“The End of Apologetics: Christian Witness in a Postmodern Context” by Myron B. Penner

Faith & Science Conversation
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Taking some time this morning to go over Chapter 3 posts I’ve read but not had the brain power to respond to.

I think this is a really useful comparison and lovely pun.
I think a more organic or integrated approach is absolutely necessary and desirable. Not only are most lay people unable to understand the professionalized apologetics they know about, but the person on the street wouldn’t either.
I believe that Penner proposes that the outworking of a person’s faith in their life IS the apologetic itself. (“Put your money where your mouth is.”) Do we live in a way that even remotely supports our claims about our faith? If not, why? What does that failure communicate?
There is nothing “professional” about living in faith.

Having been on the receiving end of all sorts of door to door callers and pamphleteers in public, I know my own reaction just to that initial, contact. I don’t want to have this conversation. I don’t want your stuff. I don’t … I imagine that’s the response many people have to similar contact attempts from Christians, which don’t even get to "apologetics. By insisting someone be professionally apologized, I’m very concerned that we are simply alienating them from any conversation about anything of importance.

Lots of us are wrangling with our theology and traditions regarding these questions as well. (They don’t all have easy answers for me.) Maybe the one benefit of the Culture War to anyone from the U.S. church right now, is that a few more Christians are recognizing that these power-obsessed games that seek dominance and control over culture, that is other humans, rather than faithful living within the culture, are ineffective and damaging in every possible way. Everyone loses and Jesus is shown to be unworthy of our faith, because our faith relies on the tools of dominanc and control.
Last chapter is called Politics of Witness. I think we’ll find Penner addressing some of these issues very soon.

I read this differently, Mark. Penner has remained overtly Christian in his discussion so far, in spite of being open to input that in many Christian circles would be rejected. But I don’t think he, or Lewis, are interested in entirely reworking the faith, certainly not the object of it. Lewis, and I think Penner, are humbly acknowledging that in spite of our best efforts to get theology right and pray right, we cannot know God as he is. Every possible human conception of God falls short in egregious ways.

Penner has not, at least so far, defined clearly what he means by apostolic message, but he does refer a number of times to Christian tradition and the texts we use. Here is one of a number of examples:

I want to think of theology and Christian belief hermeneutically, as Cavell views philosophy: as a set of texts that are part of the ongoing conversation of a widening community of people (i.e., the church). If the modern epistemological paradigm is focused on the question, “Is it (belief about the world/reality) true and justified?” the hermeneuti­cal paradigm I want to replace it with puts at the center of its inquiry the question, “Is it intelligible and meaningful?” The pressing issue is not solving an abstract set of theoretical problems but interpreting the symbols and texts of a received tradition in order to understand their meaning and significance in relation to a concrete set of problems and exigencies that we encounter…To be sure, there will be arguments, logic, evidence, and so on that are crucial parts of the process of arriving at conclusions within interpretive traditions, but these are invitations for response from differing points of view rather than an attempt to foreclose on them. These alternate points of view that emerge through dialogue are not barriers to understanding but enable us to gain greater insight into the text (as well as ourselves, our world, and others) as we submit our interpretations to critical tests that are free and open to critique and response. (pg. 68)

Phil, this post of yours was enormousy encouraging to me. Just get through the chapter. I listened to a good chunk of it all at once, and that actually helped, because the screen reader just plows through, whether I understand every word or not, and I couldn’t turn it off, while I wore gloves, cleaning up the kitchen.

This was a great exchange. I had never thought of the event that way, which I expect is the norm. Which is sad.

Thank you very much for this, Terry.

Worth the (full) price of the book. Amen and amen.
What a challenge to me (us?)!
Speaking for myself, what a lot to reevaluate and also confess and repent of!

In spite of our entirely different views of god/God, we are unified in this statement!

Oh, thanks, Mark. I had thought to ask you about this, too, but didn’t have a chance. RL again.

