Giving Reason For The Hope: The Possibility and Necessity of the Apologetic Task as a Ministry Within The Church And Her Mission (1 Peter 3:15)
As a new believer during my teenage days, I discovered apologetics through a booklet written by Josh McDowell. It came as a lifeline at a critical juncture in my spiritual walk as I tried to make sense of the claims of Christ in relation to other faiths, especially the Buddhist-Taoist tradition.
To be frank, I did not come to faith after arriving at satisfactory conclusions about the reliability of Scripture or thorough investigation on the historical evidences of Jesus’ resurrection. The decision to trust in Him as Lord and Savior followed the hearing of a simple gospel message, which convicted me of sins against a holy God and the need for reconciliation with Him through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.
However, coming from a plausibility structure that would not take Christian claims at face value, my newfound faith launched an ongoing and often lonely intellectual struggle to understand its justifications and implications. Echoing Anselm, my pilgrimage would be more appropriately described as “faith seeking understanding”.
As time went by, I discovered other reflective people in and outside church who ask fundamental questions in life like our origin, identity, purpose and destiny. The dissatisfaction with simplistic albeit pious clichés for an answer is both our blessing and our curse. I began to feel acutely the vacuum in the local church for suitably equipped ministers who address such issues with sensitivity and knowledge.
Again, I turned to the wisdom of books by Augustine, Francis Schaeffer, C.S. Lewis and others. In this paper, I seek to explore the role of apologetics in Scripture and church history in a missional context before discussing how it may be done in the Malaysian setting.
As a new believer during my teenage days, I discovered apologetics through a booklet written by Josh McDowell. It came as a lifeline at a critical juncture in my spiritual walk as I tried to make sense of the claims of Christ in relation to other faiths, especially the Buddhist-Taoist tradition.
To be frank, I did not come to faith after arriving at satisfactory conclusions about the reliability of Scripture or thorough investigation on the historical evidences of Jesus’ resurrection. The decision to trust in Him as Lord and Savior followed the hearing of a simple gospel message, which convicted me of sins against a holy God and the need for reconciliation with Him through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.
However, coming from a plausibility structure that would not take Christian claims at face value, my newfound faith launched an ongoing and often lonely intellectual struggle to understand its justifications and implications. Echoing Anselm, my pilgrimage would be more appropriately described as “faith seeking understanding”.
As time went by, I discovered other reflective people in and outside church who ask fundamental questions in life like our origin, identity, purpose and destiny. The dissatisfaction with simplistic albeit pious clichés for an answer is both our blessing and our curse. I began to feel acutely the vacuum in the local church for suitably equipped ministers who address such issues with sensitivity and knowledge. Again, I turned to the wisdom of books by Augustine, Francis Schaeffer, C.S. Lewis and others. In this paper, I seek to explore the role of apologetics in Scripture and church history in a missional context before discussing how it may be done in the Malaysian setting.
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I dunno how to do footnotes like Tien Fock's Blog so here are my woeful acknowledgements...
Steven Cowan, general editor, Five Views On Apologetics, (Zondervan: Grand Rapids, 2000), page 8
Some examples of Jesus’ rabbinic use of logic and reason in disarming objections can be seen in passages like Matthew 11:4-6 (appeal to evidences), 21:24-26 (questions that expose motives), 22:37 (tertium quid), 22:41 (reductio ad absurdum) and Luke 13:10-17 (a fortiori argument).
Scripture citations are taken from J.P. Moreland, Love God With All Your Mind: The Role of Reason In the Life of the Soul, (NavPress: Colorado Springs, 1997), page 131
Norman Geisler, Beware of Philosophy: A Warning to Biblical Scholars, (Christian Apologetics Journal, Volume 2, No.1, Spring 1999), page 17 www.ses.edu/journal/articles/2.1Geisler.pdf (20 February 2007)
J. P. Moreland, Love God With All Our Mind: The Role of Reason In the Life of the Soul, page 58 - 59
C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, (Macmillan Publishing: New York , 1965), page 28.
Millard Erickson, Christian Theology, (Baker Books: Grand Rapids, 2001), page 951 - 954
Robert M. Grant, Greek Apologists of the Second Century, (SCM Press: London, 1988), page 11
Gerald Bray, ‘Explaining Christianity to Pagans: The Second-Century Apologists’ in The Trinity In a Pluralistic Age: Theological essays on Culture and Religion, edited by Kevin Vanhoozer, (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 1997), page 9-10
See Harold Netland’s excellent discussion on how, with varying degrees of evangelistic success and biblical fidelity, Christian apologists like Theodore Abu Qurrah and Zwemer (Islam), Matteo Ricci (Confucianism), William of Rubruck (Buddhism) and many others have left a legacy on the mission field. Harold Netland, Encountering Religious Pluralism: The Challenge to Christian Faith & Mission, (InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove, 2001), page 252 - 256
All of us are influenced by our culture and historical condition. One may argue that there were occasions when Augustine’s theology succumbed to Platonic dualism and Aquinas’ synthesis with Aristotelian logic was frequently indicted as having put asunder the realm of nature and grace. Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity From Its Cultural Captivity, (Crossway: Illinois, 2005), page 74 - 80
“While there is no precise criterion for what qualifies as an epochal challenge, Christians encountering one feel that the ground they have taken for granted is shifting. The basic reference points that have guided how they inhabit their epoch as Christians seem to be toppling.” Curtis Chang, Engaging Unbelief: A Captivating Strategy from Augustine and Aquinas, (InterVarsity: Downers Grove, 2000), pages 13 – 19
Ibid, pages 26 - 27
Ibid., page 137 – 138
Mark Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, (InterVarsity: Leicester, 1994), page 109 – 145. For a brief sociological and political dimension on the decline of the evangelical mind in America, see Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity From Its Cultural Captivity, (Crossway: Illinois, 2005), page 251 - 294
“When faced with a crisis situation, we evangelicals usually do one of two things. We either mount a public crusade or we retreat into an inner pious sanctum”. Ibid, page 141.
