What is apologetics?

Christian apologetics is not about being apologetic about what we believe. It is an “apologia for the Christian faith - a presentation and defence of its claims to truth and relevance in the great market-place of ideas.” (Alister McGrath, Bridge Building, 9).

The goal of Christian apologetics is not just to present the truth (although truth is a good thing!) – it is also to show how the truth is good news for whoever is asking the question. “The chief goal of Christian apologetics is to create an intellectual and imaginative climate conducive to the birth and nurture of faith - faith in all its fulness and richness.”(McGrath, Bridge Building, 9).

This means it’s not about us. Our goal is not to be seen as clever. Our goal is not to convince ourselves – in fact someone who is trying to convince him- or her-self that Christianity is true will often fail in apologetics because they do not consider the needs of the person they are talking to. Our motive and method is love – to use questions as an opportunity to respectfully share good news with another person made and loved by God, someone who is just as in need of a saviour as we are.

Key verse for today

The one who gives an answer before he listens—

            this is foolishness and disgrace for him. (Prov. 18:13 )

>> Have a think on your own about some of the questions which you have been asked about the Christian faith.

The AC/DC model

Once we have understood the person and the question behind the question, we can begin to form a response. I like to structure my response using the AC/DC method.

As an example, I’m going to use the question “why does the Bible command genocide?”

1.    Affirm: always begin by affirming the person for asking the question, signalling that you are pleased to be wrestling with it. This involves not just saying “good question” but actually giving weight to the issue they are raising. The goal is not to be defensive or antagonistic.



If you’ve done this bit right, the person should be able to say “Yes! Finally! You are exactly the type of thoughtful person I have been looking for to talk with about this”.

“Yes, it’s a really important and challenging question – at times when I read about the violence of the Old Testament it is hard not to ask ‘God, is that you?’”

2.    Clarify: make sure you and the question asker are on the same page – ask questions if necessary to make sure you don’t jump to a conclusion about what is being asked (remember our guesses about the person, their worldview, and assumptions? Well, now is the time to check, particularly if you’re not sure about any of them). This is also an opportunity to define the issue accurately, by being explicit about where the conflict lies. This may sometimes require you to gently clarify any obvious misunderstandings or ambiguities in the question.



The most important thing to do in this step is to check that the assumptions you are going to challenge in the next step are really underlying their question.



If you’ve done your job really well the other person should be able to say “yes! I couldn’t have put the question better myself!”

“So to clarify, are you interested in how a Christian can reconcile the idea of a loving God with the idea that, for example, he commanded Joshua to kill the Canaanites in the Old Testament conquest narratives? … It does seem a lot like genocide doesn’t it? ”

3.   Disrupt: introduce information or a perspective which invites the questioner to reconsider one or more of the unspoken assumptions behind their question. The goal is not necessarily to convince them totally at this stage, but to start a dialogue about how it might be possible to see the world differently.



Pick one or two of the assumptions behind the question and show how you might see things differently.

“It’s horrific when more powerful nations use their power to destroy a weaker people out of hate or pride – as when some white colonialists slaughtered indigenous people. Thankfully God never condones, or commands, this and we’re right to oppose genocide.

But interestingly, in the conquest narrative in the book of Joshua it is actually the opposite. The more powerful nations surrounding Israel had become so corrupt that God had to intervene, using tiny Israel to punish and restrain their evil.

Israel’s mission was to disrupt the corrupt military and religious infrastructure of the nations (though no doubt civilians were killed, the language of complete decimation in Josh 6:21 etc is probably a vivid figure of speech).

Of course, if this is true it’s still deeply challenging. It depicts God who alone as our creator has the right to judge both individuals and nations, and to punish them when necessary (God reminds Israel that it is not exempt from this!). From this perspective, then, what’s wrong with genocide it that humans are appointing themselves judge over another people-group, a role that only God can have.

4.    Christ: show how Jesus resolves our questions and conflicts, and ultimately satisfies like no other worldview can.

“So can we hold our picture of loving-and-forgiving-God with this picture of judge-of-the-nations-God – one who gets passionately involved in the world, even getting his hands dirty? When I see Jesus dying for our sins on the cross, I see these two strands reconciled: the cross shows that evil and corruption is not okay, and yet God will bleed to make forgiveness for all of us possible.”

Different ways to disrupt a question

In the example above, we disrupted the question by having another look at some of the unspoken assumptions behind the question, for example:

• That genocide is bad (actually we agreed with this one!)


• That the Old Testament examples of war involve a powerful nation against a smaller one


• That the Old Testament examples of war were targeted indiscriminately at killing every last person with no military objectives


• That God’s love never involves judgment or punishment, and nobody (even God) has the right to judge a nation.

For more on this topic see Tim Escott's excellent paper - https://mountainstreet.media/2014/10/the-violence-of-god/

Music: Only You, Young Oceans: licensed through Musicbed.com.

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