A few specific critiques:
-He quotes Kierkegaard far, far more often than he quotes Scripture. He may well be Kierkegaardian (as i claim to be myself), but he doesn’t sound especially, well, “Pauline” (as i also claim to be). And as deeply as I myself resonate with (and as oft as I quote) the Melancholy Dane, My first loyalty is to Scripture… I’m not particularly convinced the same is true for Mr. Penner.
-I’m a bit concerned with Mr. Penner’s language about truth needing to be “edifying”…
e.g., "By my account, truth (as subjectivity) is the sort of thing people need and desire because it is edifying. That is, what matters about truth is that it builds me up, is true for me, and is the kind of thing that connects to my deepest concerns as a self.
I’m willing to be corrected if i misunderstood Mr. Penner here, but his choice of words (“connects to my deepest concerns as a self”) seem at odds with Kierkegaard here. Kierkegaard himself emphasized the importance of submitting to the truth of Christ whether or not it was edifying or crushing, whether connected or entirely disconnected to my own deepest concerns or not:
If you will believe, then you push through the possibility of offense and accept Christianity on any terms. So it goes; then forget the understanding; then you say: Whether it is a help or a torment, I want only one thing, I want to belong to Christ, I want to be a Christian.
-I was dumbfounded by his all-too-selective quoting, and thus what seems to me a rather significant misuse, of both Paul and Luther. Regarding Luther at the diet of Worms:
Here the paradigm of truthful speech might well be… Martin Luther’s famous (if somewhat historically dubious) declaration before the Diet of Worms: “Here I stand. I can do no other.” In the elegant formula “Here I stand” we see that the private individual, Martin Luther, displays a passion to see truth made public. He desires for everyone to be edified by the truth that is true for him. Luther does not pretend to offer the absolute Truth; he confesses a truth that is thoroughly conditioned by his perspective and context. He stands here, right now, attesting to this truth, and he can do no other because his conscience forbids it. But his stand signifies his conviction and commitment that the truth by which he is edified is true for everyone.
He left out the other famous words immediately before the famous “Here I Stand” statement… “unless i am convinced by scripture and plain reason”… Luther obviously held his line firmly because he was convinced that his position was in fact the absolute objective truth, discoverable (in part) by reason. It was an absolute truth that was surely dear and personal (subjective?) to him, about which he was indeed passionate, but Luther clearly held said convictions because he was simultaneously convinced - by using his reason - that his stance indeed corresponded with absolute, objective truth.
-I’m generally suspicious of any formulation or proposal wherein i find myself thinking, “Gee, if only Paul had read this book before he began his missionary journeys!” I regularly found myself at odds between his approach and that of Paul. For instance…
Will someone who believes they have heard God speak bother to make clever arguments, brilliantly piecing together the evidence, so that the rational inescapability of the message is shown to be universally, objectively, and neutrally justified? Will this individual even feel the need to show Christianity is true in an objective, rational way?
Um, yes?
But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ.
And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.”
When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus.
Not only this, but when Mr. Penner did reference Paul, he referenced the way Paul interacted with fellow believers (i.e., how he interacted in his letter to “the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”) and tried to claim this is representative of Paul’s “apologetic” approach toward unbelievers??
I don’t mean to be rude, but this kind of selective reading, if not intentionally obtuse, betrays a terrible unfamiliarity with Scripture, which to me seriously undermines his entire approach.
My bottom line critique… I agree deeply with Mr. Penner that the bath water of modern apologetics is terribly dirty… but I find not only that he wants to throw out the baby, but he also looks to be actively filling the bathtub with mud.