The Need to Recover Apologetics

Christian faith is in decline in America. A 2022 Pew research report observes that in 1972, 90% of Americans identified as Christian with 5% identifying as “nones” or religiously unaffiliated. Today, those identifying as Christians dropped to 63% with nones increasing to 29%. More staggering is the fact that according to a 2021 Arizona Christian University, Cultural Research Center (CRC) report, 43% of Millennials (18 -36 yrs) are “Don’ts”—Don’t know, don’t care, or don’t believe that God exists. Projections show a continuing decline in those identifying as Christians, so that by 2070 Christianity will be a minority religion in America with only about 35% of people identifying as Christian.

There is a concurrent decline in theological orthodoxy. According to the same 2021 CRC report, belief in an all-knowing, all-powerful Creator God who rules the world fell from 86% in 1991 to 46% in 2021. Belief in the Bible as the accurate Word of God fell from 70% in 1990 to 41% in 2021. According to a 2020 CRC study, 75% of evangelicals (defined as those who identify as born again) believe that people are basically good, which logically leads to the conclusion that Christ’s death is not salvific.

We could trace the decline back to the Enlightenment with contributions by historical criticism, Marxism, and evolutionary theory. We could even trace it further back to Adam and Eve who first decided to trust their own desires over God’s Word. Today some might add to the reasons for decline: the church is not welcoming enough, the church abused or oppressed people by calling them to repent; church scandals turn people away; the church’s Bible, theology, and practice are labeled misogynist, bigoted, and patriarchal. The list could go on. 

In 1966, Time Magazine published an article, “Is God Dead?” that highlighted liberal voices attacking Christian faith. The author observes, “If nothing else, the Christian atheists [it would seem ‘Christian atheist’ is an oxymoron] are waking the churches to the brutal reality that the basic premise of faith—the existence of a personal God, who created the world and sustains it with his love—is now subject to profound attack.” Today the attack on Christian faith continues by news media, entertainment, academia and jurisprudence, with their voices magnified by 24/7 cable outlets and social media. The media reported recently that the Chief Diversity Officer of Johns Hopkins Medicine’s Office of Diversity published a hierarchical list of oppressors, stating in the accompanying newsletter that members of these privileged groups have unearned advantages and favors, “at the expense of members of other groups.” Christians were listed sixth just after white people, able-bodied people, heterosexuals, cisgender people and males. Although she apologized for her list, the list is not unusual. It is a typical intersectionality list from the Critical Race Theory movement.

When the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act in 2013, which sought to preserve in law the biblical definition of marriage that existed for 2000 years, the majority of the Court labeled the Christian view as bigoted and harmful. Justice Antonin Scalia in his dissenting opinion wrote:

But the majority says that the supporters of this Act acted with malice—with the “purpose” (ante, at 25) “to disparage and to injure” same-sex couples. It says that the motivation for DOMA was to “demean,” ibid.; to “impose inequality,” ante, at 22; to “impose . . . a stigma,” ante, at 21; to deny people “equal dignity,” ibid.; to brand gay people as “unworthy,” ante, at 23; and to “humiliat[e]” their children, ibid. (emphasis added).”

Entertainment media also feels justified in attacking and ridiculing Christian faith. In the second season of the popular TV series West Wing, the President, played by Martin Sheen, ridiculed a talk show host, who was opposed to same-sex behavior based on Old Testament passages. Sheen confronts the host suggesting, “My chief of staff, Leo McGarry, insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it okay to call the police? …Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother, John, for planting different crops side by side?”

According to analyst George Barna, who heads up the Christian Research Center, “The United States has become one of the largest and most important mission fields in the world.” Yet, he explained, “many of the approaches now relied upon by Christian ministries—and especially churches—may be inadequate to impact the new population that needs to be reached with God’s truths and principles.”

What churches and Christian ministries have done for 50 years has not stopped the decline. We must recover apologetics, which is a defense of the faith once entrusted to the saints. Our defense is not to argue that Christianity is true for me, which makes Christian faith one more option among all the rest. Our challenge is to show that Christian faith is the only truth. Missionary Lesslie Newbigin observed that the early church would not have been persecuted if it viewed Christianity as a private, spiritual option in the pantheon of religions available. Yet this is what today’s church does by not defending Christian faith as true for all people, everywhere, always. Newbigin writes in his book Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture:

For the modern church to accept this status [faith is a private option] is to do exactly what the early church refused to do and what the Bible forbids us to do. It is in effect, to deny the kingship of Christ over all of life—public and private. It is to deny that Christ is, simply and finally, the truth by which all other claims to truth are to be tested. It is to abandon its calling.

