Practical apologetics

While a pastor of a local church I was always interested in philosophy and apologetics – the various challenges to our faith.

But pastoral ministry is busy: church meetings, hospital visits, preparing sermons, local school assemblies and a crisis in the congregation could sometimes make matters of apologetics seem very abstract.

One danger of that attitude is that apologetics can be seen as the preserve of specialised ministries or academic study. As a pastor I could look with envy at itinerant ministries able to specialise in public debate and cultural engagement. Meanwhile, I was trying to mend the photocopier and get some colouring sheets ready for a kid’s club while waiting for a plumber to arrive and fix the chapel boiler.

Everyday apologetics

The reality is that apologetics is enormously relevant to everyday, local ministry. In fact, if anything, it is the more abstract study of apologetics that can be harder to justify. Ministry is always from the ground up. How I was trying to engage with a parents and toddlers group shaped how I understood the value of apologetics. We serve people and communicate the faith not in order to win debates but in order to change lives.

The great examples of apologists generally reflect this simple point. In fact, such Christians often have not considered themselves apologists at all. C. S. Lewis was by profession a tutor in English literature and used his great skills in the English language to communicate his faith publicly. Francis Schaeffer, who wrote so widely on apologetics, was always an evangelist at heart.

Not a scholastic

Schaeffer was asked about the philosophical background to his approach to apologetics at a Christian convention in 1977. He refused to be drawn: ‘You’re trying to press me into the category of a theological apologist, which I’m really not.’ He declared: ‘I’m not a scholastic, academic apologist. My interest is in evangelism.’ Schaeffer was a missionary and an evangelist. His use of apologetics was not an end in itself but a tool to help in a greater cause.

For the local pastor, or anyone involved in ministry, apologetics is a tool we can all use. Whether we are preparing a preaching programme, counselling a bereaved widower, or taking a school assembly, we are all engaged ultimately in the same task. We are ‘to equip his people for works of service’ (Eph. 4:12) and to ‘be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have’ (1 Peter 3:15).

Work it out

The local church is the best place for this as apologetics must integrate life and faith. A neighbourhood ministry lends itself to apologetics much more than a global, public organisation can do. Tim Keller, himself a good example of a pastor-apologist, said: ‘Unless we show people how the word of God works in actual life they are not going to believe it.’ The local church is the obvious place where our reasons to believe are shown in both spoken word and lived example.

For readers who are engaged in any kind of local neighbourhood ministry, here are three questions worth asking.

1. Does my teaching address the real questions? Whether it’s a short talk to teens or a longer Sunday sermon for all ages do I engage with the obvious doubts, anxieties and objections that may be unspoken questions in our hearers’ minds?

2. Does my lifestyle match my reasons? Does the way I use my money, time and possessions reflect the reasons I give for my faith?

3. Do I treat people with dignity? Elderly sceptics and harassed single parents deserve coherent answers and reliable evidence. We should fob no one off with half-truths, trite answers or superficial reasons.

You might also like to know that as a lecturer in a Bible College, delivering entire modules related to apologetics, I look with envy on pastors and ministers serving faithfully from day to day in local church ministries.