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I had actually just started to respond to this statement in your post in the other thread:

  • [quote=“MarkD, post:8, topic:49860”]
    My theory is that the most hard bitten of these anti religionists
    [/quote]

I feel like I’ve led a sheltered life. Who knew Clark Kent could get so upset?
@Marta has informed me about some of the things that she has read on-line that I was unaware of or oblivious to. But what happened this last week was direction of my attention to “a debate”, if you can call it that, between William Lane Craig [who is not my most esteemed debater] and Lawrence Krauss, the theoretical physicist, to whom I recently sent my short paper on "The Problem of The Now.

Without a whole lot of sympathy for Craig, I thought to myself that it’s a pity somebody didn’t add this note to the invitation to debate Krauss: “Bring your guns, we’re expecting trouble.” :rofl:

In that “debate”–for those who still insist on calling it that–Krauss gave me my first introduction to a “hard-bitten anti-religionist”. Breath-taking. to say charitably. I made a note to myself: “Don’t ever show one of them your “toys”, new or old.”

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I, too, have lived a sheltered life. Often by choice. I can’t imagine enduring even one debate of the more civil type. Nothing about the format recommends itself to me. The format alone is distasteful, utterly offputting. I honestly have no comprehension what the appeal is.
Hockey makes sense to me. A rousing punch out between two handy hockey players, who need more than sticks to defend the goals makes sense to me.
A timed tussle in which we sort out eternal truths that have yet to be settled over centuries of forward -moving dialogue between chorus of some the greatest minds that have so-far lived is just incomprehensible.

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Okay, Terry - your “frustrated reader” cartoon reminded me of this …

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That is not to say that he is nothing like our conceptions. His Fatherhood and his his multiple ‘omnihoods’ are certainly able to be apprehended, as in perceived and touchable, and of course not comprehended, as in their depths fully fathomed. So your ‘egregious’ is maybe overstated and could almost be inferred to say the degree to which he has chosen to reveal himself is maybe his fault and reflects some kind of inadequacy in him. The non- or antitheist could concur with that.

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From Texas pastor, Austin Fisher’s book: “Faith in the Shadows”. (I know …it isn’t our book discussion book, but it tracks sooo well with what we’re discussing!)

When asked what was the greatest commandment, Jesus did not say it was to have faith so as to move mountains without the slightest shred of doubt. No, Jesus said the greatest commandment was to love God and love neighbor. The virtue of faith is that it trains us to love and be loved. It is a posture of trusting surrender to the love of God. It is necessary because love requires vulnerability, and vulnerability requires surrender, and surrender requires trust. As Alexander Schmemann writes, “Faith itself is the acceptance not of this or that ‘proposition’ about Christ, but of Christ Himself as the Life and the light of life. . . . [Faith’s] starting point is not ‘belief’ but love.” I suspect many of us cannot shake our doubts because we are striving for faith instead of love. And while the relationship between faith and love is close and complex, this much is clear: the simplistic formulation in which faith and love relate in a strictly linear fashion wherein faith produces love is wholly inadequate. Faith can produce love, but love can also produce faith. Many have so emphasized faith’s ability to create love that they have forgotten love’s ability to create faith. To return to an idea mentioned in chapter nine, we have vastly overestimated our ability to think ourselves through the world. We think we can think our way into proper actions and beliefs. We think we can think our way into faith. Sit around thinking about that all you want, but the results are in: it doesn’t work. Sitting around and thinking about faith conditions you to be a person who sits around and thinks about faith. But when Jesus asks us to follow him, he is not asking us to sit around and think about faith. He is asking us to get up and do things with our hands and feet. A thick instead of thin faith does not precede following Jesus; it follows following. So emphasized text if you’d like more faith, quit trying to think your way into faith and instead, empowered by the grace of God, go love your way into faith.

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Austin’s book has been on my mind a lot, since I first held Penner’s book in my hands, standing in the book store in Grand Rapids. Faith in the Shadows was great preface to The End of Apologetics.
Thanks for sharing this passage, Merv. There is a lot to chew.

I think you might be sharing this quote with a somewhat different emphasis in mind, but I want to placard this section more (which I have truncated for brevity) and think a little “out loud” about the effect of an individual’s love on another individual’s faith.

