How do we translate the gospel for a culture without a common spiritual language? What does evangelism look like in a post-Christian world? Christians who want to share their faith often wrestle with questions like these, doubtful that apologetic methods of the past can assist them as they proclaim the good news of Jesus in the present day.
The Bulletin sat down with Collin Hansen, editor in chief of The Gospel Coalition and coeditor with Skyler R. Flowers and Ivan Mesa of the new book The Gospel After Christendom, to talk about cultural apologetics: what it is, how it addresses the complexities of our modern world, and how the timeless message of Jesus can meet the spiritual longings our friends and neighbors carry. Listen to the whole conversation in episode 222. Here are edited excerpts.
Many of us grew up with the apologetics of Josh McDowell’s Evidence That Demands a Verdict and Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ. What is cultural apologetics, and how is it similar to or different from these arguments for Christian faith?
All apologetics help non-Christians to confront and believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ, as well as answer objections to the faith.
Cultural apologetics differs in that it’s more experiential. For example, while I get questions about the truth of Christianity, which still ultimately matters to us as Christians, more often now the questions I get about Christianity are cultural. Is Christianity good? Is it beautiful? What difference does this make? People want to see—not less than our proclamation of Christ, but an embodied witness, practicing faith to address those goodness and beauty questions.
Classic, ecclesial apologetics still has its place.No one is going to come to believe in Jesus Christ just because they watch our behavior. Ultimately, they’re going to be confronted with the truth: their sin and Christ’s offer of grace, salvation, and eternal life. Cultural apologetics clarifies the offense of the gospel by clearing out the obstructions that inhibit people from encountering those direct claims. We’re still coming back to the same basic question: “Is this true?”
Some more abstract, rational thinkers change their minds, which leads to the life of faith. However, the vast majority of us are more concrete, intuitive thinkers. Often cultural apologetics helps adjust people’s intuitions before their head will ultimately follow their heart.
In an “after Christendom” world, our communities don’t share biblical literacy as a common language. Increasingly, we can’t even presume that we share a common moral vision. How do we start conversations about the gospel in a landscape like this?
Christians often mistakenly think that we are the only moral people and that others are amoral or immoral. But we still live in a highly moralistic time. All of us are the inheritors of Christendom, informed by different versions or aspects of Christianity. This creates competing moral visions.
Because of this, people need to see, first, that they hold many assumptions about the good life and morality, and those are probably significantly shaped by Christianity. This is the first step because often people imagine themselves to be morally superior if they’re not Christians. To them, being a Christian means you support all sorts of horrible things, especially related to sexuality and issues deep in history.
After that, you can ask, “What are we aiming for? What is going to produce the good life?” We call this subversive fulfillment: “Will your moral vision produce the results that you seek?” You’re not even bringing up Christianity yet. You’re just trying to help a person consider the implications and outcomes of their own views. As they try to reconcile their desires with their reality, you can show them how Christ fulfills their deepest longings.
Of course, Christ is also a confrontation of their deepest rebellion; but, first and foremost, we are all made in the image of God. Cultural apologetics recognizes this. A person always has a strange mixture of good aspirations imprinted on their heart and bad manifestations and disordered loves.
I’d like to do a little case study here to see how this works. Let’s take this hypothetical example:
On the sidelines at my kids’ soccer game, a woman leans over and says, “You know, I’m disappointed to see the Dobbs decision and the fall of abortion rights in this country.” What would it look like, in that moment, for me to contend for the truth, goodness, and beauty of Christianity in the way that you describe?
I don’t want to go past the obvious—just stating that you disagree. Because of how we ideologically sort, we assume that we want to be around people who are like us. We don’t know if we feel safe living around people who disagree with us on things that we deeply value. That’s both a conservative and liberal mentality. Being able to disagree and explain in a respectful manner is perfectly on the table now.
Tim Keller said that we are affirmed in our individual identity by what our community supports. We’re not just doing whatever we want. We may have impulses in multiple directions. Because of this, we want to excavate to the bottom of the belief.
When it comes to abortion rights, it would usually be a mistake to suppose that this parent on the sideline explicitly supports the murder of babies. That’s clearly a major part of the package, but usually underneath this belief is a vision of autonomy and freedom. They believe that children are a burden, one of the most constraining things that you could ever experience in life. Therefore, the goal of the good life is to free yourself from all expectations and constraints.
Since you’re at that soccer game for your kids, you can engage this belief directly: “Isn’t it interesting that the way we actually experience the good life is through our care and love for others? We find our greatest joy, hope, and meaning when we are giving of ourselves to others.
“Isn’t it interesting that, at the same time you know your greatest love is on that soccer field, you still believe on some level that the essence of life is being freed from love, which is an obligation to others? Those things don’t seem to go together.”
Conversations like this help people see the stories they live by and invite thoughtful reflection.
What is the role of spiritual formation as it relates to this apologetic work?
You can’t give what you don’t have, right? If people look at Christians and see an overwhelming anxiety about the state of the world, if they see anger about people who don’t agree with us, if they see fear about where things are going or who’s in charge— I don’t know how we’re supposed to project any kind of trust or belief in a sovereign God who works all things to his glory and for our good.
Likewise, if we seek to assimilate people into that anger and fear on either side of the political spectrum, to offer a Christian version of that, that isn’t typified by Scripture’s examples and certainly not by our Savior himself, who died for nobody but his enemies.
Spiritual formation has to start by becoming that nonanxious presence in the Lord, empowered by the Holy Spirit, living according to the objective facts of the finished work of Christ. We do this so that there’s a center to us and a mind that will not be swayed when we’re engaging in day-to-day life, political conversations, or confrontations. Our hearts will not be dismayed because Christ says, I’ll be with you always, to the end of the age. This is necessary for an effective apologist and anyone who wants to meet people in the instability of our culture.
You’ve said that the stories we tell become the values that we live by. What is a story you think Christians need to tell our culture gently, perhaps, but influentially to reshape it for the common good?
Carl Henry, Christianity Today’s first editor, wrote The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism in 1947. In it, he asks, Are any of our problems new? Henry wrote this at the dawn of the atomic age. Maybe to a degree, he said. But is anything really new here?
Of course, there are waves that go up and down. The wind blows in different directions. The Spirit sends revival in one place or another. That’s very true. But overall, Scripture’s pretty normalizing. It tells us what to expect.
Jesus told us, In this world of much tribulation, take heart. I draw comfort from knowing that Jesus said those words before the Cross, when his disciples did not know what the future held. John is wondering, Jesus, you say, “I have overcome the world.” How have you overcome a world that puts you to death?
That is the ultimate norm to us: that the worst thing that can happen to us is that we can die. And yet Christ has solved that problem through his own resurrection. That great hope guides us as Christians and compels us to share it with others. The same old story is the same Good News.
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