Robert D. McAmis, Malay Muslims: The History And Challenge of Resurgent Islam in Southeast Asia, (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 2002), pages 27 – 39
Lillian Quigley, The Blind Men and the Elephant, (New York: Charles Scribner’s, 1959). It is crucial to note that the story assumes an all-seeing Rajah who has “God’s eye view” of reality. The pluralist makes an implicit but absolute claim to possess that privileged access even as he denies it for everyone else.
Ng Kam Weng, Current Concerns For Christian Intellectual Witness, (NECF Malaysia Cross-Currents Consultations), http://necf.org.my/newsmaster.cfm?&menuid=12&action=view&retrieveid=25 (20 February 2007)
For example, see Norman Geisler and Paul Hoffman, editors, Why I Am A Christian: Leading Thinkers Explain Why They Believe, (Baker: Grand Rapids, 2001)
On the difficulty for the two-tiered Western mind to understand and address issues on astrology and spirit world, see Paul Hiebert, ‘The Law of The Excluded Middle’, (Missiology 10:1, 1982), pages 35 - 47
In my personal experience, many reflective Buddhists have integrated an atheistic, naturalistic worldview with Buddhist spirituality, which does not built on the existence of any deity. While some atheists in the West may be critiqued for an arid and reductionist view of man, their Asian counterparts have found nourishment in a non-theistic religion.
Randy Newman, Rabbinic Questioning – A Better Way To Evangelize, (Christianity Today, Faith in the Marketplace, 18 Dec 2004), www.christianitytoday.com/workplace/articles/rabbinicquestioning.html, (20 February 2007)
According to Huntington’s provocative and frightening analysis, “the central and most dangerous dimension of the emerging global politics would be conflict between groups from different civilizations”, rather than ideological or economic boundaries. Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and The Remaking of World Order, (The Free Press: Kingsway, 2002)
Quoting John Zizoulas, we could also say, “In God the particular is ontologically ultimate because relationship is permanent and unbreakable. Because the Father, the Son and the Spirit are always together, the particular beings are the bearers of the totality of nature and thus no contradiction between ‘one’ and ‘many’ can arise.” Quotation found in Colin Gunton, The Promise of Trinitarian Theology, (T & T Clark: Edinburgh, 1991), page 97
The weakness in the Alpha course model is the difficulty to get busy seekers to commit to extended weekly meetings but the relational, conversational and group hospitality around a meal approach is a right direction for food-loving Malaysians. Lausanne Committee For World Evangelization, The Uniqueness of Christ In a Postmodern World and The Challenge of World Religions, (Lausanne Occasional Paper 31, 2004), http://community.gospelcom.net/lcwe/assets/LOP31_IG2.pdf (20 February 2007)
For some examples, basic beliefs are our belief in the existence of other minds, the past, moral intuition like torturing babies is wrong, 2+2=4 and the existence of an enduring self.
See the section on reformed epistemology by Kelly James Clark in Steven Cowan, editor, Five Views On Apologetics, page 266 – 273.
While not every individual needs to be able to handle such objections, challenges nonetheless needs to be met as a community project. We cannot interpret the world intra-textually without findings from the world from speaking to our Christian worldview as well.
If our brains evolved to produce consciousness for the sole purpose of survival, there is no reason to suppose why our cognitive faculties should produce true beliefs. Even false beliefs could aid survival if such false beliefs prompt us to run away from predators.
Harold Netland, Encountering Religious Pluralism: The Challenge to Christian Faith & Mission, pages 260 – 264
See the chapter on Apologetics: From Rationalism To Embodiment in Robert Webber, The Younger Evangelicals, (Baker: Grand Rapids, 2002), pages 94 - 106
Stanley Grenz, Renewing the Center: Evangelical Theology In A Post-Theological Era, (Baker: Grand Rapids, 2000), page 281
Ibid., pages 284 – 286
Ibid., page 280
Harold Netland, Encountering Religious Pluralism, page 278
According to Huntington’s provocative and frightening analysis, “the central and most dangerous dimension of the emerging global politics would be conflict between groups from different civilizations”, rather than ideological or economic boundaries. Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and The Remaking of World Order, (The Free Press: Kingsway, 2002)
Quoting John Zizoulas, we could also say, “In God the particular is ontologically ultimate because relationship is permanent and unbreakable. Because the Father, the Son and the Spirit are always together, the particular beings are the bearers of the totality of nature and thus no contradiction between ‘one’ and ‘many’ can arise.” Quotation found in Colin Gunton, The Promise of Trinitarian Theology, (T & T Clark: Edinburgh, 1991), page 97
Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society, (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 1989), page 170
J. R. Middleton and B. J. Walsh, Truth Is Stranger Than It Used To Be, (InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove, Illinois:), page 87
J.F. Engel and W.A. Dyrness, Changing the Mind of Missions: Where Have We Gone Wrong? (InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove, Illinois), page 40 – 43
Ravi Zacharias International Ministry, Meekness and Truth Ministry and the Agora ministry among others are currently providing such equipping resources in conversational apologetics for the laity.
J. Gresham Machen, What Is Christianity?, (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 1951), page 162.
ur a reformed anglican in spore? :)