 |
| Clip art image of people having a debate. Image source. |
I recently published my review of the book "The Case for a Creator". Here's the follow-up post, which asks, what is the purpose of apologetics?
First of all, let's be real here, apologetics isn't about defending Christianity in general- it's about the debate between Christianity and naturalistic atheism. I don't think I've seen any apologetics books specifically dedicated to answering claims from other religions, something along the lines of "okay suppose we assume God exists- here's why it's the Christian God instead of the Muslim God." The assumption is, if you're not a Christian, then you're an atheist.
That's a bit, uh, odd, but let's just accept this framing, and consider the effect of apologetics on people at various points along the "how confident are you about your belief in Christianity and/or atheism" spectrum:
Atheists who get into debates with Christians
The atheists who know what's what and are out there actually participating in these kinds of debates, they are quite unimpressed with apologetics. They say apologetics arguments are really weak and pretty much amount to nothing.
That's interesting, because the way apologetics sells itself, one of the main purposes is to be used in these kinds of debates. So here we see that there's a mismatch between what apologetics claims to be, and what it actually is. It sells itself as "here are some answers you can use to tell those strong outspoken atheists why they're wrong" but it very much does not work on that group.
Non-religious people who are "seeking"/ open to religion
There may be people who aren't religious, but are open to believing in a religion, and are curious and want to see what's out there. Yeah, I think apologetics can be convincing for this group. Author Lee Strobel himself seems to have been in this group (maybe he would disagree with my classifying him that way though?)- his story is that he was an atheist trying to disprove Christianity, but as he investigated and learned more, he actually became convinced that Christianity was true.
So yes, I would say this makes sense, as a valid use of apologetics. There is evidence for Christianity- it's nowhere near as airtight as apologetics claims, but still... So it makes sense that telling people about this, if they are people who already think maybe they are interested in believing in some kind of religion, might convince them. I think this can be a good thing.
However, I think it kind of misses the point, when apologetics advocates talk about it this way. For the vast majority of people who convert to Christianity, it's not because of apologetics. Nobody is like "I became a Christian because Josephus's writings corroborate what the bible says." Nope, nobody.
Ex-Christians
Apologetics is very much NOT going to be of any use for this group. They already were Christian, they already went through the whole big struggle of doubting their faith, they likely already thought through the supposed "answers" and found them unconvincing, and eventually came to the decision to abandon the whole thing.
And then the ex-Christian tells a Christian authority figure (parents, pastor, etc) that they no longer believe, and the Christian tries to convince them with apologetics arguments. Uh, don't do this. It's like, instead of actually listening to them, the Christian treats the ex-Christian's feelings and experiences as just annoying doubts to be argued away as fast as possible. The Christian acts like the ex-Christian needs their permission to no longer believe. The Christian buys an apologetics book and gives it to the ex-Christian. Like they're not allowed to say they're not Christian unless they read the whole book and put together a response and present it to the Christian authority figure.
Sometimes the ex-Christian then buys an atheist book and gives it to the Christian, so they can both understand each other. Then the ex-Christian reads their book and the Christian does not read theirs, but still acts like the ex-Christian has not given good enough reasons for leaving their faith.
Anyway, yeah, don't do this. This use of apologetics- as a way to try to make rules about what ex-Christians are allowed to believe or not believe, rather than listening to them- is unloving and it doesn't even "work." Don't do this.
I know that, in this kind of situation, the Christian is genuinely motivated by compassion and concern for their ex-Christian friend. They fear that if they can't convince the ex-Christian to become Christian again, the ex-Christian will go to hell. This mix of love for their friend, and fear of what their God is going to do to their friend... and how it plays out in ways that are really heartless in reality... I mean, I know that very well. I used to be evangelical.
Christians who are doubting
If you're a Christian who is having doubts about your faith, maybe you decide to read some apologetics.
In some cases, this can be reassuring. If your doubts are along the lines of "where did the bible even come from, is it just totally made up or is there some kind of evidence about its history?" Along the lines of, you fear that maybe somebody just made this stuff up for no reason, and nobody ever spent any time caring about whether it was actually true or made sense. If that's what you're concerned about, then yes, it will help you to read about the history behind various Christian beliefs. Yeah, don't worry, it's not like "nobody knows where these beliefs came from, but people at church told me they're true, so I guess they are." People have thought about these things!
But in other cases, apologetics resources act like they have good answers, but they really don't. Things like, the problem of evil- ie, why does God allow evil and suffering in the world? Or, the problem of hell- Christians teach that everyone deserves to go to hell, and the only way you can get out of it is by believing in Jesus the correct way, but doesn't that seem unfair? Yeah, if your misgivings about Christianity are about something that Christians are promoting, or that God is doing, which seems extremely unethical- apologetics resources aren't going to be any help. These resources will try to reassure you that whatever you are concerned about doesn't really matter. And that kind of reassurance will be fine for Christians who are just playing games in debates with atheists, but if you are seriously thinking about these things, taking them so seriously that it's threatening the whole foundation of your faith, well, the apologetics answers aren't going to do you any good.
