“The simplification on anything is always sensationalism.” – G.K. Chesterton.

I am, however, impressed with the Handbook of Christian Apolgetics (InterVarsity: Downers Grove, 1994) by Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli. Kreeft and Tacelli have written one of the most intellectually thorough and practically usable introductions to the arena of apologetics out there. For anybody who has read Peter Kreeft’s other work (The Best Things in Life; A Summa of the Summa; Socrates Meets Jesus) you’re surely not surprised by that previous description. He’s the real deal, not a platform celebrity.

Written by two professional philosophers the book has the benefit of being written by those in the academy. That is, unlike some texts written by thinkers who don’t even hold a teaching position (which, in itself is not a bad thing but it does suggest caution), this book shows the time, energy, and experience from which it has resulted.

The book is broken up into six main parts: In it we find discussions defining apologetics, a basic defense of God’s existence and nature, an analysis of the problem of evil, the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus in time and history, questions concerning death and the thereafter, and finally some thoughts on other religions. Each chapter is preceded by an outline indicating what is covered. This is an extremely helpful feature for those who, like me, often forget or fail to mark the location of a particular point that later I want to revisit!

Aside from format, and perhaps into some content specifics, the book is fairly in line with the apostolic tradition. That is, they seem to not make big issues out of non-issues and tend to leave room for thought, contemplation, and diversity where other apologetics texts would not. There are a few places where they fall short. For example, while I don’t necessarily adopt Lewis’ view of annihilationism, I don’t believe it falls outside the realm of legitimate speculation (287) as to Hell. Or, for another example, the authors seem to suggest that consensus on evolutionary biology is somewhere in limbo (106-07, though to their credit they note that evolution, if true, is only is a problem if materialism is true). In the vast majority of the book, however, Kreeft and Tacelli tackle large questions like the nature and existence of God, the resurrection, the divinity of Christ, the historicity of Scripture, salvation and eternity, etc. These, and their subset questions, are more universal and atemporal questions stemming from what many have called “mere Christianity.”

Let’s take one topic as an example and see how they treat it: In asking whether God exists (the first line of the apostles creed affirms this), Kreeft and Tacelli offer up twenty arguments for the existence of God. They separate their arguments into two groups, specifically cosmological arguments and psychological arguments. The first set (which they deem as lest convincing for the lay person because of their complexity) involve Aquinas’ famous “five ways”,  the Kalam Cosmological argument, and the argument from contingency. The remaining involve arguments from consciousness, miracles, truth, ontology, morality, etc. In several of these arguments the authors provide a follow up question (i.e. a rebuttal) and then an answer to that question. This then helps to eliminate likely objections that one would face in the argument. Very helpful since no one reading a proposition can imagine all rebuttals. Here their experience in the academy proves helpful. Finally, Kreeft and Tacelli provide questions for discussion. The idea here seems to be that this book can be used in a number of avenues including the classroom or small group studies. Thus, it proves to be versatile.

For anyone interested in an introduction or a brush up on apologetics I would suggest picking this up over several other introductory texts. This is not to say that there aren’t those that are more up to date (after all, the book is somewhat dated at 1994–this is evident in its recommended readings) but it avoids many of the pitfalls other texts sometimes fall into. Further, keep in mind that the book is meant to be an introduction. You will not be able to defeat Stephen Hawking in a philosophical or scientific debate. But as one who has never done much significant thought or research on the question of other world religions, this would be a place I would start.

This occured to me in the midst of starting RC at App when our co-founder, Meredith Cheek,  attended an on campus event with a well known college minister. When a student asked how she could dialogue with her atheist room-mate over Christianity the minister replied “Just tell her to read the Bible again…She’ll eventually believe it.”

The insufficiency of such a response perpetuated the conviction that RC was something that needed to exist. We started in ’08 and I worked with the ministry, directing and overseeing operations (with the help of Simon Brace, Brendon Helms, and Blake Anderson) until January of 2011 where I took an indefinite hiatus from the ministry and turned over leadership to Rick Schenker.

We had a dramatic growth in the years that I worked with RC. We started as a single grassroots on-campus ministry, teamed up with a local seminary for non-profit support, and over the next three years started chapters at UNC Charlotte, Texas A&M, Ohio State, NC State, Virginia Tech, University of Alabama at Huntsville, and more. We put Gary Habermas on a NC speaking tour. William Lane Craig debated Michael Tooley at UNC Charlotte and had a two-day speaking gig at Ohio State. Hugh Ross spoke at NC State and UNC Charlotte. At Ohio State we formed a debate between Bart Ehrman and Michael Brown on the problem of evil.