If there really is a faith-building effect in obeying God’s command to love our neighbors, I wonder what kind of hinerance to faith my disobedient lovelessness may cause. The thought that my common disobedience may in some way hinder another’s faith should bring me to my knees.

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I thought this was particularly damning of modernist apologetics as practiced by your average do it yourself, pushy apologist who just wants you to say the words so that the guy can discharge his responsibility and get back to doing something with someone who actually matters to him.

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That includes loving God.
 

Loving God means keeping his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome.
1 John 5:3

That means obedience to ‘the laws of love’, starting with the Big Ten in the OT – all of them, including the Fourth* (Reformed numbering), and in the manifold ways they have been expanded upon in the New – the gospels and epistles.
 
This is interesting:

He who is having my commands, and is keeping them, that one it is who is loving me, and he who is loving me shall be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
John 14:21, YLT

Faith gets strengthened when you are given objective manifestations of his providential interventions.

 

*If you think the Fourth is null and void, then the irony is more than curious:

…and his commandments are not burdensome.
1 John 5:3

Thus says the LORD: Take care for the sake of your lives, and do not bear a burden on the Sabbath day or bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem.
Jeremiah 17:21

That is talking about doing routine commerce on the day of rest, the seventh day of the week in the OT and the first day of the week for Christians. The Lord’s Day of Rest

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We are in the home stretch! Two chapters to go, and then a lifetime of processing.

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From p. 110, Penner gives a new perspective on the question: “What does it profit a man to gain the world …”?

The more I seek to objectify the world and myself, the more I lose my self. And what does it profit a person if they gain the maximal set of justified, true beliefs but lose their own self?

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That hit me like a 2x4 as well.

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Here is another. From the busiest page in the chapter (at least up until the conclusion):

As I have mentioned several times already, the truth to which Christians witness is not the sort of truth that one has, but the sort of truth that one is.

The idea is that belief in whatever direction you choose, even in one you’re not aware of making, shape the self you become. Do your choices leave you defensive or open? Modest or quick to judge? Brittle or resilient? Kind or I’ll tempered? This is the witness we bear of how our choices have shaped us.

I think this idea is especially applicable to that self absorbed twit you mentioned here, @Terry_Sampson, who ‘debated’ at WLCraig (a person whose charm glows by comparison and I am not a fan of him either):

In that “ debate ”–for those who still insist on calling it that–Krauss gave me my first introduction to a “hard-bitten anti-religionist”. Breath-taking. to say charitably. I made a note to myself: “Don’t ever show one of them your “toys”, new or old.”

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Referencing just a bit of this:

and this:

Throughout The End of Apologetics I’ve had the book of James in mind. At least in my church traditions, I’d say James is one of the most misused books in the Bible. I’ve seen it used to justify all sorts of legalism. But I think, when read faithfully, this book gives us the common-person view of the heart of Penner’s overall message. I’m thinking particularly about chapter 2:14-26:

14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

20 You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless[a]? 21 Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,”[b] and he was called God’s friend. 24 You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.

25 In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? 26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

Like Merv said, the stakes are higher, when we have to live our hermeneutic (interpretation of the texts) out as a witness.

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Having skimmed through the last 200 posts (and not having read Penner’s book), I thought I would offer my poorly informed atheist thoughts.

As I was reading the posts the one question that kept going through my head is this: “Are the approaches apologists are using to witness to non-believers the same approaches that convinced them to be a Christian?” Perhaps I am completely wrong, but I would guess that there are very few Christians who became believers because of an analytical, reason driven analysis of scripture, and fewer still Christian witnesses who became believers because of those same analyses. From my time in the church, I always felt that Christianity was based in emotion and spirituality, not in reasoned arguments. People believed because they followed their heart, not because they followed a well diagramed logical argument in a book.

Speaking for myself, I grew up in the church so I was never a non-believer (until I was). From that perspective, I can see how certain apologetics can help people feel justified in what they already believe, but I can’t see how these apologetics can be that effective outside of believers. Perhaps they are effective on non-believers and I have this all wrong.

Anyway, just my $0.02.

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I think your thoughts are pretty much in line with Penner’s. In fact, I think that he takes it a little further and feels apologetics are actually detrimental in sharing one’s faith with unbelievers.

