Is our apologetics ‘frightfully early 2000s, darling’?

Controversial opinion: much of our evangelism and apologetics fails to scratch where non-believers are itching, because it seeks to answer questions they’re not asking.

Or, perhaps more accurately, we remain methodologically committed to answering questions they once were, but are now no longer, asking. With the exception of that old chestnut of theodicy (the ‘why suffering’ question) much of our apologetics output still seems to be looking to undercut the objections born out of the Enlightenment or the era of scientism, and I’m less than convinced that those once-pressing issues now represent the focus of the emerging generation’s attention and curiosity.

Outside of the university CU environment (and consequently the shape that most evangelistic missions or events weeks take) I’m not hearing many people raising questions about science and its supposed conflict with faith, or demanding factual proofs for the physical reality of the resurrection; but I am aware of a rise in the levels of inquisitiveness around the idea of God and access to feelings of transcendence. Put simply, we’re still doing battle with the ‘Four Horsemen of New Atheism’ despite the fact that two of the four are now dead and the other two (despite the best efforts of their most infamous popular proponent) are increasingly marginal figures in the intellectual landscape. In short, much of our apologetics looks ‘so frightfully early 2000s, darling.’

This change in the zeitgeist has been highlighted by Justin Brierly in his 2023 book The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God and his podcast of the same name, and noted by other commentators. It’s hard to venture into the world of social media these days without tripping over figures like Jordan Petersen or Nick Cave who, while not fully identifying as Christian, occupy a “Christian adjacent” space that would have been unusual in public figures a couple of decades ago but doesn’t appear so now.

Add to that the number of personalities (particularly in the worlds of literature, social sciences and the arts) whose beliefs we as evangelicals might see as theologically unorthodox, but who themselves would openly own the label ‘Christian’ (examples being novelists such as Martin Shaw and Paul Kingsnorth, historian Tom Holland, activist, politician and intellectual Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Francis Spufford from the worlds of academia and literature, and comedian and practising Roman Catholic Frank Skinner), and a pattern begins to emerge.

Now I’m not for one moment suggesting that most authors, academics or comedians are beginning to express their deepest longings in religious terms or are on some kind of spiritual quest, but I am convinced that there is some kind of resurgence in an openness to and interest in spirituality, and even to Christianity, that wasn’t in the ether when I came to Christ as a 20-year-old way back in 1988. The tide may not have fully turned since Matthew Arnold’s seminal poem of atheism Dover Beach was penned, but it feels as if we might just possibly be entering an ebb-tide phase.

So, cutting to the chase, why does any of this matter? After all, most of us (myself included) don’t spend our time in the rarified worlds of academia or the arts, we’re just busy trying to live out our faith in the world and serve in our churches. Well, I guess it matters for two reasons.

Firstly (and most obviously), if there is a significant change in the mindset of many outside of the church, then we need to be able to respond to it. There’s little point in putting all our energies into having polished answers for questions that fewer people are actually asking. They may not be the questions we’d like them to ask (or even the questions we feel they should be asking) but if they’re the questions they are asking, then we owe it them, and to the gospel, to engage on the newly emerging terrain. To fail to do so would be to ignore opportunity and to do a disservice to the Great Commission.

Secondly, we as evangelicals are already late to a party that, by and large, has been responded to most swiftly by ex-evangelicals/ post-evangelicals/deconstructionists, or whatever you want to label them. For every evangelical like Justin Brierly facilitating conversations aimed at the new breed of agnostics or enquirers there are any number of those who probably wouldn’t identify as “evangelical” (although who often have an evangelical background) who are curating conversations around Christian engagement with this new cultural milieu. I’m unsure, for instance, how Elizabeth Oldfield of The Sacred podcast would self-identify theologically. Much of what she says is “evangelical friendly” and she has a brilliant, incisive mind, and speaks warmly of her relationship with Jesus, but I suspect areas of her theology, not least some of her tentative pronouncements about sexuality, would raise concerns amongst most en readers. My fear is that by the time we stop viewing The Case for Christ (which on its own merits has much for us to be positive about and thankful for) as the 67th book of the Bible and start seriously engaging with the questions that Gen Z and Millennials are asking, the post-evangelicals and neo-liberals will have cornered the Christian end of the conversation, and there will be little space left for orthodox evangelicals to occupy.

How deep this new-found openness to things spiritual goes, and how transient a moment it is or isn’t, remains to be seen, but my prayer is that our eyes will be open to the change in spiritual temperature, that God will raise up evangelical voices who can play a prominent role in the unfolding conversations, and that, as evangelicals, we won’t be blinded by an ongoing commitment to answering yesterday’s questions in today’s world.