the Bible | Apologetics For Life

For the last couple of blogs I have been going over an introduction to apologetics and tactics to use when talking about your Christian beliefs. This time I’d like to discuss specific tactics that can be effective.

For one thing, we can ask questions of the person who has made a claim about Christianity. This takes pressure off of us to defend our position, it allows the other person to see you as someone interested in him/her, it gives you time to think, and it will help the other person clarify his/her thoughts. Two key questions are these: What do you mean by that? How did you come to that conclusion?

The first question (What do you mean by that?) Is asking the person to clarify the comments. The second question (How did you come to that conclusion?) asks the person to justify the comment by giving good support. So, for example, someone tells you there is no God. The first question seems pointless since we all know what we mean by God. The second question would work better in that case, to ask a person for proof of that statement. If somebody tells you the Bible has been changed over the years, the first question might be a good place to start. What they mean by the term “change”? You can then move to the second question. Someone says that Christians are narrow-minded, and our response would be to ask for clarification as well as how that person came to that conclusion.

The second tactic is to look for self-refuting arguments. These are statements that somebody makes that is contradictory to itself. For example, someone says, “I can’t speak a word of English.” That statement self-destructs since it is contradictory to itself. So, when someone says, “You shouldn’t judge people,” we might point out that that statement is one of judgment itself. Somebody may claim Christians are intolerant, which suggests that person is intolerant of the Christian position. Or, another person says we can can’t know anything about God, yet the statement suggests there is something we can know about God, mainly that he is unknowable.

These two simple tactics (asking questions, looking for self-refuting arguments) will help us immensely as we interact with people who disagree with our Christian viewpoint. Of course, we need to have good reasons for our beliefs, but these tactics will give us a chance to discuss the issues on a more equitable footing.

In the last blog I began a series that’s going to reflect what we are covering in a four-week class I call Apologetics 101. I discussed what apologetics is, its value, and misconceptions people have about it. In this blog I want to discuss general tactics that can be useful when interacting with someone who disagrees with our religious convictions.

There are several good general tactics to observe. For one thing, we need to keep it simple. There’s a temptation to do a data dump on people because we have learned some material that we want to share. Sometimes, however, people don’t need all the data we throw at them. Secondly we should be talking to them without referencing the Bible, which sounds counterintuitive. Certainly if the person has a question about the Bible, we need to start there. But this is a society that has become biblically illiterate and, in some cases, downright hostile to the Bible. Instead, we can use philosophy, history, and science to illustrate our points because Christianity is true and is reflected in the real world. Eventually we will get to the Bible, but we hope to have cleared some misconceptions first.

Thirdly, we need to have some resources to enlarge our understanding and to go to when tough questions arise. Probably the best single book on apologetics is I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Geisler and Turek. Of course, there are plenty of other good books, DVDs, websites, and magazines which are extremely helpful. If you’d like a list, please e-mail me at gary@apologeticsforlife.org. Another key general tactic is to admit it if we don’t know an answer to a question. Too many times we’re tempted to blow some smoke in hopes of answering the question, but there’s always that chance we will get caught with the result that we ruin our attempt to communicate the gospel. It’s far better to say we don’t know but we will research the issue and get back to the person. People appreciate honesty and humility that are demonstrated in such a response. One final general tactic has to do with questioning authorities used by skeptics. So many people with advanced degrees speak out on issues which they really know nothing about. For example, Richard Dawkins at one time claimed that Jesus never lived. Well, here’s a person who has a doctorate, so he must know what he’s talking about, right? Hmmm . . . Here’s the problem. Dawkins has no background in biblical or historical studies. No recognized scholar agrees with him about the existence of Jesus. He has since backed off of that statement.

In the next blog I will focus on specific tactics we can use as we are talking about Christianity with those who do not agree with us.

Apologetics For Life

Tag Archives: the Bible

Specific Tactics in Engaging the Non-Christian

Tactics We Can Use in Defending Our Beliefs