Worse, this narrative is another example of Western cultural superiority and triumphalism. Its very premise is that this Western cultural story is superior to any other culture’s storyline. To talk about an arc of history, or progress, or enlightenment, let alone a wrong side of history, is sheer cultural arrogance. What are we basing this superiority on? That we know best? That we are the most recent blip in the timeline of the universe? That we are more “civilized”? We heard all of these same arguments two hundred years ago during Western colonialism, and yet here we are repeating them all over again.
Moreover, this narrative works only if we stay in our tiny Western bubble. Right now, secularism is declining all over the world. Christianity is the fastest growing religion. Millions and millions of people, especially in the majority world—Africa, Asia, and Latin America—are choosing to love, worship, and follow Jesus. So what are they seeing in Jesus that we, in the West, are missing? So I would suggest to my non-believing friends in the West that maybe it’s time that we re-discovered the Jesus of the Bible. Forget about the Jesus that we think we know or grew up with. Let’s go to the Bible and discover the Jesus that the rest of the world is coming to know. And if we have any problems with the Bible, maybe they are our Western cultural objections, which the rest of the world just doesn’t have. And if we think Christianity is a tool of oppression, that is also probably only our Western presuppositions, because the rest of the world is discovering a freedom that comes from knowing the Jesus of the Bible.
I like to make a self-deprecating joke about Asian tourists in Europe, because they stay in their tourist buses with other Chinese tourists, only talking Chinese to each other, and only venturing out of the bus to eat at Chinese restaurants—and then they complain that it’s not as good as the food back home! But then someone pointed out to me that the English tourists do the same thing. They also stay in their tourist buses with other English tourists, only talking English to each other, and only venturing out of the bus to eat at Irish pubs—and then they complain that the Guinness is not as good as the one back home! But then someone else pointed out to me that American tourists also do the same thing. They stay in their tourist buses with other Americans, only talking to other Americans, venturing out of the bus only to eat at McDonald’s—and then they complain that the Big Mac is not as good as the one back home!
What is my point? As long as the tourists stay in their bubbles, they will never see their own cultural presuppositions and biases. And they will never truly experience the host country’s culture, language, peoples, and food. But then I like to point out to my non-believing friends that we often make the same mistake with Jesus and the Bible. We stay in our Western bubbles, and are not aware of our presuppositions and biases. And so we never truly experience the Jesus of the Bible on his own terms. Maybe we should leave our bubble and try to see what the rest of the world is seeing in Jesus.
7. Learn the art of positive apologetics
In the past, there was a lot of talk about defeater beliefs—beliefs that our non-believing friends have that supposedly defeat our Christian beliefs. For example, the usual culprits in our post-Christian Western culture are: How can you trust the Bible? What about other religions? Why can’t God just forgive? What are your views on sex and morality? How can God allow suffering? Aren’t Christians just hypocrites? Hasn’t science disproved the Bible?
These defeater beliefs are very culture-dependent. For example, if you were in Taiwan, the defeater belief might be: “But what about my parents? I can’t change religions because this will cause them too much public shame and grief.” Or if you were in a more traditional culture, the defeater belief might be: “I’ve gone to church all my life; that’s enough to get me into heaven.”
I believe that all Christians should at least be aware of what defeater beliefs exist for our non-believing friends in their particular culture. And I’m sure most of us have already worked out some helpful ways of responding to these defeater beliefs. In addition, Tim Keller’s Reason For God is an excellent resource for responding to the above defeater beliefs. Further, it’s helpful if we also let our non-believing friend know how culturally-specific their objections are. If our friend lived in another time or place, they wouldn’t have such objections. They would have different ones, of course, but their current objections are very much determined by their cultural locatedness.
But in the last five to ten years, I believe that our culture has become even more post-Christian, to the extent that the above defeater beliefs might not even be an issue. Our friends aren’t non-believers because the above defeater beliefs are stopping them from believing. Our friends are non-believers because they don’t even know why they need to believe in the Christian God of the Bible.
Because of this, I think we need to move beyond responding to defeater beliefs—i.e., engaging in negative apologetics—to giving reasons that promote belief—i.e., engaging in positive apologetics. To do this, I like to show my non-believing friend reasons why they need or want Christianity to be true.
