Preaching and Apologetics

This is an edited version of my den Dulk Lectures given at Westminster Seminary California in April, 2021. The content of the lecture has been edited for publication here.

Preaching and Apologetics

“Like A Lion”

You may have heard the quip from the ever-quotable Charles Spurgeon: “The Word of God is like a lion. You don’t have to defend a lion. All you have to do is let the lion loose, and the lion will defend itself.”[1] There is much truth in Spurgeon’s comment. The pulpit is not the place from which to prove to your hearers that the Bible is the Word of God. The preacher’s job is to let the lion loose.

Before we proceed further let me briefly address the debate over apologetic method within the Reformed tradition and its impact upon my topic. I am of the opinion that B. B. Warfield was correct when contending that apologetics is a distinct theological discipline which belongs in theological prolegomena (the preparation for the doing of theology). This is contrary to the opinion of Abraham Kuyper and Cornelius Van Til who both understood apologetics to be a subset of theology proper.

But Warfield did contend that the theologian (or the pastor in the pulpit) must assume the truth of God’s Word because, presumably, the apologist has already done their work and passed along to the minister the Bible as the authoritative Word of God. Despite a disagreement about where apologetics belongs in the theological encyclopedia, Warfield, Kuyper, and Van Til were in full agreement about one thing–the minister enters the pulpit assuming that he’s about to let the lion loose and no defense of the Bible is needed — hence Spurgeon’s vivid metaphor. There is no disagreement between Reformed evidentialists and presuppositionalists on this point.

When I speak of the relationship between preaching and apologetics I too am affirming that it is not the duty of the pastor to use the pulpit to convince a congregation that the Bible is the Word of God. That discussion can and should be done in catechesis, Bible study, or in venues such as conferences or other forms of focused apologetics training. The minister preaches God’s word assuming every word in the Bible is true because that word was breathed forth by the Holy Spirit through the agency of human authors (2 Timothy 3:16).

Christianity Is a Truth Claim

Therefore, when I speak of preaching “apologetically,” I do not mean trying to convince people that the Bible is the word of God. What I do mean is preaching to a congregation in such a way as to show forth the lion’s huge fangs and sharp claws when the biblical text requires it. Preaching apologetically entails two points which I will raise to reinforce my thesis. The first point is that Christianity at its heart is a truth claim. When Jesus says in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth and the life,” his words echo YHWH’s declaration in Isaiah 43:11, “I am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior.” Jesus is telling his disciples, among other things, that he is God in human flesh, that he is truth incarnate, and that salvation from the guilt and power of sin is found in no one else. Jesus declares himself to be the source and author of life. This is a truth claim. If that which Jesus says of himself is true, then necessarily all other religions and religious claims are false. There cannot be two ways, two truths, or two methods of finding life eternal.

The Bible Speaks of Historical Events as Factually True

The second point is that when speaking of preaching “apologetically” we ought to emphasize that the Bible speaks of those events which make up the biblical narrative (redemptive history) as “true” in the ordinary sense of the term. The events we read about in the Bible–even those in the distant past–are recounted as events which occurred in ordinary history, oftentimes by witnesses and participants. The transcendent God jumps Lessing’s ditch, acting directly in human history, even taking to himself a true human nature in the person of Jesus who was born in Bethlehem when Quirinius was governor of Judea.

Nothing here about any of this taking place in a mythical land far, far, away. Had you been present with your GoPro or your iPhone in the days of Elijah, you might have recorded his encounter with the prophets of Baal. You could even replay the video of fire coming down from heaven consuming the offering, stones, and wood. I have wondered how different the historical Moses might look in contrast to Charlton Heston’s rugged portrayal of him in Cecil B. DeMille’s epic film, The Ten Commandments. Certainly Jethro’s daughters were not all attractive starlets in brilliantly colored costumes. But these movie characters and images do frame (negatively) how people think about the events we preach about from the Scripture. Biblical history in Hollywood’s hands is badly distorted. Our preaching ought to provide a factual corrective to what is at its heart, a truth claim.

Because Christianity is a truth claim grounded in specific historical events, the conclusion is obvious. If these events did not occur as recounted and are merely legendary, then Christianity is making claims which cannot be true and which lose all meaning as a truth claim–the Apostle Paul acknowledges this to be the case in 1 Corinthians 15:17-19. A dead Jesus saves no one. His claims cannot be true.

