Apologetics in the 21st Century: A Return to the Great Commission
At the end of Jesus’ ministry, he commissioned his disciples to go into all the world and preach the Gospel. He also told them to make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is known to believers today as the Great Commission. We are charged with sharing the Gospel with unbelievers as well as training up disciples once they have been converted. Assessing our culture today, there is a great need in the United States to return to this commission we received from Jesus. Research study after research study suggests that the United States is actually getting less religious (Wormald). One of the major reasons for this decline is due to believers loss of faith upon entering our Institutions and Universities. Students are being challenged by other religious ideas, as well as polemic’s specifically aimed at the Christian faith. Being able to defend one’s faith is a tool sorely needed in the Church. Apologetics is an evangelistic tool that can help combat this onslaught against Christianity and its beliefs. What are the ways Apologetics can stop or slow down this decline of religious belief, as well as help equip Christians in a return to the Great Commission?
Apologetics comes from the Greek word apologia and is translated “a defense”. Christian Apologetics means to make a defense of one’s faith. In 1 Peter 3:15, the Apostle Peter tells us, “Always be prepared to give an answer or a defense (apologia) to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.” As we can see from Scripture it is our job as Christians to be able to defend our Christian faith.
When we share the good news with unbelievers there is something that we need to keep in mind: “The Gospel is never heard in isolation” (Craig 17). It is always heard through the worldview of the culture in which a person was born or raised. In the 21st Century as Christian believers and evangelists, we are not dealing with ignorance or a lack of knowledge of belief in Christianity, we are dealing with doubt. This is where Apologetics comes into play. As we speak to people who have never heard the Gospel, as we explain to them about the existence of God, about a dying and rising Messiah who gave himself for them, we are going to be faced with a certain set of questions. In our culture today, many of these people may have already heard about Christianity and Jesus but have either rejected these claims or have false assumptions and views. Christians today are unprepared for the types of questions that unbelievers will give. It is our job as Christians to faithfully help answer questions or doubts that the unbeliever may have.
A statistic released by UCLA states that about half of young Christian adults will walk away from their faith during or after college (Railsback). How many of these believers faced doubts or attacks at their Universities and had questions that went unanswered? One of the many reasons for the dissolving of Christian beliefs at Universities is because of the effect of our Postmodern culture and its attack on objective truth. Pluralization, the concept of having a number of competing worldviews in which no one worldview is dominant, has evolved into relativism, and in turn, resulted in the erosion of objective truth (Zacharias Defending Christianity). This cultural phenomenon teaches that truth and morality are relative terms. How can Christians preach a Gospel of absolute truth when the truth is trivialized? This relativistic mindset that all ideas are basically the same and carry equal merit seems like a strong and caring virtue until one wants to substantiate their claims as the truth. As we can see the postmodern secularists can then dodge meaningful truth claims because they reject the idea of absolute truth (Geisler 8).
“You’re only a Christian because your parents were Christians. Had you been born in the Middle East, you’d be a Muslim.” Still, to this day I will never forget this accusation that my atheist friend posited. Is that true? Am I only a believer because I was born into it? I didn’t have a response for him, to be frank, I never honestly thought about my faith in that light. This led me to one of the greatest searches of my life, and I believe God put me in this encounter to begin my study into Apologetics. I began to research Apologetics. I read books by academic authors such as William Lane Craig, Gary Habermas, Norman Geisler, and Alvin Plantinga. I watched debates, such as William Lane Craig’s debates with academic philosophers as well as atheistic authors. I watched presentations given by Dr. Ravi Zacharias who spoke in front of hostile audiences who later peppered him with questions and accusations. Books by authors such as Greg Koukl, Frank Turek, Os Guinness, and John Lennox also strengthened my faith and equipped me with tools to answer questions and objections to the Christian faith. I discovered all kinds of academic research on websites as well as youtube videos that brought to light questions that I had, as well as questions that I had received in regards to my beliefs as a Christian.
