Apologetic

I recently listened to a talk given at Warehouse 242 by Kurt Graves that really brought some concepts together for me. He was talking about the need for a new apologetic, or a new way to talk about Christianity. It made me think about how Christians used to talk about being Christians. Often this involved moralistic persuasion and reasoning from the Bible with the assumption that the hearer would accept this as a bona fide source. In the past, the apologetic that was used could be described as a deontological apologetic--you should become a Christian because it is the right thing to do and the Bible says you should; it is your duty. This apologetic worked for a long time because the Bible still had significant cultural influence.

However, with the rise of Biblical criticism and competing theories and ideologies, this apologetic has lost much of its effectiveness. If someone dismisses the Bible as authoritative, how can you use arguments from the Bible to make your point. The same goes for arguing morality from the Bible. Ethical issues have become really complicated, and the simple answers just won't cut it.

So where do we go from here? I think that we go back to our stories. We talk about our lives. We talk about how much better life is when we follow God and His will. We talk about the peace and the joy that our relationship with God gives us. A relationship with God should be spoken about in positive terms, in hopeful terms. For too long Christianity has been discussed in terms of judgment or strict moralizing. The truth is that being a Christian sets us free and gives us a life of meaning and purpose. Who wouldn't want that?