“EMBODYING OUR FAITH”
(Part 2)

This installment on Tim Morey’s book focuses on what what an “embodied apologetic” looks like, what it is that hinders this from happening in many churches today, and what will need to change in our thinking and outlook if we are going to pursue this approach in trying to reach those in our post-Christian culture with the gospel of Jesus.

First, an important definition that must be kept in mind throughout your reading:

apologetics: the branch of theology concerned with the defense or proof of Christianity; the explanation, defense or justification of a belief, idea, etc.


Now Tim’s comments continue:

•The early Church incarnated its message in such a way that people recognized it as truth. Though appeals to reason were an important part of early Church apologetics as well, they did not dominate evangelistic methods until much later in church history. Particularly as Enlightenment thinking took hold and empirical methodology moved to center stage as the most trustworthy way to discern what is true, the Church’s apologetic followed and become more rational and evidence based.

•There is always a temptation for the Church to stick with what is familiar and has worked in the past. (Tim cites numerous biblical and church history examples to show the challenge Christians have always faced at numerous cultural crossroads.)

We face a similar challenge in our time. It seems as if our apologetic, which has largely been shaped by modernism, has been perfected just as the rules of the game have changed. Modernism, with its idolization of reason, progress, individualism, and scientific naturalism, was originally perceived as a tremendous threat to the gospel. Yet over time, the Church responded with a new, finely reasoned apologetic that was well-suited to the challenge of the day. (In the midst of this,) the Church has grown comfortable with the modern world view. The tools necessary to construct that modern apologetic (reason, evidence, scientific method) have become so identified with evangelical Christianity that, to some, the suggestion of a different set of tools strikes the ears as something close to heresy.

•In the apologetics of modernism, we were best equipped to defend the faith against the atheist or the scientifically minded agnostic. In the postmodern context, however, the debate is rarely theism versus atheism. More likely, the existence of God is presupposed. A bigger issue might be which God and why. The question we encounter is that of religious pluralism: does any one faith have the right to claim it has the truth? The old arguments no longer hold sway.

•Many churches (particularly those who are consciously attempting to engage postmodern people) are beginning to ask what kind of apologetic will be effective in this new context. For most people, traditional apologetics become useful at a later point in the process (of evangelism) than they have in the past. Before the faith can be plausibly argued and the very good reasons to believe are accepted by the hearer, it must first be embodied over time in real people in a way that is winsome and convincing.

•One helpful way to speak of postmodernity is as a collective loss of confidence in what we are actually able to know. What has become clearer in the postmodern shift is that the modern era’s primary means of arriving at truth (through reason, logic, presentation of evidence, and scientific method) has its limitations. Reason, it would seem, is not infallible, even when grounded on beliefs we believe to be basic or foundational. (Tim offers several examples of this, especially of younger generations’ skepticism regarding truth claims.) For the typical postmodern, personal experience is a key arbiter of truth. Competing truth claims are processed on how coherent they are with other beliefs the person holds. Similarly, something is deemed to be true if it “works” or somehow has beneficial consequences. Factored into both of these approaches are the shared beliefs of that person’s immediate community. It is for this reason that traditional apologetics often seem completely lost on postmoderns.

•Skeptical people need to have those in the Church present the gospel in a way that it will be heard. We must remember that as missionaries to our culture, we have to approach people where they actually are, not where we wish them to be.


This points us all the more readily to the need for an apologetic that goes beyond rational arguments and is actively embodied in Christ’s people.

Philip Kenneson: “What our world is waiting for, and what the Church seems reluctant to offer, is not more incessant talk about objective truth, but an embodied witness that clearly demonstrates why anyone should care about any of this in the first place.”

•Three hungers seem to be particularly close to the surface in our post-Christian society: 1. a hunger for transcendence 2. a hunger for community 3. a hunger for purpose. We in the Church should find ourselves challenged by the presence of these hungers, because the gospel addresses all three. The ‘embodied apologetic’ I am fleshing out here corresponds with these hungers, as well as with the ministries of the Church. It is an apologetic that is experiential, communal, and enacted. This kind of apologetic presupposes that evangelism will most often occur as a process, rather than as a one-time event.

•EXPERIENTIAL: In the modern church, experience is suspect--risky at best and deceptive at worst. However, a Christianity that is only cerebral is also misguided. The Christian life is not meant to be an objective pursuit of orthodox doctrine but is embodied in those who follow a Person rather than a dogma.

•Jesus’ ministry was characterized by an experiential apologetic.

•The worship gathering particularly lends itself to an experiential apologetic.

•COMMUNAL: The hyper-individualism and family fragmentation of late modernity have left the postmodern generations with a great hunger to be connected meaningfully to others. The Church itself becomes a powerful apologetic as it strives to be what it is supposed to be.

•In a communal apologetic, evangelism has less to do with inviting people to events and more with inviting them into our lives. This means churched people will be encouraged to greater involvement outside the church, cultivating friendships that serve as bridges to allow others to investigate the faith community.

•ENACTED: Too often, Christianity is seen by those on the outside (and often those on the inside as well) as concerned only with believing the right things, attending church, and avoiding certain behaviors. What a contrast this is to the Kingdom announcement of Jesus!

•Our primary vehicle of an enacted apologetic are our ministries of compassion and justice. It is important to recognize that to our spiritual friends with whom we share Christ, we are not (at first) who we are, but who they think we are. Until we have shaken loose whatever stereotypes they have attached to Christians, our message will not be heard in context. Engaging in ministries of compassion set the words of Jesus in a context that mirrors the heart of Jesus and allows the hearer to see the reality of the message as it is acted out.

David Blosch: “Mission is not primarily an activity of the Church, but an attribute of God. God is a missionary God.”

•We understand that the Church is meant to carry out the mission of God, and may even be quite passionate about it. But our enthusiasm is often tempered when the mission comes too close to threatening an aspect of church life that we hold dear. On the mission field we take for granted that we must shift our methods to bring people the gospel in ways they will understand. But to think in these terms as we look at our own culture can feel quite threatening. Eddie Gibbs: “The reality is that the mission compound, which we have abandoned as a viable method in global missions, now exists in the U.S. in the form of the local church.”

•Somewhere along the line there was a split between our theology of church and our theology of mission. “Church” became the building on the corner were we worship on Sundays. “Mission” became an activity that happens somewhere else, usually by someone else. Rather than seeing the Church as missional in nature and existing for the good of the world, we came to see the Church as existing for our benefit and missions for the benefit of others. The primary concern (of the Church) becomes whether or not my needs are being met.


•If we take seriously the decline of the Church in America and our vocation as God’s missionary people, then we must begin to approach our own culture less like Sunday churchgoers and more like missionaries in a post-Christian world.

Next time, I will share Tim’s perspective on two aspects of this: contextualization and what it means to make disciples. Because cultural relevance is not optional! And discipleship is not a second-stage, elitist concept; it is synonymous with being a Christian.

Thanks for reading...