Apologetics and the Emerging Church<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
 
The following conversation is a part of the "<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Sparks" column for The Journal of Student Ministries.  Each month Sean McDowell and Tony Jones debate a contemporary topic related to ministry in a postmodern world.
 
Sean
The ancient church offers a powerful model for the role apologetics should play as we seek to be missional. There are two key aspects of the outreach of the early church.  First, there was the content of the message and, secondly, the appeal of the message.  Interestingly, the appeal of the message was not the community of believers, but rational persuasion which included evidences such as fulfilled prophecy and the resurrection.
 
Consider Acts 17:2-3: "As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead." As a result, some of the Jews, Greeks, and prominent women were persuaded and joined the church.  The goal of the early Christians was to change others' beliefs before they became part of the Christian community. 
 
Of course, apologetics must be embodied in the context of relationships as well.  Non-believers must see us (and our students) living faithfully for Jesus, but they also need to hear the gospel proclaimed, explained, and defended.  Romans 10:14-15 says, "How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them…As it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!'"
 
Apologetics are not only important for evangelism, but also for discipleship.  The Bible makes it clear that we are to be prepared to give a defense [apologia] for our beliefs with gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3:15; Jude 3).  Many kids are leaving their faith today because they never learned how to appropriately defend it.  What they believe in their hearts must make sense in their minds.
 
Tony
Sean, I agree, of course, that rational argument and persuasion is a part-even an important part-of how the gospel is communicated.  Part of the human condition is that we appeal to one another's rationality in an attempt to persuade.  That happens in all kinds of fields: psychology, physics, politics, you name it, and Christian apologetics is no exception.
 
But, as we all learn in Communications 101 in college, what we say out of our mouths is only a portion of what is conveyed when we communicate.  Clusters of verbal and non-verbal cues also communicate powerfully, and I'm arguing that we attend to these aspects of communication more than we have.  I'm saying that we should teach our students that how they live and what our youth group looks like communicate far more than we probably want to admit.
 
I think it's interesting that all of your biblical references are to Paul, which is a common tendency when defending rationalistic apologetics.  One would be more hard pressed to look to the ministry of Jesus and come to the same conclusions.  Of course, Jesus very much tried to persuade others to join The Way, but he did so in myriad ways, by articulating a beautiful vision of the Kingdom of God through words (The Sermon on the Mount), and actions (healings, hanging out with whores and tax collectors, and touching the 'untouchables').  Ultimately, I think that you have overdetermined the role of rationality in human communication.
 
Sean
I was totally with you, Tony, until you began to pit Paul against Jesus.  Naturally Jesus' approach was different from Paul's.  But Jesus still used evidences.  In John 5 alone He appeals to five different witnesses as support for his testimony (Scriptures, miracles, John the Baptist, the Father, Moses). John ends his Gospel saying he recorded Jesus' miracles specifically as evidence so people may believe and have eternal life (John 20:30-31).
 
Also, I'm not willing to lay aside Paul so easily.  Remember, Jesus personally commissioned Paul, the greatest missionary in the world! If we want a model for missions, we don't look just at Jesus, but also at those he trained to take his message out into the world. 
 
As I mentioned before, Tony, our apologetic must be embodied in a life marked by Christ's transformation.  However, my concern is that so many youth ministries have underdetermined the life of the mind.  I want to see a holistic approach, where head and heart are brought together in such a way as to offer the most compelling vision of the Kingdom.
 
Tony
It's interesting that you read me pitting Jesus against Paul, Sean.  Actually, I'm doing nothing of the kind.  Instead, I'm trying to recover Jesus from the Paulophilia that is too often a part of evangelicalism.  Sometimes I think that the book of Romans gets supremacy over the Gospels for some people.
 
I'm not asking that we only look at Jesus as our model of apologetic/evangelistic ministry, but simply that we look at him first, which is exactly what Paul did.  Jesus is the exemplar of our faith, and we should have our eyes on him.
 
But back to the matter at hand.  I still want to use rational argumentation to persuade-in fact, this column is a case in point.  Maybe yours and mine is simply a different perspective on things: I think their has been an obsession with rationalistic apologetics in the past fifty years, and, as the recent National Survey of Youth and Religion (NSYR) has shown, it's made little difference in the way Christian kids are living and believing.
 
Sean
I'm puzzled you mentioned the NSYR as a point against apologetics.  In that study, the number one reason non-religious teens said they left religion was intellectual skepticism (32%). "I think scientifically there is no proof," they said, and, "There were too many questions that can't be answered." It looks like we've failed to give our kids the kind of confidence thoughtful apologetics can give to help them be bold witnesses for Jesus.
 
I agree, Tony, we should look at Paul and Jesus as our models for the Christian life.  But when it comes to missions, our first model is not Jesus, but Paul.  Jesus had a unique calling, to die on the cross for sin so we could have eternal life.  But Paul and the early church took Jesus' life-changing message to the world.
 
It is my deep conviction that Paul laid the foundation for apologetics (for the 1st century and the 21st) when he said we should impart "not only the gospel of God but also our own lives" (1 Thessalonians 2:8).
 
Tony
I think you've made my point for me, Sean: the core of the Christian faith (the facticity of the resurrection, for example) cannot be proven-no historic fact can.  By falling into the paradigm of scientific proof, we will fail every time.  The questions that can't be answered are often the wrong questions.
 
Instead of better proof, we need to help students develop their theological imaginations.  By helping them to see the world in theological categories, they'll see that scientific rationality has limits, and that biblical/theological rationality opens new vistas of understanding.

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