For Christians who go to apologetics to try to get rid of their doubts, I think there's a lot of fear. The idea that we might be wrong about everything is just too scary- we hope that we're right and Christianity is true- we want to convince ourselves that it is. Following truth wherever it goes is very scary, if you're coming from this kind of Christian background.
For me, I don't really feel scared about that any more. I'm not so incredibly dependent on this needing to be true. If it turns out Christianity is not true, I don't think I would regret anything... "Love your neighbor as yourself" would still be the principle by which we should live our lives. Maybe the other details are more about the way the human mind sets up a narrative to make sense of the world.
But yeah, one's feelings and one's level of fear are very much dependent on what variety of religion you follow. If you follow a religion that pushes you to do weird things that only make sense if the religion's claims are true (ya know like me when I was evangelical), well, then you'll have a lot more at stake in needing them to be true.
Christians who are confident and not doubting
Honestly, these Christians are the biggest market for apologetics books. Yeah, apologetics is talked about like its purpose is to convince people who are non-Christians or who are on the fence, but I would say it rarely "works" for those groups. The people who actually buy these books are mainly people who are already sure about their Christian beliefs.
(At this point, my brain was like, hey I'm a Christian and not doubting and I bought "The Case for a Creator." I feel personally attacked.)
Why does this group of people buy apologetics books? Well, when I was evangelical, I read a lot of apologetics stuff because I'm just that kind of nerd. Curious about everything, wanting to know the reasons behind everything. But now I no longer think that apologetics is about that kind of honest curiosity. I *don't* think apologetics is motivated by a desire to follow truth wherever it takes us. It's more about, here are the beliefs that Christians are required to hold, let's try to come up with some arguments to convince ourselves that they're intellectually reasonable.
To a large extent, apologetics is about "we're winning, we're right and those atheists are wrong." It's about making yourself feel better about your beliefs- not about actually seeking to believe things that are true. And a lot of it is about learning some clever arguments that you can use when you meet non-Christians. Get yourself prepared, so you'll know what to say and you might be able to convince them. (I would say this also does not really "work.")
---
So what does this all add up to?
I have a really negative view of apologetics now. A lot of it feels very dishonest to me. Arguments about how God did something bad, but you have to kill your conscience and convince yourself it's not actually bad. Arguments that atheists have given good responses to, long ago, but the same talking points get endlessly repeated in churches because nobody is allowed to actually listen to atheists. Arguments that completely misrepresent science/ quotes from famous evolutionary biologists/ the beliefs of people who disagree with us/ etc.
There's always that fear, that people are going to hell if we can't convince them, so whenever you talk about your faith, it has to be a sales pitch, rather than being honest.
So I want to be like "ugh this is all bad" but I can't do that, because I actually believe a bunch of these arguments. If you asked me what evidence there is for this or that Christian belief that I hold, I would probably give an answer that you could also find in an apologetics book. Because I really do think in those terms.
I think, if you believe in God, there is value in learning about the arguments that people have used, historically, to support that belief. I'm not saying they're all good arguments, lol, they are not, but it's good to at least think through them. I *have* benefitted from reading apologetics and learning about stuff like that.
You know what I really want? If we could separate these 2 ideas:
- How are one's views on big topics about God/ morality/ science/ etc informed by one's beliefs or lack thereof
- Trying to convince people that we're right and they're wrong
Yeah, what I want is to read something written by a Christian who has thought about how their Christian beliefs interact with other ideas or scientific facts or whatever- someone who has thought about it a lot and has developed a view that makes sense of it. And the purpose is not to convince anyone to change their religion- the purpose is just to give an example of what a consistent, thoughtful belief system might look like.
Hey, I don't just want to read a Christian take on that. Let me read the atheist take too. Or any religion. There's a lot of value in listening to other people and learning about how people think. I don't want it to be about debating who's right and who's wrong.
If someone asked me "why are you a Christian"... sure, there are a lot of apologetics arguments that come to mind, but if you want my real honest answer, it's because I just really believe in Jesus. That's not an argument that's meant to convince anyone. It's just a fact about myself. That is the real reason though, if anyone wants to know.
---
What is apologetics for? Who is apologetics for? It claims to be about "defending the faith," about giving evidence to convince people of the truth of Christianity, about debating atheists. I don't think it actually does those things effectively- and yet I can't be entirely negative on it, because I actually do agree with some of the ideas. I just hate how they're framed in this dishonest us-vs-them fashion. What I want instead is thoughtful reflection on what our faith has to say on these topics, just for the sake of thinking through one's beliefs and putting them into words. Not for the sake of persuading anyone to become Christian.
---
Related:
Just reading an apologetics book and asking "why are we doing this?"
No comments:
Post a Comment