity, hoping to persuade skeptics and seekers. Legitimate concerns have been raised about the genuineness of this undertaking. To wit, it’s no more possible for a Christian to jettison her deepest convictions and step onto “neutral ground” with a skeptic than it is for me to willingly suspend my belief about the chair supporting my weight as I write this sentence.

But is it really the case that any speculative investigation of Christianity necessarily commits me to the wholesale curtailment of my most cherished beliefs? Fortunately, the field of apologetics need not be understood in such stark terms. Consider this question: Is the person who plays the devil’s advocate and who uses phrases like “for the sake of argument” and “let’s assume you’re right” surrendering her deepest convictions or engaging in a thought experiment? The former would be a genuine dilemma, for it would mean that we could never entertain an alternative viewpoint without first adopting it. If, on the other hand, we’re dealing with a thought experiment, it’s simply an exercise that helps to clarify one’s thinking. Indeed, it constitutes a significant basis for most forms of argumentation in both formal and informal settings. People entertain differing viewpoints about everything from recipes to the ethics of the death penalty. In such cases, a principled refusal to set aside one’s convictions “for the sake of argument” would be a sign of hard-headed obstinance, not intellectual integrity. When it’s operating in a healthy way, the field of apologetics treats Christianity as a speculative question in much the same manner as the person who temporarily sets aside her beliefs “for the sake of argument.” 

It’s worth pointing out that a phrase like “thought experiment” runs the risk of trivializing an inherently dangerous practice. If done in earnest, entertaining other points of view isn’t like a game of charades; it’s more like taking on a character in a play. John Keats famously praised what he called “negative capability,” a kind of kenotic devotion on the part of the artist that allows him to disappear in his work. For Keats, the key exemplar is Shakespeare. Try as you might, it’s impossible to pin the author down in his plays, so faithfully does he inhabit each perspective, from Hamlet all the way to Iago. There’s a very real danger here. In pouring yourself into a character, it’s also possible to lose yourself. Think of the exotic antics of celebrities who engage in “method acting.”