Those are just to name a few. But beyond this we started what would be our legacy and identity: small group clubs. These groups would meet weekly to discuss worldview issues relating to apologetics. Christians, agnostics, atheists, and members of other faiths helped form the backbone and voice of these groups. Discipleship in apologetics. Why was nobody doing this?

As noted above, I am on an indefinite hiatus from RC while pursuing my education and working to develop The Bara Initiative (which, btw, if you haven’t subscribed to our content you should do so!). RC is bigger than I am and needed the stability that, at the time, neither I nor the school we were affiliated with could offer. It’s difficult watching something like that move out of your hands entirely. I felt God was calling me to do something on campus ministry. He did. RC is the product of that. But then I needed to step down.

What an odd story.

I still keep tabs on what RC is doing and have routine conversations with Rick, Blake, and other directors. They are good men. I don’t agree with everything RC says nowadays (indeed, my own views have changed in certain areas). That’s an okay thing. For example, I take no issue with the theory of evolution. They read William Dembski. I read Karl Gibersson. Our views of inspiration are different. They read Geisler and follow the Chicago Statement. I am interesting in doing doctorate research more in line with a dynamic view over the Chicago view. But differences are meant to be celebrated (though certainly challenged). There are things I would do different if I were to start RC over again, but watching the growth and impact RC is making in the lives of students is a blessing to watch. It’s nice to see this thing move from a different vantage point. I will follow and support them as long as they are doing right.

However, with the recent Amendment 1 debate in my home state of North Carolina and in light of much of the aftermath which I have seen, I thought it wise to provide some points of discussion which I hope will help frame the discussion in a more sensitive and understanding frame of mind. My guess is that the vast majority of people who went out to vote on Amendment 1 this week did so without having a solid understanding of why they were voting one way or another. That is, I suspect that most who voted either yes or no did so out of mere passion or prejudice.  The outcome, as you probably know, came out in support of the classic view of marriage: “Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State.”  Homosexual marriage was upheld as illegal. Nothing, on that front, was changed.

So far in the aftermath of the vote I have seen harsh language used in retaliation from both sides: “idiot” “bigot” “godless” “fundamentalist” “close-minded” “stupid” and, of course, “homophobic”. After the polls turned in, I’ve even seen fellow North Carolinians unhappy with the polls posting a state picture of North Carolina which says “48th in Education.” The implication is obvious: the result of the vote is because we’re stupid.

Until this past year I was a NC resident of twenty-four years. I hate to see so many of my friends and fellow residents at each other’s throats! Relationships are broken. Friendships have been relegated to the dust. Opinions which were otherwise not part of our daily lives have suddenly come up to be part of our identity. But as I noted a moment ago, I have a suspicion that most people who went out to vote did so without truly understanding our dialoguing on the issue. If we really were educated we would see that to uphold marriage as between a man and a woman only is simply primitive and unethical. Frankly, I can see where this sort of response can be about as offensive as the many “hoorahs” from evangelical Christians who voted to uphold the amendment. There’s no room for this…on either side.

It is part of my deepest convictions, however, that this debate is absolutely a debate over worldviews. That is, in asking–or demanding–that others alter their views on homosexual marriage we must be asking that they give up something crucial to their worldview. As a Christian, I cannot demand that an atheist share the same biblical view of sexuality as I do. That is, governance over an issue such as this (and others including adultery, pornography, pre-maritial sex, etc) is first of all an in-house issue. We may suggest that they constitute sin, but we cannot expect that non-Christians abide by Christian values. Besides, a true admission: we need to clean up our own crap. But given the reality of the separation of Church and State, it does become a Church issue when the State demands that our Christian worldview take a backseat. When others say “abandon your view of marriage for the sake of ours” it absolutely becomes an issue over whether the State has a legitimate claim to “know better.” The analogy that this is akin to slavery or woman’s suffrage denied simply does not make sense given what we do know of scripture from scholarship (though, we recognize that scripture has been used by many for immoral reasons), but for sake of brevity I will post on this at another time.

Now, since I suspect most people who deride the Christian view as “homophobic and bigoted” don’t truly understand why we suggest there’s a biblical view of sexuality. Please, I implore you, hear me out. I don’t have a homophobic bone in my body, I assure you and I don’t hate anyone. But for the sake of understanding the issue let me bring up two questions worth considering.

• Is marriage primarily religious or political?