The Acts of God In History Are Explained

The very idea of God revealing himself and his saving purpose in his word connects God’s redemptive acts to his explanatory speech–speech in which God informs and explains his purposes behind these historical and often miraculous acts. Such speech is indeed a redemptive act in itself. Redemptive acts without sufficient redemptive explanation would remain utterly mysterious and difficult, if not impossible, to understand and interpret. Miraculous events like axe-heads floating and seas parting without explanation become nothing but fodder for the History Channel’s Ancient Aliens. Who other than extra-terrestrial visitors could have done such things?

When preaching then, a minister assumes the Bible is true and is divine speech of the sort which norms all other norms. But the nature of Scripture as the word of God written requires a conviction and an acknowledgment that this word makes an exclusive truth claim, a claim which is grounded in God’s redemptive acts and explanatory speech. Did God act? Did God speak? Does God still speak? The minister preaches assuming the answer to all three questions is a resounding “Yes,” which is why we preach.

My operating assumption throughout what follows is the realization that, in the course of pastoral ministry, we will likely encounter various kinds of people for whom a sermon is a completely foreign concept–certainly foreign in light of a minister’s assumption regarding the delivery of the inspired word from God which we have prepared in the form of a sermon. Far too often people will expect advice, practical wisdom, cheerful exhortations, or the reinforcement of currently held beliefs and opinions. Folk who expect such things from us but don’t get what they are expecting will tune us out, twist our words to suit themselves, or express their displeasure by spending Sundays at home watching football, or visiting other venues which are not quite so threatening and uncomfortable.

To make my case for the necessity of preaching apologetically and to flesh out a bit further what I mean, I begin with four representative ideologies held by people who may be present among us on any given Lord’s Day. Of course, in one sense there are as many ideologies as there are people, and I am obviously generalizing to make my point. But these are fair representative cases I think, so here goes.

“Sheilaism”

First up is Sheila Larson. She’s the founder and sole adherent of “Sheilaism.” Yet her views are quite representative of many Baby Boomers (b. 1946-1964) and even some Gen-Xer’s (who came after them). Ms. Larson and those like her do visit our churches, and often sit under our preaching. Ms. Larson, a nurse, was made famous by Robert Bellah in his 1985 book, Habits of the Heart. Ms. Larson (and those who think as she does) invent and then practice their own religion, oftentimes extensively borrowing religious cliches and stereotypes, all grounded in a self-referential epistemology – “I feel.” The Bible is fine with such folks, but only so long as what they hear does not disrupt their superficial level of feeling. The lens through which adherents and practitioners of Sheilaism tend to evaluate all religious claims, including the ones you’ll be making from the pulpit, is a vague sense of approval, or a cringe of discomfort. A feeling of approval is good. Discomfort is bad.

Ms. Larson’s creed is quoted by Bellah:

“I believe in God. I’m not a religious fanatic. I can’t remember the last time I went to church. My faith has carried me a long way. It’s Sheilaism. Just my own little voice . . . It’s just try to love yourself and be gentle with yourself. You know, I guess, take care of each other. I think He would want us to take care of each other.”[2]

Bellah points out the by-now obvious implication; “Sheilaism” creates the logical possibility “of over 300 million American religions, one for each of us.” Bellah notes that Sheilaism is “a perfectly natural expression of current American religious life.” Those who think like Ms. Larson–a surprising large number of middle age and older Americans do–base all religious commitment upon subjective, self-referential feelings and emotions. If Descartes could say “I think, therefore I am” (ironically grounding human knowledge in doubt), a consistent “Sheilaist” might quip, “I feel, therefore its true for me.” This is aptly lampooned by my late Lutheran friend Rod Rosenbladt, who calls such self-referential epistemologies the “liver shiver.”

