Why Ecclesial Apologetics Provides Us with a Better Argument for Truth
It has become increasingly difficult to defend the historicity of the biblical miracles or the logical necessity of a divine Creator. Perhaps it’s time for a new approach that’s really quite old.
“It doesn’t really matter, does it? Because Islam is going to win.”
I was standing beside a book table in front of a London Underground station, surrounded by crowds heading to and from public transit. Throughout the morning, a local pastor and I had been offering free books to anyone who would take them. Each time someone stopped at the table, we listened to their stories, invited them to church, and looked for opportunities to point them to the gospel. Thus far, our giveaways had triggered conversations with a few Muslims, several atheists, a handful of folks who weren’t sure what they believed, and a couple of devotees to Krishna who had set up a competing book table around the corner.
It was nearly noon when a British gentleman of African descent paused for a moment at the corner of the table. He said he was a schoolteacher and asked what we were doing. I told him we were giving away books about Jesus and offered him a brief volume about the resurrection.
“What about you? What do you think about Jesus?“ I queried as he considered the cover.
“It doesn’t really matter, does it?” he replied without looking up. “Because Islam is going to win.”
“That’s interesting. What makes you say that?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? Look around you,” he waved his hand in the direction of a nineteenth-century steeple that protruded into the sky behind the station. “Hardly anyone goes to church anymore. But Muslims go to mosque, and they have bigger families. Churches are dying. Islam is winning.”
As we talked more, it became clear that the man deeply valued universal education and human rights. And yet, his responses to questions about faith kept returning to the same response regardless of what I asked. He wasn’t interested in discussing whether there was a God or whether any particular practice of faith might be true. As far as he was concerned, it didn’t matter which religion people chose to follow. Christianity was simply a social structure that another system would soon supplant.
“So what do you personally think about Jesus?” I returned to my initial question. “Muslims say Jesus was a prophet who ascended into the heavens from the cross, but the people who actually knew Jesus said he rose from the dead on the third day. Do you think Jesus really returned from the dead?”
“It doesn’t matter whether he rose from the dead if no one believes it, does it?” he responded. “And that’s what’s going to happen within a couple of decades—no one’s going to believe in Jesus anyway.”
The conversation kept stalling in the same spot, so I tried a different approach that took his expectation of a churchless future into account. “Which world would you prefer to live in, if you had the choice?” I asked. “A world where pretty much everyone is Muslim? Or might it be a world where there are more churches and lots of people following the way of Jesus?”
For the first time, the man hesitated. When he finally responded, his words were more tentative than before.
“A world where there are lots of Christians, I guess. When Muslims take over, girls can’t even get an education.”
“That’s been true in some cases,” I nodded. “Christianity has had its share of failures, but when churches have really followed the way of Jesus, it’s brought a lot of good into the world. Think about William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson and Granville Sharp. They worked for decades to end the enslavement of Africans here in England, and it was their Christian convictions that drove them to do that.”
“Churches have done a lot of education and charity work. And they still do,” the man admitted before quickly adding, “but maybe Muslims will do that too, eventually. That’s what religion does.”
“Would you be open to considering another possibility?” I asked. “What if there’s something unique about Christianity that actually fits with what’s good and true? Maybe all the good that’s come from Christianity is only possible because of what Christians believe about Jesus and about every person being made in God’s image. What if the good that Christianity has done depends on some reality that’s supremely good?”
Those questions unfolded into a conversation about how Christians have promoted literacy and eventually about how the stories of Jesus shaped the habits of the early church. When the man scurried into the Highbury and Islington Station to catch his train, he was still far from convinced, but he left with a book about Jesus clutched in his hand and, hopefully, a hint of truth implanted in his heart.
How the Challenges Have Changed
This man at the station wasn’t interested in evidence for the resurrection, and he was ambivalent when it came to the question of God’s existence.
He’s not alone.
In twenty-first-century Western contexts, it has become more and more difficult to defend the historicity of the biblical miracles or the logical necessity of a divine Creator. These discussions have not grown more difficult because evidence is in short supply. The proofs of God are as plentiful as they’ve ever been.
Why, then, have the challenges gotten so challenging?
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