Scripture tells the story of God’s creation: the earth, the heavens, the animals, the vegetation, the humans. In Chapter 2 of Genesis, the second chapter of Scripture, we see the precedent of marriage in Adam and Eve: “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” Marriage is affirmed as between a man and a woman from the very beginning. If this, then, is the account of the first human animals endowed with the soul (for even in an evolutionary model, we would never say that pre-human species that were co-habiting were “married”), then we are presented with a religious sacrament. Marriage is God’s idea, not the president’s. The government might reap benefits from the religious sacrament of marriage, of course, but the true commitment is made before God, not the state legislator. Perhaps it’s best, then, to distinguish Christian marriage from legal/political marriage…but that’s not the discussion we’re having.

• What is the purpose of marriage?

Life. One of the unfortunate legacies of our deterministic, fate driven culture is that we have this funny notion that marriage is for “happiness.” This simply is not true. While the ability to choose a mate is an absolutely fantastic idea, many cultures around the world and throughout history have never seen it this way. Arranged-marriages: they leave a bad taste in our mouth but that’s only because we’ve never experienced a culture like that. Indeed, cultures which don’t share our own practices of choosing a mate might equally share a disdain for our model. But ignoring the question of which model is better (neither, I suppose), the simple fact is that divorce is a rarity in such cultures. Why? Because marriage is not primarily for happiness. It is for holiness. And what, really, is holiness?  Life.

Theologians have long argued over what the dominant theme in scripture is. I am utterly convinced that from Genesis 1 to the end of Revelation, scripture is completely framed around the question of life. The first command to Adam and Eve? “Paroo…Ravoo” Be fruitful, multiply.” The geneologies, the promise to Abraham, the exodus from slavery, the dynasty of David, the birth and resurrection of Christ, the new heavens and new earth. “Idou kaina poio panta.” Behold, I make all things new (Rev 21.5). The purpose of marriage, then, is primarily life. Homosexuality, then, stands in contrast to  this this theme.

I say all of this not to harp on those who struggle with homosexuality. But the rhetoric used recently in my homestate, unfortunately, fails to consider why it is that we have a biblical view of marriage at all. It’s not arbitrary.

It will be a long time till I write on this again and my main goal was not to stir up controversy, be called a homophobic, or put down my gay neighbours. Listen, I have many friends who are gay and several who are themselves married. My main concern is not whether this harms my marriage–it doesn’t. But this is a question of meaning and definition. My greater concern, indeed, is whether denominations like the UM Church (who recently argued on this issue) sees it as a permissible institution for Christians. In any case, however, I think the two questions above need to be essential talking points in the conversation: What is marriage and what purpose does it seek to achieve?

Frost and Hirsch’s book is certainly one of the best works on contextualized ministry for the twenty first century to come off the press in awhile. It proves itself to be much needed in a dire church age where millions are walking away complaining that they lack the ability to identify with the modern church. To be sure, there are some missing elements in the book which need to be taken into account and wrestled with. It would be easy for the not so careful reader to presume that the book was overly spot-on in its estimations. Overall, however, it appears to be a pragmatically solid, revolutionary book on doing ministry in our day and age.

Frost and Hirsch (from now on, FH) argue that the church needs to have major reform in how it does ministry. Their proposed solution is that the Western church needs to drop the Christendom, attractional model for a missional mode. The authors argue that the traditional model of the church is dead and that what is needed is a revolutionary and culturally identifiable church. They state, “We have not answered the challenges of our time precisely because we refuse to let go of the idol [the church of Christendom]. This must change!” (15).

FH believe that three things must happen (12, cf 19). The church must first become incarnational over attractional. Secondly, it must become messianic, not dualistic in its spirituality. Finally, it must become apostolic instead of being hierarchical. The proposed directions of the church represent that missional church over the Christendom church, wherein the distinction lies between meeting the community where it is or having the community meet the church where it is. We will cover each of these proposed missional modes for the twenty-first century church.

First, the authors believe that the Church since around the time of Constantine has been attractional in its model for spreading the gospel. That is, it has adopted a “come to us” mentality wherein it separates itself from the community and demand that the community must identify itself with the church. At most, a church today attempts to simply change its style from the inside, perhaps by putting on more attractive music or getting a pastor who wears jeans on Sunday. They try and look good to the community so that the community comes to them. It is an inward focus versus an outward focus that needs to be mended. The solution is for the church to contextualize itself within the community in various ways. This should not be confused with becoming trendy (i.e. getting a rock band to play worship so that teens will come). That contributes to the problem and still constitutes a “come to us” approach to ministry. It is by being part of the community where the community is (i.e. a Christian rock band touring with non-Christian bands).