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD)

A second ideological category which we will encounter are younger Millennials (those born in the mid-nineties) along with members of Gen-Z (younger still). Young adults and older teens overwhelmingly embrace (without knowing it) a web of vague religious convictions identified as “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.” “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism” is a label coined by sociologist Christian Smith in his 2005 book, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers.[3] Smith’s book was based upon 3000 interviews, conducted by Smith and his co author, Melinda Denton, as part of a project conducted by the “National Study of Youth and Religion.” Smith coined the label “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism” to describe widely-held religious beliefs of American youth (across all religions and cultures). Commonly held beliefs of these “Moralistic Therapeutic Deists” include:

1). The belief that a god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.

2). The belief that God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.

3). That the central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.

4). The belief that God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life, except when God is needed to resolve a problem.

5). It is assumed that all good people go to heaven when they die.

American Civil Religion

A third intellectual category of people are adherents of American Civil Religion–another ill-defined set of convictions, yet characterized by an “anti” or “apathetic” doctrinal ethos. Aristotle was correct when he noted that men and women are political animals.[4] So we should not be surprised that there are many professing Christians for whom politics seems to be the “be all to end all.” I have lost count of the times I have witnessed a professing Christian’s eyes glaze over when a discussion turns to some important, but technical point of Christian theology. Everything about their demeanor and body language cries out “not interested.”

Yet those same people immediately light up and become animated if the discussion turns to some hot-button political issue. Many Christians lack the basic theological categories needed to understand the dual citizenship Christians possess (cf. Philippians 3:20). Yet, many of these same people can quote the latest analysis heard on a podcast, or recount the fine details of the political debate they heard on cable news programming the previous evening. It is not a bad thing for a Christian to be interested in politics. I am interested in politics. But it is important for Christians to keep politics in its proper place, and view the ups and downs of the civil kingdom through a biblically informed filter which keeps the civil kingdom and Christ’s kingdom in proper tension. To do that requires understanding more than a few fine points of Christian theology. But adherents of civil religion are not interested in the fine points of Christian theology. They want to know for whom you are voting. They often expect you to see things the way they do. If not, they vote with their feet.

The basic principles of American Civil Religion include:[5]

1). The invocation of a generic “God” (not the Triune God of the Bible) in political speeches or on public monuments. This includes the use of religious symbols on public buildings or flags.

2). The quotation of religious texts in public settings by political leaders–almost always without regard to their original context and setting.

3). The veneration of past political leaders whose lives teach us important moral ideals–“Honest Abe,” and the always truthful George Washington, who never told a lie.

4). The veneration of veterans and casualties of a nation’s wars in such a way as to imply that those who made the ultimate sacrifice have earned a place in heaven for doing so. Heroism is, no doubt, an important national virtue, but the giving of one’s life for the nation’s deliverance does not earn the fallen a place in heaven–even if it is proper to honor their sacrifices and heroism.

5). Religious gatherings called by political leaders using religious facilities, language, and symbols–i.e., politicians pandering for voters in an Evangelical mega-church or in inner city, politically focused pulpits.

6). The founding history or national myths are used to evoke religious or quasi-religious practices and sentiments.

I am persuaded that American Civil Religion is one the chief rivals to the historical evangelical faith (confessional Protestantism). It is especially problematic when patriotism (a virtue) becomes nationalism–“God is on our side and our national political purposes are his.”

Critical and Social Justice Theorists

A fourth demographic group attending our churches are the Critical and Social Justice Theorists, the intellectual great-grand-children of Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, and the so-called Frankfort School. Nietzsche and his intellectual offspring stand at the headwaters of all modern critical theory including the post-modernism (post-structuralism) espoused by Jacques Derrida and Michael Foucault. There are no universals only particulars. Words are not “signs” of objective things, but rather signs which are interpreted in relationship to other “signs.” This reduces all objective claims to subjective experience by individuals or groups or tribes.

The great-grand-children of Nietzsche and Freud contend that human speech, all intellectual traditions, and all cultural institutions are the products of those who founded them or influenced them, necessarily imposing elements of that culture upon unwilling or unwitting members forced to participate. As political theorist Yuval Levin has noted, the consequence of critical theory is that “our culture is becoming a sea of subcultures.”[6] These are the folks who think proper biblical application amounts to addressing contemporary matters of social justice–those who have imposed their cultural, theological, and political views upon others in an act of raw power, need to stop. Except in their case.

