“Taking the time to teach/be taught”

 

     How to integrate cultural apologetics into practical Christian ministry?  The pioneers of 20^th-century Christian apologetics used the latest mass media technology to evangelize and offer a rational defense of the faith.  In the U.S.A., Fulton Sheen (1895—1979) used radio and TV to expound/defend Roman Catholic Christianity from 1930—1968.  In the U.K., C.S. Lewis (1898—1963) argued for “mere Christianity” on the BBC radio from 1941—43 and offered both rational and imaginative defenses of Christian doctrine through the publication of numerous books.  The 21^st century has seen many apologetics ministries avail themselves of the power of the internet to defend the faith.  American Robert Barron (b. 1959) founded Word on Fire Catholic Ministries[1] at the turn of the third millennium.  Fr. Barron began his evangelistic efforts by delivering homilies on a Chicago-area radio station at 5 a.m. on Sundays.  His first audience consisted of truckers!  Barron is the Fulton Sheen of this generation.  His Catholicism TV series (2011) was aired on PBS.  Indeed, many academics – such as the atheist historian Yuval Noah Harari[2] (b. 1976) – were complete unknowns before becoming YouTube celebrities.

     But what about at the local level?  The prevalence of technology has in many ways relativized the activities of the local church, especially preaching.  Not only are those in the pews more distracted than ever, lacking patience for anything more than “sound-bytes”, but church-goers are free to “follow” the Christian communicators of their choice via YouTube, podcasts, etc.  While the abundance of Christian “content” in cyberspace is doubtlessly cause for gratitude and celebration, it remains the case that people get swept up all too easily into following trends, as opposed to the seemingly monotonous, challenging labour of thinking through their faith and its ramifications for their daily lives.  Indeed, local churches are often engaged in much frenetic activity and numerous programs, but perhaps we need to ask ourselves whether we are actually forming our people into holier (i.e. Christ-like), more effective witnesses to the reality of God-in-Christ or whether we are simply keeping each other busy on evenings and weekends.

     In his 2019 work, Cultural Apologetics, Paul Gould decries “the pragmatic utilitarianism” that characterizes so much of Christian “ministry” these days.[3]  Gould calls on churches to abandon a “success by numbers” approach, and to adopt rather a strategy of patient “cultivation of the cultural soil” so that the seeds of the gospel can take root (cf. Mk. 4.1-32).  Gould claims that the kind of cultural apologists he has in mind will be “iconoclasts” within the church, shattering images and the reductive and pragmatic impulses that define much of contemporary Christianity.[4]  If the goal of cultural apologetics is the “establishment of the Christian voice, conscience, and imagination within a culture so that Christianity is seen as true and satisfying”[5], then this type of apologetic places certain demands on the local Christian community.  I suggest that there are three “elements” of local church ministry that should be targeted and enhanced with cultural apologetics: the doctrine of the Word of God, the formation of leaders, and the ministry of teaching.

     Firstly, I believe that we need to recover a viable doctrine of the Word of God, revealed in Scripture and ultimately, in and as Jesus Christ (cf. Jn. 1.1, 14), who himself proclaimed the prophetic word (e.g. Mk. 4.33; Lk. 5.1).  There can be no other ground for apologetics.  What do we seek to defend if not what God has revealed through his Word?  As Barth said of Paul as he wrote to the Christians of Rome, “he appeals only to the authority of God…there is no other”.[6]  In saying this, I by no means refer to a rational insistence on the Bible’s “infallibility” or “inerrancy”, etc. – notions that used to be so important for a certain brand of modernistic apologetics.  As Christians, we have not historically believed in a “perfect” scriptural text[7], a belief that can be found within, for instance, Islam (vis-à-vis the Koran).  No, the text of the Bible is not “perfect”, though it is demonstrably trustworthy.  Yes, the Bible needs to be interpreted and we need to be aware of our own historico-cultural biases; i.e. we need to know at which point we enter the “hermeneutical spiral”.  However, there is a tendency in postmodern deconstructionist thought – which has entered the Christian consciousness in many places – to equate the need for interpretation with a certain “agnosticism” concerning the possibility of establishing the meaning of the biblical text in a manner that will be “appropriate” (or normative) for today’s Christians.

     Indeed, this despair of being able to hear the word of God in Scripture has led many Christians (especially in mainline denominations) to consider the Bible to be part of the problem, rather than offering any “solutions” to the church.  Once again, I don’t believe the answer is to “build an inerrant fence” around the Bible, but rather to better conduct the project of interpretation.[8]  But of course, this takes time – it demands both the time of the preacher and requires a commitment on behalf of the congregation to intentionally journey together toward deeper understanding and to patiently “wait for the Word”.  Also, it will require a willingness on behalf of the church to submit to the Word of God, once it has been hermeneutically discerned; the whole of Scripture is clear on this point – the people of God is to obey the Word of God (cf. Dt. 6.4-9; Mt. 7.24-27, 28.19-20; Jn. 14.15, 21).  Careful listening takes time (cf. Lk. 8.18).

     Secondly, the need for cultural apologetics grounded in a confidence in the Word of God has ramifications for how Christian leaders are formed, both “professionally” (in seminaries, etc.) and at the local level.  Of course, this presumes that local pastors both see themselves as responsible for forming leaders within their congregations and that they have the necessary skills to do this.  Are seminaries training trainers?  Will graduates be able to “hand on” what they have received?  This also presumes (hopes) that pastors know their people well enough to discern who in their congregation may be called to serve as a leader, i.e. an evangelist, a teacher, etc.  Again, this will not happen overnight – not only must pastors commit to life-long learning/teaching-forming, but candidates for leadership must also commit to a process of personal, spiritual and intellectual growth.  Growth takes time.

     Thirdly, a cultural apologetic grounded in the Word of God and experienced through the formation of leaders/communicators of Christian truth will necessitate an emphasis on the “ministry of the word” (cf. Ac. 6.2-4) within the pastor’s vocation and the weekly discharging of their duties.  This presumes that a pastor will spend a significant number of hours every week researching and preparing teaching materials and engaging in the teaching of various types of groups and gatherings.  Yes, this approach assumes a certain “decentralization” of Christian formation – away from the formal setting of the seminary classroom towards the context of the local church.  It also assumes that pastors believe that – as Isaac Asimov (1920—92) is purported to have said – “an education is not something you can finish”.  Yet again, cultivating the minds of your people takes time.  The long labour of teaching and the sometimes-frustrating waiting for the pedagogical seeds to sprout must be undertaken with an eye to the future.  What ideas about the faith will the children and coworkers of these congregants absorb due to what their pastor has implanted in them?  Learning takes time (cf. 1 Cor. 15.58).

 

“May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves.” (Ps. 126.5-6)

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[1] Cf. www.wordonfire.org .

[2] Cf. http://www.youtube.com/@YuvalNoahHarari .

[3] Gould, Paul M. Cultural Apologetics: Renewing the Christian Voice, Conscience, and Imagination in a Disenchanted World, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2019, p. 214.

[4] Ibid., p. 215.

[5] J.P. Moreland, “Foreword” in Ibid., p. 14.

[6] Barth, Karl, The Epistle to the Romans, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933 [1928: sixth edition], p. 28.

[7] Even formal statements of biblical inerrancy tend to limit this quality to the original autographs, which, in any case, are not extant.

[8] Cf. e.g. Bartholomew, Craig G. Introducing Biblical Hermeneutics: A Comprehensive Framework for Hearing God in Scripture, Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015.