Secondly, the missional church is also to be messianic, not dualistic in its approach to the world. That is, it needs to see itself as part of the bigger story of redemption. There is a general sense in our churches today that the spirit is somehow separated off from the rest of the world. The Gospels present to us a Jesus who was incarnate; they present a Jesus that lived and breathed, joked, hungered, cried, laughed, and died a real, physical death. His ministry was one of real engagement with the world and with a world that was not separated off from the secular. The problem with the dualistic church is that it fails to approach the world in the same way Jesus did: as something to be redeemed. It is not just souls that are redeemed. The Gospel speaks of the redemption of the world and culture. Christians, FH believe, are called to participate in that redemption with the world. Instead of staying away from the bars, why are we not redeeming the stigma of alcohol and ministering to the world there? Why are we not redeeming the earth and sharing in global cleanup projects? Why are we not redeeming sex and, thereby, showing the world that Christian marriage is not just spirituality intimate but physically?

Further, FH argue, the Church since the time of Constantine has focused so extensively on sudden conversion that now few actually see the benefit in gradual, focused discipleship. The Pauline conversion experience, statistically, is not the norm and we would be better off as a global church if we would focus more extensively on discipleship and mentoring over door-to-door evangelism.

Finally, the authors argue that the church is to be apostolic, not hierarchical. They argue that the church’s hierarchical model of leadership is unbiblical and outdated. While admittedly some churches are more hierarchical than others, the general model of leadership needs to change. They propose the solution of Ephesians 4: Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, and Pastor Teachers. This mode of structure (APEPT), is to be two-dimensional within the church. That is, there is a leadership matrix (evangelists) and a ministry matrix (evangelistic) where the whole church community is involved. The authors make it clear earlier in the book that the biblical notion of a church is not a free for all from leadership and accountability (76-81). But it is one, they believe, which does not demand deacons, elders, bishops, etc. to function as a true church. Ordination is not a prerequisite for church leadership.

There are some excellent points here and in general I would commend the authors for their understanding of where the Church needs to now place its focus. The view that the church needs to be incarnational, messianic, and apostolic in its evangelism is entirely biblical. Indeed, I would suggest that it is impossible to have a sufficient theology of the incarnation without realizing the direct significance and parallel it has for the Church.

There are a few legitimate criticisms to be made though. First, the authors seem to make some vast generalizations about the Church since the time of Constantine that are perhaps inimical to a proper and realistic view of its history. Certainly, the emerging church has experienced its own over-simplification reflected back onto it by critics. They should, for such reasons, refrain from vast accusations about how the church has failed to meet the culture where it is. They state, for example, that for the past 1,700 years dualism has created “Christians that cannot relate their interior faith to their exterior practice” (19). This is perhaps misleading. While it is true that Constantine established the sort of Christendom model which has dominated the West for the past seventeen centuries, it is a drastic overstatement to say t

hat Christians have failed to impact the external world. It seems like FH are conveniently forgetting the founding of hospitals, science, art, organizations, etc. that made an attempt to influence the world through cultural goods. They may have a point in general, but generalization is not the way to achieve it.

Secondly, they make many biblical arguments without providing a lot of biblical support. This may be a minor point, but it is one which needs to be made given the vast amount of references to “what scripture says.” While references to scripture are not entirely absent, there seems to be more references to quotes and films than to the actual Bible which they are appealing to. This does not necessarily indicate that they are incorrect in stating what scripture says about the church, but it does have the ability to undermine what they say by losing credibility with their audience.

Finally, FH are perhaps misleading in their approach towards the importance of orthodoxy and doctrine within the Church. They chastise the creeds for not including references to discipleship or Christian ethics, but such a complaint might be historically naïve given the context f

or which the creeds were developed. The Gnostics and Arians were not really that opposed to early Christian ethics or discipleship. The question was over how to define ‘Christian’ belief which, given the slack on orthodoxy proposed by Frost and Hirsch, may be a difficult thing for the twenty-first century church to do. The emerging church needs to have flexibility and movement but it also must have definition. Without definition and doctrine the Church can be formulated in many directions, some of which are infelicitous to Christianity. No doubt, without orthodoxy, orthopraxy easily unravels.