The practical consequence is that any universal is seen as an imposition of power; the Reformed confessions, written by white men, and therefore, are only truly meaningful and relevant for white men. In Immanuel Kant’s essay, “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” (Was ist Äufklarung?–published in September of 1784), Kant argued that the motto of the Enlightenment is “have courage to use your own reason!” He laments, “but would not a society of clergymen, perhaps a church conference or a venerable presbytery (as they call themselves among the Dutch), be justified in obligating itself by oath to a certain unchangeable symbol [i.e., a Reformation era confession or catechism] in order to enjoy an unceasing guardianship over each of its numbers and thereby over the people as a whole, and even to make it eternal? I answer that this is altogether impossible.” The family tree of modern critical theory has multiple branches which can be traced back to Kant’s essay and we (Reformed Christians) are Kant’s main target.

Given the increasing effect of critical theory upon American culture and debate, I was particularly struck when my son (an advanced product planner for a Fortune 500 company) sent me a study which argued that as a man of 65+, I have more in common with my own great-grandfather in terms of intellectual, moral, and cultural outlook than I do with my own thirty something year old son who sent me the essay. The high-tech revolution has brought change faster than we Baby-Boomers can process. That change is underway as we speak and where it will take us no one knows. The four representative ideologies just discussed all swim in this ever-changing stream, and it is our task to preach to these swimmers.

But There Are Also Many Faithful Saints

Before going further, it is only right to acknowledge that our churches are filled with faithful saints, eager to hear God’s word and to have their minds renewed and transformed. But if people who embrace these a priori assumptions just described do attend our churches (or are already in our midst and hold to such beliefs) then a case can made for the necessity of preaching apologetically–preaching a truth claim tied to historical events. If we begin with the conviction that the Bible is the word of God, those just mentioned do not–or at least have never made the connection between the truth of God’s Word and the necessity of shaping their own thinking and doing in light of Scripture. It is our duty to preach apologetically–to somehow disrupt these faulty categories so that they may actually hear the words we speak, be confronted by their guilt before the Holy God and find that Savior who will save them from their sins and then renew their minds to see the world which God has made as it is–the very theater of life and redemption.

As we make the transition from diagnosis to treatment, it is vital to consider that in addition to our assumption that the Bible is the Word of God written, we not underestimate the power of the Holy Spirit to convict our hearers of their sin and grant them the new birth. Only God can give life to those who are dead in their sin. Only God can turns hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. That said, however, someone cannot exercise saving faith (trust in the doing and dying of Jesus) if they do not believe or do not know that the Bible is making a claim upon them through the proclamation of God’s revelation of his redemptive purposes in human history. Believing that what we are preaching is true, is a necessary if not sufficient condition for the exercise of faith.

So, What is Preaching Apologetically?

So what is preaching apologetically? Preaching apologetically is to preach with the realization that we are proclaiming a message that is true (we are making a truth claim) and that this truth claim is grounded in particular historical events–the doing and dying of Jesus. In the context just described, I think it wise to heed Francis Schaeffer’s concerns about emphasizing the truth of Christianity in preaching (and evangelism), rather than focusing upon the practical benefits of being a Christian. At this point in time, it is more important to speak of Christianity as true, rather than useful (although it certainly is).

While Schaeffer is speaking of evangelistic dialogue, much of what he says in The God Who Is There, applies in the pulpit–especially in light of my previous points. Schaeffer urges, “as we get ready to tell the person God’s answer to his or her need, we must make sure that the individual understands that we are talking about real truth, and not about something vaguely religious which seems to work psychologically.” We must push the Sheilaists in our midst to realize that they have vague religious feelings because God created them to have these feelings, and Scripture brings light to their internal darkness. Guilt is not a vague feeling, but an objective verdict in the heavenly court.

We must remind the moralistic therapeutic deists that all morality is grounded in the Imago Dei, natural law, and then codified in the law of God. The God conjured up by most millennials is nothing but a neutered idol. We must press those who confuse the Christian faith with American Civil Religion to see that Christ’s kingdom does not have a president, a constitution, a congress, or two warring political parties. The Christian faith is not subject to partisan political debate. Critical theorists must be confronted with the very universals they deny. There is much that is upstream (theologically speaking) from any particular cultural context or expression. Whatever our cultural differences, we are all the biological and federal children of Adam. It doesn‘t hurt to remind them that the tribalism so problematic in our day, is ultimately a consequence of Adam’s fall–an historical event with universal consequences.

