Ever read Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell? It’s every high school student’s first introduction to apologetics. Youth pastors love it because whenever someone smart-aleck high school kid has a tough question for them, they can whip out their Josh McDowell and beat him over the head with it. McDowell’s a youth pastor, you know; he had a very practical reason for creating the book.
I like the book. Parts of it are questionable, of course; McDowell’s grasp of Aristotelean logic is shaky in a few parts; he’s awfully fond of the straw man argument, as many Christians are, and for some bizarre reason he quotes a comment by Napoleon Bonaparte more than once about Jesus. He’s pretty sure his big mound of evidence proves that Christianity and Scripture are true, and confronted with this evidence, people should just drop to their knees and accept Jesus as Lord.
I have used McDowell’s books to debate atheists. (My dad in particular.) I have never found those books successful in convincing any atheist that Jesus is Lord. Why? It’s obvious now: (1) They had their minds made up. Nothing I said, no matter how thought-provoking it was, was going to convince them otherwise. (2) My attitude stunk. I was trying too hard to win. Dale Carnegie points out that when you get argumentative with people, you automatically make them defensive; and they will not concede because they do not want to concede. Even if you somehow manage to win the debate, you’ve haven’t won your opponent over; you’ve made your opponent frustrated and angry, and sometimes more determined than ever to go out and find more solid arguments against your position.
Eventually I realized you can’t argue someone into the Kingdom of Heaven. In fact, such a person would always be in danger of being argued out of the kingdom by a better argument. Scary, huh?
Furthermore, look at our world. Most of us are in the habit of carrying several mindsets in our heads at once, and picking and choosing from them based on our current circumstances. We’ve been conditioned to do this ever since as toddlers we discovered that Daddy lets us get away with more than Mommy will. Most of them are somewhat compatible; but some are downright contradictory.
I see this in Christians especially. Ever hear of a “Sunday Christian”? How about the kids who learn creationism at church, evolution at school, and can unconsciously juggle the two contradictory ideas, even at the same moment—say, doing biology homework at a Christian youth group lock-in? And that’s just the Christian kids. At least we Christians recognize the incompatibility of our differing mindsets; the rest of the world doesn’t, and doesn’t really care. What other way is there to be?
That being the case, how seriously can people take McDowell’s evidence, good or not, if they aren’t able to find a segment of their compartmentalized lives where it applies?
Realizing this meant I realized that apologetics is useless for debating non-Christians. McDowell may think it works great—he tours the country, quotes his apologetics books, hundreds of kids come to Jesus, and his books are doing great. Naturally, he thinks apologetics is wonderful. But consider who he works with. Who comes to his lectures? I would guess, for the most part, it would be people who are on the fence about whether Christianity was true. But I’d be wrong. I went to such an event, and found that it largely consisted of Christians who want to see Josh McDowell confirm what they believe about Christianity. (There are a few token skeptics; the bulk are Christians. Many bring books for McDowell to sign later.) What sort of kid wants to talk to McDowell about the validity of Christianity? This answer is easier: A kid who attends his youth meetings. Such kids are not going to be full-bore skeptics who are looking to topple a lifelong Christian apologist; they’re going to be kids who aren’t certain about something, who need McDowell to reassure them. And he does.
And that’s the purpose of apologetics. It’s not to attack with your faith; it’s not even to defend your faith, really. It’s to reassure you that what you believe does actually have some facts behind it. It’s to remind you that Christianity isn’t wishful thinking; there was actually a guy named Jesus, and He actually did die and come back to life, and we have proof that’s good enough for even our best scientists and historians.
Use apologetics for anything more than that, and you just have frustrated apologists, frustrated opponents, and very little of the love of God left over to bring people to Christ.