Christian faith now stands condemned in the court of public opinion. The megaphone of the culture has pronounced the Christian God is dead and the Bible full of lies and errors that are not benign but actually harm and destroy people. By failing to respond with truth to dismantle the lies, people have no alternative but to assume that the church’s silence is proof that the lies have validity.

Yet, this can be an exciting time of renewal and reawakening. Jude admonished “those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ” to “contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.” Every Christian—clergy or lay, man or woman, old or young–is therefore called to practice apologetics.

Paul similarly admonished the Christians at Corinth that “we demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Cor 10:5). There are ways to do battle against the false teachings because “we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we use are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.” And indeed, in his letter to the church at Ephesus, Paul describes the armor of God that we use: truth, righteousness, peace, prayer, the Spirit.

In Scripture, Jesus, the prophets and the apostles, use apologetics to respond to the false teaching. In the Old Testament, Isaiah logically refutes idol worship when he condemns those who take a block of wood, cut it in half and burn half to stay warm while worshiping the other half.

In the New Testament Jesus uses apologetics to defend the truth. When Jesus drove out the demon from a man who was mute in Luke 11:14, some in the crowd claimed his power was from Beelzebub. Jesus defended the truth with logic saying, “Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and a house divided against itself will fall. If Satan is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand?” In other words, if the demon is from Satan, how can Satan be the power behind its banishment? Jesus further challenges his questioners, asking if he drives out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do their followers drive them out? Then Jesus leads them to the truthful conclusion, “If I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you.”

Paul, too, responds to the false teaching by asking apologetic questions he knew were being raised and then responding to them. He addresses whether grace is a license to sin by first asking, “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?”and then responding. He asks, “If my falsehood enhances God’s truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?” His response is a defense of the truth.

Several things happen when we practice apologetics and respond to the false teachings. First, apologetics exposes the lies and inconsistencies so that faith can flourish. Without apologetics, even the faith of mature believers begins to weaken. Aren’t there Christians who now question if all of Scripture is really true for all people, always? Aren’t some beginning to wonder if maybe divorce is OK in order to secure one’s happiness? Maybe same-sex behavior is OK, if you were born that way? Or maybe we evolved beyond those primitive sexuality concerns raised in Scripture? Once a portion of Scripture is labeled as out-dated or harmful, isn’t all of Scripture undermined and cast in doubt?

Second, Christian parents want to help lead their children to faith. But, if they don’t know how to answer questions raised by the culture, how can they do that? How do they respond when their college student challenges them saying that the Bible is filled with errors, is patriarchal and misogynist? A parent answering, “I just believe the Bible is true” makes faith a personal option that is one among many.

Third, Joshua McDowell in his book, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, quotes Professor James Beilby, who calls this engagement of the questions, “pre-evangelism.” People cannot respond to the Gospel until we answer their objections to the Gospel. Unless we respond to their objections, we are merely presenting the Gospel as an alternative view. The Gospel is not an alternative truth. The alternative to the Gospel is error that leads to death.

Fourth, if we delve into the questions raised by the culture and espoused by those close to us, our faith will be strengthened, our confidence in Scripture and its message will grow. Christian truth, revealed in Scripture, is robust. It can stand up to the mightiest assault. Jesus said the very gates of hell will not prevail against the church.

Newbiggin predicts the outcome, if we refuse to engage the culture and instead continue to withdraw into the safe confines of our personal faith:

The church witnesses to that true end for which all creation and all human beings exist, the truth by which all alleged values are to be judged. And truth must be public truth, truth for all. A private truth for a limited circle of believers is no truth at all. Even the most devout faith will sooner or later falter and fail unless those who hold it are willing to bring it into public debate and to test it against experience in every area of life. If the Christian faith about the source and goal of human life is to be denied access to the public realm, where decisions are made on the great issues of the common life, then it cannot in the long run survive even as an option for a minority.

Sue Cyre is a past board member of the Institute on Religion & Democracy. She previously served as Executive Director of Presbyterians for Faith, Family and Ministry (PFFM), an initiative providing resources to assist adherents in their defense of the biblical theology. Cyre also served as editor of Theology Matters.