Youth Specialties’ journal for youth workers, creatively titled Youthworker, recently published an article by Tony Myles called “Emergent Apologetics.” Since apologetics is my specialty, I thought it might be helpful for me to provide some commentary on this piece.

 “Debating is a lost cause. Don't believe me? Let's debate about it.” This is a disaster of a statement, let alone an opening line. Apparently I simply have to accept the fact that debating is a lost cause; I’m not even allowed to think otherwise. Mr. Myles assumes his conclusion to make his point. Strike one.

“I have intentionally stayed away from modern apologetics for quite some time…Funny—who knew that people didn't like being belittled?” I find this comment rather belittling to those of us who think “modern apologetics” is effective and Biblical. He may be able to point to one or two “modern apologists” who are belittling (like Robert Morey), but for the most part we aren’t. In fact, most are warm and charitable people of God (has he met Josh McDowell, Nancy Pearcey, Greg Koukl…?). But Mr. Myles doesn’t even offer an example aside from his own abuse of apologetics. With this point he brushes away “modern apologetics” as mean and useless, without ever showing how or why it is; let alone that he never defines “modern apologetics” either. Strike two.

Mr. Myles says there’s a new “paradigm of apologetics on the horizon” that respects people and this involves redefining apologetics. For the postmodern emerging church, he sees this worked out in at least four ways:

“The (re)emergence of the story/narrative approach…Most of the time, I present this through personal stories, illustrative narratives, and biblical examples. In the end I find that it's the stories I use to "flesh out" the points that most people remember. We still need a biblical "skeleton," but without the skin it's not nearly as interesting.” I have no idea what this has to do with apologetics; this is really a point about homiletics. However, when did the Bible become un-interesting? Yes, people remember stories, but if you give them the Bible they’ll remember that too. Paul didn’t tell Timothy that Scripture and narrative are profitable; he said that Scripture is divinely inspired and profitable (2 Tim 3:26-17). Rome added tradition. Modernism added rationality. Postmodernism, and especially the emerging church, adds narrative. Apparently we’ve forgotten what the reformers tried to remind us of- Scripture (not us) changes hearts and minds towards God. Strike three. (Postmodernism doesn’t hold to modernistic assumptions of rules, so he can have all the strikes he wants.)

“The (re)emergence of originality. No longer can the same sermon be preached without care to the specific people in our context.” Once again a point about homiletics, maybe he’ll get to apologetics later. When was this ever not true? But the more important question is, why is it true? It’s true because sermons today contain personal stories of experiences that may or may not be relevant to other groups of people. The Bible, however, is relevant to every group of people regardless of culture, nationality, or personality. If sermons were comprised of Biblical teaching, this would not be an issue. But since preachers insist on adding personal narrative to the Bible, they must be mindful of the context in which they’re preaching. The better solution would be to simply teach the Bible. Strike four.

“The (re)emergence of practical hope… we must help them to see the "real side" of life through the biblical lens of Jesus. This requires us to extend ourselves in fresh ways through our preaching so that we move past the "same old, same old" and truly bear witness to the hope of Christ.” He’s still talking homiletics. I’m not sure what this even means. What is the “same old, same old” we’re suppose to move beyond? Wouldn’t it be helpful to tell me if you want me to move beyond it? Hasn’t the Gospel always been the best practical hope? So wouldn’t preaching it be the best solution? (Mark Oestreicher said questions are better than answers, so how do you like all my questions?) I can’t even give Mr. Myles a strike here since he didn’t really say anything substantive.

“The (re)emergence of biblically-based teaching… more and more people (especially students) seem to be giving greater respect to Scripture, theology, and the life of Jesus. Perhaps this admiration is why they are less interested in pop psychology and more concerned about finding an anchor of truth. The more our teaching can contain such a foundation, the more value others will ascribe to it.” Wow. This is the first time, that I can recall, reading someone in the emerging church movement admit that people are concerned about truth, Scripture, and theology. I think this is true, and so obviously true that I don’t consider it profound; but it is profound within emergent. People are actually more interested in truth than whimsical stories. I hope Mr. Myles takes this point into consideration when thinking about the others. He gets a base hit for this one.

“The opportunities to be the listening learner are earning us credibility we lost during our modern debates. Then again, is there really anything new under the sun? Perhaps we heard this once before in the ancient letters of a former debater…[quote of 1 Peter 3:15-16]” I didn’t know Peter was a “former debater.” Maybe I’m missing that page in the Bible. I don’t recall any one of the apostles praised for being a great “listener learner.” Acts is our model for evangelism; where are the “listener learners?” I wonder, if we’re doing all of this listening and learning, when are we proclaiming the simple, practical, and necessary Truths of the Gospel?

One last point to this long post- Mr. Myles’ proposals are all pragmatically motivated. Apparently grounding our apologetics or homiletics in the Bible is not the way to go- we need to work out the “postmodern sensibilities” to make sure we’re not coming off as mean or belittling. Instead of modeling ourselves after the fallen culture, my prayer is that we model our evangelism and apologetics after the inspired Word of God. “For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with pretext or greed—God is witness. Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her children. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become dear to us.” (Paul in 1 Thessalonians 2:5-8 ESV)