Dear Editor,
Toby Pitchers argues persuasively for apologetics, and yet I have my doubts because of an important glitch. When Peter writes ‘Always be prepared to give an answer for the hope in you’, it is not at all intended as a rational argument, but as an explanation for suffering for doing what is right.
Blindness in Scripture is not regarding our rational understanding, but about failing to see that God is a ruler who suffers and dies, unlike other rulers of the world. In following Christ we are told that it is in losing our lives that we save them, and this requires explanation – that we follow a God with a radically subversive rule where the first is last, and the last is first.
Classical apologetics makes the mistake of thinking that our main problem is not believing in a world beyond this one, when our main problem is believing how God calls us to live in this world. The human problem is that we see an apple that is pleasing to our eye, but fail to see the true king who has nothing to attract us to Him and we esteem Him not.
Yours sincerely,
James May
By email
The Jewishness of the Gospels proves they're true
When speaking to Jewish and Gentile friends you might have heard the accusation that the Gospel accounts were written centuries …