As a way of wrapping up and introducing our topic for next time–preaching and dogmatics, another of Schaeffer’s exhortations is worth considering.

We must make sure that [people] understand that we are talking about real guilt before God, and that we are not offering [them] merely relief for [their] guilt feelings. We must make sure that we are talking to [them] about history, and that the death of Jesus was not just an ideal or symbol but a fact of space and time . . . . Until [they] understand the importance of these three things [a person] is not ready to become a Christian.[7]

Schaeffer adds, “the truth that we let in first is not a dogmatic statement of the truth of the Scriptures, but the truth of the external world and the truth of what man himself is. This is what shows him his need. The Scriptures then show him the real nature of his lostness and the answer to it. . . . This, I am convinced, is the true order for our apologetics . . . for people living under the line of despair.”[8] For Schaeffer, “the line of despair” is giving up any hope of achieving a rational and unified answer to the problem of knowledge and the meaning of life–the relationship between the one (universals) and the many (the particulars).

Those Painful Sharp Edges!

All four of the representative ideologies we discussed do indeed pull their adherents below this line, even if they do not feel such despair in the moment. But feel it they do–loneliness, isolation, angst, distrust, guilt, even while truth is determined self-referentially.

When we preach, we must speak of the external world (the created order) and that what happens in this world is real and objective (i.e., that the things recorded in the Bible are true), whether or not anyone believes them to be true or finds them to be meaningful. We push them into the sharp edges of a very real world. This means proclaiming the biblical text as true and historical, what C. S. Lewis spoke of as the “true myth,” by which Lewis meant that at first glance the biblical accounts may strike us as legendary, but are indeed grounded in things which did occur in ordinary history. Lewis fleshes this out further when he explains “the Pagan stories are God expressing Himself through the minds of poets, using such images as [the poet] found there, while Christianity is God expressing Himself through what we call 'real things.’”[9]

If the heart of the Christ faith is Paul’s assertion that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself (2 Corinthians 5:19), and that his preaching was true because Jesus has been raised bodily from the dead, then this claim ought to be clearly and deliberately reflected in our own preaching. When we preach the words of our Lord– “I am the way, the truth, and the life”–we are confronting the adherents of these ideologies with the claim Jesus has made upon them. The Christian claim must alter how they feel, the religion they affirm, their allegiances in the civil kingdom, and to a universal which they may self-consciously deny.

To preach “apologetically” means speaking of events in the bible as factually true–even taking the time to give our congregation the necessary historical background (giving dates when books of the Bible were written, identifying places discussed in them, introducing key people, especially the authors and the intended audience) and mentioning even in passing some of the challenges raised by critical scholarship which challenge the Bible’s authenticity, with short but appropriate responses.

To preach “apologetically” means telling our listeners whenever applicable that the Bible is the revelation of the Triune God, and that it is indeed the true myth, the story of God’s redemption of sinners grounded in the particular historical events of creation, fall, redemption, and recreation, the grand narrative of redemptive history.

Next time, we will continue to contend that Christianity is, at its heart, a truth claim, when we consider “preaching and dogmatics.”

__________________________________

[1] This saying is found in two of Spurgeon’s sermons: “Christ and His Co-Workers” (1886) and “The Lover of God’s Law Filled With Peace”(1888).

[2] Robert Bellah, et, al., Habits of the Heart (Oakland: University of California Press, 1985), 231, 235.

[3] See Christian Smith, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Life of American Teenagers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); and Souls in Transition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

[4] Aristotle, Aristotle’s Politics: Translation and with an Introduction, Notes, and Glossary, by Carnes Lord, 2nd ed., (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2013), 1253a.

[5] Taken from Wiki and edited

[6] Yuval Levin, The Fractured Republic (New York: Basic Books, 2016), 99.

[7] Schaeffer, The God Who is There, in Collected Works, I.138-39.

[8] Schaeffer, The God Who is There, in Collected Works, I.140-41.

[9] C. S. Lewis, Letters to Arthur Greeves (New York: McMillian Publishing Co, 1979), 977.