After researching these questions and objections I discovered that the accusation my friend gave me was a fallacious statement. After all, my friend used to be a Baptist, so by his logic shouldn’t he be a Baptist? What he was doing was associating my belief system by my place of origin. That is what is called a “genetic fallacy” and this claim simply avoids the process of a person discovering their own belief system, even if it is contrary to what they have grown up around. As I witness arguments of this nature, as well as the shape of our culture and its slide into secularization, I see the need for this tool in the life of the church. “Secularization is the idea that religious ideas, institutions, and interpretations have lost their social significance” (Zacharias/Defending Christianity).
These two moods of secularization and pluralization inevitably led to the view of privatization, which is the held view that no matter what you believe one does not bring these beliefs into the public square (Zacharias Defending Christianity). This idea of privatization is rampant in our culture today and is held in high regard. It doesn’t matter what you believe, just don’t let it influence your work or share it with your neighbors. One can clearly see how these moods are in direct opposition to the Great Commission Jesus gave; there are a number of competing worldviews in our society today, no view is correct, there certainly isn’t a thing as absolute truth, moral values are relative, and no matter what you believe, keep it to yourself. This influence on our society has kept Christians in their churches, pastors away from politics, and has brainwashed our intellectuals and scientists.
Another victim of postmodernism is the exclusive claims that Jesus made in the Bible. Liberal secularists have not only driven a wedge in-between Christian claims of exclusivity in regards to absolute truth, but also with tolerance towards other religions. They have painted Christians as bigoted and intolerant based on the confidence of the Christian and their held beliefs. The issue here is, if we dig deep enough, we see that all religions make truth claims. Let’s take the claim of Jesus from the point of view of different world religions. Christianity claims that Jesus was the Messiah, that he came to Earth as a human and died on a cross for our sins. After three days he rose from the dead, vindicating himself as the Son of God, and will one day return to reign as King. Islam believes that Jesus was a great prophet, but that he certainly wasn’t God, and he most definitely didn’t die on a cross. Here are two very different claims about the person of Jesus Christ and both of them cannot be correct. Another example would be Eastern religious beliefs that evil and suffering are a result of a karmic debt that must be paid. They believe in rebirth, and that God is in everything and there is no distinction between creation and creator (Geisler 10). These positions are in direct contradiction to the Christian as well as the Muslim. Now, the proper question that should arise is, who’s religious view is correct? Instead of this question, the relativist can leap-frog these contradictions and lay claim to a neutral position of tolerance and acceptance and reject answering these contradictions. Do whatever you like, think whatever you think, just so long as these views don’t upset their proverbial apple cart.
Our culture is being bombarded with postmodern views of relativism and the rejection of absolute truth and it needs to be disarmed head-on. Apologetics can help take up arms against this cultural imbecility and can teach Christians how to face up to these challenges. Learning how to use tactical questions and examples, a Christian can disarm his objectors and leave them, as a leading apologist puts it, “with their feet firmly planted in mid-air” (Beckwith). Apologetics can help equip believers with the tools necessary to engage our culture in meaningful discussion, as well as to give a credible defense of the Christian faith.
Beckwith, Francis, and Gregory Koukl. Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air. Baker Books, 1998.
Craig, William Lane. “On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision.” On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision, David C. Cook, 2010, p. 17.
Geisler, Norman L., et al. “Forward.” I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, Crossway Books, 2007, pp. 7–11.
Railsback, Gary Lyle. “An Exploratory Study of the Religiosity and Related Outcomes Among College Students,” Doctoral dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles, 1994.
Wormald, Benjamin. “U.S. Public Becoming Less Religious.” Perform.org, Pew Research Center, 2 Nov. 2015, www.pewforum.org/2015/11/03/ u-s-public-becoming-less-religious/.
Zacharias, Ravi K. “Defending Christianity in a Secular Culture.” Just Thinking, RZIM, 26 Jan. 2009, rzim.org/just-thinking/defending-christianity-in-a-secular-culture/.
Zacharias, Ravi K. “The End of Reason: a Response to the New Atheists.” The End of Reason: a Response to the New Atheists, Zondervan, 2008, pp. 31–74.
