As stated in a previous article, many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians, especially our leaders and influencers, seem to be experiencing an apologetic panic. What is an apologetic panic?
First, let's define apologetics. Apologetics isn't necessarily about apologizing, though that is should be in this particular case. Apologetics is about giving a verbal defense of an idea or group. Thus Christian Apologetics would consist of defending the Christian faith. And what The Keller Center For Cultural Apologetics wants to accomplish is to use education to produce a new generation of people who can adequately defend and promote the Christian faith in today's culture.
Second, what is an apologetic panic? Panic itself is a word used to describe a strong, sudden fear. Sometimes, feeling panic causes us to overreact to a problem. Thus a Christian apologetic panic is an intense fear of what is in the current culture and society to the point of overreacting by trying too hard to say too much.
Third, the problem that many religiously conservative Christian leaders and influences are reacting to is the end of Christendom. That is it is the end of a time period when religiously conservative Christianity held a certain prominent influence and informal control over culture. And it is the end of Christendom and what has replaced it that has caused the apologetic panic we see today.
And so now we come to the article that will be reviewed here. It is an article by Collin Hansen (click here for a bio) about an initiative by The Gospel Coalition that is named after Tim Keller, who is a deservedly famous and well-respected conservative Christian leader,. The Gospel Coalition has started a Christian apologetics enter to stop the decline of Christianity's influence over culture and hopefully to recover at least some of the influence that Christianity once had. Collin Hansen is the executive director of this project. And here we should note that Hansen doesn't believe that cultural apologetics is the or the best way of defending the faith. But it will be taught at the Keller Center.
According to Hansen (click here for Hansen's article), one of the stated objectives of The Keller Center For Cultural Apologetics is to find a broad perspective of where our culture is heading and how to talk about, or use language, to promote Christianity as being the most beneficial influence for our culture. At this point, one must wonder whether we have ventured from defending as done in apologetics to what should be called a cultural evangelism in the promoting of the faith.
And perhaps the direction of the Keller Center consists of both cultural apologetics and cultural evangelism. For in defending Christianity, especially its moral values, we are sticking up for what has been replaced in our now secular culture. And in stating that because Christianity offers the best hope for how people live, we are trying to persuade people to choose either all of Christianity or significant parts of it. One part of Christianity that the Center wants to promote in our culture is much of the language that Christianity uses to describe the life and the world around us.
Hansen then gives an overall description of Christian cultural apologetics as he sees it. And again, we see a mix of both cultural apologetics and cultural evangelism:
Cultural apologetics, then, helps unbelievers want the gospel to be true even before they may fully understand this good news. We offer the beauty of the lordship of Christ as opposed to the ugliness of the lordship of the principalities and powers (Eph. 6:12).
Then citing a book by Ted Turnau, the message of Christian cultural apologetics accomplishes the task by what sharing with the unbeliever what Christianity says about 'goodness, beauty, justice, hope, peacefulness, vitality, and mercy.'
Later on, Hansen repeats what has been said earlier about The Keller Center's approach to apologetics. It is to provide both a profound overall assessment of where our culture is going from a sound theologically conservative perspective.
Hansen then quotes Christian Smith on the current cultural dilemma in which we find ourselves. For what we are seeing today is a significant rejection of the past and the imposition of so much that is new today. And in so quoting him, he is describing our current cultural situation while neglecting why we are in that situation.
What Smith calls the post-enlightenment period should be referred to as the Post Modern period. It is the Post Modern period because not only does Post Modernism reject the Modernism with the Enlightenment, it also rejects Pre Modernism with its tinted glasses of faith. And the reason why it rejects both is because of the historic outcomes that both periods have either produced or have been associated with. Those outcomes include wars, exploitation, imperialism, colonialism, racism, sexism, classism, and a host of other problems. And though we religiously conservative Christians would like to say that Post Modernism misunderstands us Pre Modern faith people by blaming us for those grave injustices, we need to first examine history to see if Post Modernism's assessment of us is at least understandable if not significantly correct.
In other words, part of Christian Apologetics today should include an apology tour of more depth than the one that was attributed to President Obama when he referred to some of America's past sins. Failure to go on this apology tour can produce the same results for us which the 2016 U.S. Presidential election produced.
In that election year, Donald Trump successfully portrayed himself as the outsider to the 'swamp' of Washington D.C. Never mind that Trump's picture of himself carried with it some gross inaccuracies, Trump gained a lot of support from people who viewed his opposition with contempt.
Why did Trump gain that support from so many people? It is partially because people recognized that there are things that are significantly wrong with the system and the establishment sectors of both major parties would not own up to their sins and failures. Thus, representatives from the establishment sector of both major parties did not have, in the eyes of the public, the credibility to counter Trump's claims.
So too, we have a problem with the period when Christianity held sway over the culture--this period is otherwise known as Christendom. People could recognize the many failures of Christendom and people associated those failures with the conservative Christian faith. And religiously conservative Christians failed to own up to enough of its failures and sins to do adequate damage control for the wrongs practiced during Christendom. This failure to own up to its mistakes and sins has cost religiously conservative Christianity much of its credibility in the eyes of many non political conservatives. And thus secular ideologies and isms are making inroads not just in society at large, but in the Church too.
So the question becomes for The Keller Center For Cultural Apologetics, are its people going to be honest about the failures and sin of Christendom that significantly contributed to the many social injustices that has produced the rejection of much of the past. Here we should note that Post Modernism doesn't reject religion per se, it objects to and argues against those religious faiths that make absolute exclusive truth claims. And, again, the historical outcomes of the claims made is the reason for their rejection.
If the teachings from The Keller Center For Cultural Apologetics does not acknowledge the failures of Christendom, then message from that center will have little to no credibility to those who are not political conservatives. In addition, the message from the Keller Center would basically be saying that whereas forefathers might have made some mistakes in the past, we now know how to rule over culture right.
But something must be taught at this Keller Center. That is that while it teaches its students about the Gospel and Biblical values, it must teach its students on how to work with unbelievers in society to build a society and culture that is free from Christendom. That is the only way in which we can interact with society without seeking the kind of position in society that Christianity had under Christendom which hurt the reputation of the Gospel. For while Christianity had a privileged place in society and culture during Christendom, people were exploited and marginalized. And it is that exploitation and marginalization of others that have caused many to turn a deaf ear to what religiously conservative Christianity says. In addition, by portraying Christianity as having a monopoly on truth and wisdom, we will be tempted to justify that position by trying too hard to say too much.
One has to respect the intentions and the efforts of those who are starting this new center for cultural apologetics. They care about the Gospel and they care about people. At the same time, those who are directing the efforts of this center for cultural apologetics must acknowledge at least most of the failures and sins of Christendom. Otherwise, regardless of their intentions and knowledge, they will end up repeating the errors and sins from the past.
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