For example, I might say, “If you want to believe that a husband ought to love his wife, and not treat her as mere property, you need the God of the Bible to be true. Because I dare you to prove to me, based on any other premise, that a husband ought to love his wife.” Whatever reasons they might try to give—e.g., it’s a good thing to do, it’s the right thing to do, a woman has dignity—I can gently respond, “That’s simply question-begging. You’re merely repeating the starting premise in different words. But so far, you still haven’t given me a reason or argument why a husband ought to love his wife. You’re merely giving me assertions but not reasons.”
As another example, I can do the same thing with human rights. I might say, “If you want to believe in universal human rights—that things like slavery and the sex trade are wrong—then you need the God of the Bible to be true. Because I dare you to prove to me, based on any other premise, that a human being has an inherent dignity, value, or worth, apart from what they achieve or acquire in this life.” They might try to give reasons—such as the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights—but these are all arbitrary human social conventions. And not all cultures and nations hold these to be true. So I can gently respond that unless there’s a God who creates us as inherently worthy—in his image—and confers dignity to us by becoming one of us and dying for us, then it’s very hard to believe in such a thing as human rights. I can also point out how unique this is to the Judeo-Christian worldview. I’m not aware of any other religious worldview where God or the gods value the life of each and every human. In fact, it’s quite the contrary. In most other religions, the gods don’t care about the humans. At best, the gods might be coerced into being merciful to the humans every now and then; but at worst, the gods see the human race as an inconvenience.
As another example, I like to say that we like to believe that God is a loving God. In fact, this is the starting premise to most of our objections against the Christian worldview. For example, “How can a loving God allow suffering?” Or, “How can a loving God send people to hell?” Or, “How can a loving God not accept me for who I am?” But I like to ask gently, “Where do we get the idea that God needs to be loving?” We actually only get it from the Judeo-Christian worldview. In no other religion, is God obligated to be loving. In fact, again, it’s quite the contrary. In other religions, the gods are simply uncaring, or so sovereign and transcendent that love is bypassed. Or worse, they can be mischievous, malicious, or capricious—trying to work against our best intentions rather than with them. So, if we want to hold to the premise that God is obligated to be loving, then we actually also need the God of the Bible to be true.
Tim Keller’s recent book Making Sense of God uses a similar approach to what we’re doing here. Whereas his Reason for God was focused on addressing defeater beliefs, Making Sense of God is focused on promoting reasons why we need God to be true. In this book, Keller shows how much of what we believe to be true—e.g., meaning, satisfaction, freedom, self, identity, hope, morality, and justice—are nonsensical unless the God of the Bible is also true. They cannot exist without a transcendent God who made us, loves us, and saves us. I believe we can similarly use this approach in the art of positive apologetics.
8. Use wisdom as an entry point
Recently I hosted a BBQ at my place for a bunch of friends. As we sat in the backyard, enjoying the beef brisket and pulled pork, the guests started to admire my green, lush lawn. Soon my friends expressed their wish that their lawns could also look like mine and they started to ask for my advice on how to manage lawns. What time of the year should they fertilize their lawns? How did I get rid of my weeds? After a while, I had a ready audience that was hanging on all my words! But in my group of friends was also a guy called Adam. Adam had once been a professional landscaper. He also started to talk about lawns. He explained to us the different types of grass, what time of the day was best for watering the lawns, and what height the lawns should be mowed in winter and summer. He was obviously very knowledgeable and experienced in lawn care. Soon he had all of us, including me, under his spell. We enjoyed listening to him and egged him on with more and more questions about lawn care.
What just happened at the BBQ? Which layer of conversation were we in? Was it interests, values, or worldviews? The conversation began in the layer of interests—describing my lawn—but soon it moved to a different category. We were prescribing what to do with a lawn. But to say we were in the layer of values doesn’t seem to be the right fit. It was something slightly different. We were discussing how to manage a lawn. To water or not to water? To fertilize or not to fertilize? To weed or not to weed? I want to argue that we were in a unique layer of conversation called wisdom.
Wisdom has been an under-explored area of Christian conversation. Often when we think of talking about “things that matter” we think of values, truth, and salvation. As a result, Christians end up being stereotyped, fairly or unfairly, as people who are outspoken on issues of sex and morality, heaven and hell. Part of this is because the Bible spends a lot of time on these issues.
But the Bible also has large sections on wisdom. In the Old Testament we find this in what is traditionally called the Wisdom books—Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon. In the New Testament, we can find similar sections, for example, in Jesus’ teachings (e.g., the Sermon on the Mount), Paul’s advice in the second parts of his letters, and the book of James.