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Wow, you deserve an award. That’s a monumental amount of reading. Your reply is insightful, which is no surprise.
The apologist, whose “method” Penner uses as his main example became a Christian through a religious experience he had as a teen. But later he felt he needed to demonstrate rationally, that his faith was also defensible. So, you are right in your assessment.

One thing I have thought to do ( and keep forgetting or setting aside, when I remember) is to look for reliable longitudinal data (or even any reliable data) on exactly the doubt you (and probably the rest of us) have expressed: how these apologetics can be that effective outside of believers. Actually, as a believer, I find them highly suspect; I would want data that includes reactions from believers as well, but it seems that would be incredibly hard to evaluate for reliability. People are too apt to give what they perceive is the “right” answer to such questions.

Penner concludes that this type of apologetic paradigm promotes faith in the propositions (or perhaps rather in the ability to articulate and assent to the propositions), rather than what those propositions represent (so change the gospel itself). He even goes so far as to talk (deeply critically ) about an entire publishing and speaking industry that has built up around “The God Debates,” the symbiotic economic aspecects of christians vs. atheists vs. christians vs……, which includes videos, events, books, etc. There’s no discussion of the “effectiveness” of this system at creating faith in anyone; it’s not really within the scope of the book. Penner sees these things as more faith-killing.

If you’re interested, a free online version of the book is linked in the OP. If you’re not, your input here is still valuable.

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It’s good to hear that believers also see some of the same things I see as an outsider. At some point, the apologist has to decide if they are trying to defeat the atheist, convert the atheist, or simply converse with the atheist. I suspect that conversing would be the most productive for everyone.

The binary choice between Christian morality and nihilism mentioned in previous posts is also an important one, I think. If you start a pitch with “you live an amoral life without meaning or purpose”, what are the chances you are going to win that person over? It sounds a lot more like the Christian witness is flaunting their views on how their lives are superior to yours. Even more, there are many, many non-believers that know their inner moral voices and they find a lot of purposes and meaning in their lives. In fact, all approaches where the Christian witness tells a person what they think, what they believe, and how they act are probably suspect.

If you ever want to see 100 person synchronized eye rolling, sit 100 atheists down and have them watch the “God is Dead” series.

I may check it out. It seems to echo many of the things that I saw when I left the church 25 years ago.

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This has been my conclusion, too. What little I’ve seen of “apologetics in action” turned me off as a believer. I can’t imagine being on the other end.

This has been my observation as well.
I mentioned once to a former fellow pew-mate, a common acquaintance in the glowing terms, “He’s one of the most honorable people I know.” That was greeted with , “He’s not even a christian!” Yeah. I know. Shame on us.

Rather not. Unless it’s for academic or professional study. I have avoided all of those “Hooray for our side! Aren’t we great!” propaganda pieces, even when they were donated to the church library I used to run. Some of them were weeded eventually, for lack of use.
There’d be 101 eyerolls, if I watched with them.

[Edit/Addendum]: The very premise of those movies makes me sick. I’ve grown up hearing the anti-public school and anti-university propaganda of groups like Focus on the Family, and now I have seen the fruition of the poisonous seed. In all the years I spent in university classrooms, no one asked, no one challenged, no one cared. But garbage like the “God is Not Dead” movie just fuels the paranoia of american envangelical fundamentalists. Just what we don’t need.

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I agree and think that point warrants exploration. If I’m not mistaken, Penner actually thinks that it’s modernism wedded to the Christian project which forces this stark dualism. And he probably gets reinforcement for that idea from Nietzsche.

I imagine that you, or other thoughtful non-believers here might contest this, though, as you probably see good fruits from modernism being rooted or potentially rooted in non-religious (or prior-religious) soils? Is it only religion with modernism that (on Penner’s thesis) makes such a toxic mix? There seems to be plenty of twentieth century experience now that would indicate a toxicity that transcends religion. But I’m just curious, first of all, if others agree that my opening statements fairly represent Penner, and if so, can anybody elaborate on a mechanism of why modernism might push such a stark polarization on Christianity?

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