Still, the book makes some major contributions to the discussion of where the Church needs to go next. They are certainly correct in their est

imation that Scripture speaks of the Church as “in the world” and that the Church of the past seventeen centuries has generally been built around a Christendom model. Our cultural heritage in the West is one in which Christianity plays a large part and one which the Church still assumes—perhaps out of convenience—is still the norm. This is no longer the case and the Church needs to stop pretending tha

t merely being accessible to the community is genuine outreach to the community. The incarnation of God is the paradigm for how the Church is supposed to live within the world. Thus, the need to be incarnational in our evangelism and messianic in our view of the world is absolutely biblical. The incarnational mode of ministry calls the Church to be proactive in its response to the world. Few churches understand what this means.

FH are also spot on in their critique of the dualistic model. Though this may not be something which the Church has been at fault at since the time of Constantine, there certainly does exist today a general notion that the world is something to be escaped. The emphasis on redeeming culture, the body, and the world throughout the past fifteen years needs to be made louder and clearer to a Church which still by and large advocates escapism. There are misguided ideas regarding what the Fall did to the cosmos which need to be straightened o

Finally, FH are to be commended for their emphasis on discipleship. Tract and door to door evangelism statistically fail. This is not to suggest that God never uses these particular situations to convict. However, I would venture to guess that these means of evangelism routinely turn more people off from the Gospel than on. In fact, having worked in the secular work place for nearly a decade, I can testify to that being the case. Those that need Christ don’t need an encounter with a Christian stranger; they need to walk alongside a friend. ut. If we are to see the world through Christological lenses—and its certain that we are—then we cannot justify seeing a world which is thrown away and rejected. We are called to see it through the cross of redemption.

A few months ago we had a miracle healer come into our town. He was an unusual personality but his convicting story of how he left the world of drugs and alcohol to find redemption and, thereafter, the gift of healing proved to many to be genuine. I had never run across the individual’s name before but in being invited to play bass for the worship service that would accompany his presence I decided to check his stuff out. Let me say this: there was something inside of me at the initial drop of his name that struck me as uncomfortable. I became even more so after looking at some of the footage of his healings. They rang out to me as healer tricks which are easily explainable by psychosomaticism. This is not to say that all instances were fake (indeed, God can still work through false miracle healers), but the healings tended to be more psychological than anything. Instead of “your faith has healed you” it was as if I was watching David Copperfield on the streets. Leg lengthening (which is, really, shoe pulling), temporary back pain relief, and prophetic tricks which was reminiscent of Ms. Cleo the fortune teller.

Some more research into this healer gave me the convinced impression that we had a fraud in our midst. But what struck me the most was that his healings were very different from the removal of cataracts, the healing of the blind, removal of cancer, and even the raising of the dead which, in fact, is not as uncommon as our post-enlightenment world likes to suppose. I am proud to say that this very same church which originally invited this man, I have seen genuine miracles. One lady in this church testified one Sunday that after years of never being able to walk without support, after a night of prayer she felt God tell her the next day to put down her walker and never use it again. She has been walking ever since. In another case I witnessed a family receive a gift of laundry detergent, dryer sheets, fabric softner, and a gift card. After receiving it we were told that just the previous day her washer and dryer broke. Despite being able to pick up a well-used set, they lacked any money to purchase the necessary supplies for cleaning clothes.

While one needs to respond to fraudulent miracle claims with some sensitivity, it is not beyond one’s Christian rights to call out fraudulent claims where they’re found (cf. Acts 8.11). I would say, in fact, that it is a responsibility to do so! One of the reasons why so many non-Christians are suspicious about miracle claims is because of the vast majority of fraud which has occurred within the name of Christianity. Why is it that when people think of “healing” they think of Benny Hinn or Kenneth Copeland? If genuine miracles happen today, why do we not celebrate those? Why are the only ones the world hears of the fraudulent or suspicious ones?

Let us celebrate and promote the genuine miracles which happen in the name of Christ. Craig Keener, one of the worlds leading NT scholars and the author of what some have called the “best book” on the subject of miracles, writes of one specific example: “In 1977 Prabhakar David’s arms grew so blistered and resistant to treatment that doctors planned to amputate them. Though Prabhakar was barely conscious, that Sunday night Ajut Tiwari, a deacon at the church, prayed over him. Prabhakar awoke much better in the morning, and following morning the pain, fever, blisters and pus were completely gone, without leaving so much as a scar.”¹ Why are we not proclaiming God’s healing power in cases like this?

It seems to me that to promote and celebrate the genuine claims like this over the popularizing of fraudulent claims is a strong testament to God’s continuing presence in the world. We know of the frauds. If we’re going to insist that other faiths include a variety of fraudulent miracle claims, perhaps its best to start with cleaning out our own frauds.