J.Ustin Bailey’s Reinventing Apologetics: The Beauty of Faith in a Secular Age highlights a problem that afflicts some forms of Christian persuasion: the failure to take imagination seriously. For some Christians, apologetics is about dry-as-the-desert technical arguments – or intellectual tug-of-war to bring non-Christians into submission. Add in an evangelical philosophy hopelessly enamored with perpetual culture wars, and you have a profound problem in much of today’s Christian witness.
Bailey begins by noting that, according to philosopher Charles Taylor, we live in a world (a “social imagination”) in which everyone assumes that the ultimate answers lie within. We follow what resonates with our inner life. Therefore, the wise apologist who wants to reach a non-Christian is not interested in what is (outwardly, objectively) true, but in what (inwardly, subjectively) moves him emotionally and aesthetically. Not truth, but beauty. Not rationality, but authenticity. The key lies in imagination. We must provide space, Bailey writes, for non-Christians to “find their way to faith.”
After presenting a brief philosophy and theology of imagination, Bailey turns to novelists Marilynne Robinson (of Gilead fame) and George MacDonald (who inspired CS Lewis) as models of what such engagement would look like. They created imaginary worlds that allowed non-Christians to see through the eyes of faith. He then applies his discoveries to an apologetic method based on a threefold model of the imagination: feeling, seeing and shaping. Detection prioritizes the aesthetics of belief, emphasizing what non-Christians would find beautiful and believable. Seeing invites them to try a Christian view – a broader, “thicker” view of reality. Shape invites them to a “poetic participation” which encourages them to situate their own life projects in God’s project of redemption. By suspending the question of truth to seek beauty and imaginative resonance, Bailey argues, apologetics will appeal to those who are estranged from God but seek authenticity.
Authenticity and authority
This is a well-written and well-researched proposal for a new way of doing apologetics. Those who haven’t studied apologetics may find it slow in places, but don’t let that deter you. Bailey provides many striking illustrations and examples. And, for the most part, his argument is correct. Many conservative Christians, and apologists in particular, have been culturally tone deaf and have constituted ourselves (ourselves) as an obnoxious presence that few non-Christians are interested in engaging. But Bailey’s book is part of a growing apologetic movement that emphasizes beauty and imaginative resonance. Sound missiology seeks to contextualize the Gospel in a way that makes sense to a particular ethnic group. In this case, the target group is that of our own culture, alienated from Jesus.
That said, I have concerns. There is always the risk that contextualization will lead to a compromised message – a gospel “gone native,” paganized in translation. Bailey is well aware of these risks, but I fear that he will never fully consider the risks of contextualizing the gospel within the particular social imagination that prevails in today’s Western world. Authenticity necessarily puts the self first, judging all beliefs and lifestyles by the standard: “What is right for me? As Bailey writes, we all need to take “authentic ownership of our lives,” and the job of apologetics is to help create spacious spaces (one of his favorite words) in which non-Christians can create something. something in harmony with the beauty that God created. , in which God is somehow present, inviting them to move forward.
But what if the purpose of Scripture was that our lives not our own? What if we do not have “authentic ownership of our lives” but are instead called to turn our eyes from ourselves to God and others, whom we are to love and serve? Can we simply combine authenticity with taking up our cross and losing our life (Matthew 16:24-26)?
Bailey seeks to guard against selfishness by countering that apologists should offer non-Christians a “thicker” version of authenticity in order to expand the narcissistic horizons of “thin” authenticity. Thick seems to mean, in turn, the gift of oneself, a deep theology or one anchored in the biblical “theodrama” of the New Testament. It seems to serve as a surrogate or marker of biblical authority, but without the sharp edges that would obstruct a non-believer’s imaginative and aesthetic search for a faith that resonates with their experience.
If I were to identify a central cause of concern in Reinventing apologetics, this would be the author’s position on biblical authority. Although Bailey occasionally asserts biblical authority, it is de facto marginalized in his current methodology. He never really allows the Bible to delimit the imaginative space legitimately available to the non-Christian in his exploration. For what? Because when speaking to those seeking authenticity, beauty must be seen as separable from truth so as not to disrupt the fragile process of “feeling of faith.” In fact, Bailey denounces what he calls the “fixation on truth” of contemporary apologists.
This has specific consequences for faith. Bailey’s two exemplars of apologies, MacDonald and Robinson, denied that God would eternally punish anyone who rejected Him. They were incapable of believing in a God less generous and less merciful than they imagined. And Bailey never corrects them, as if conforming God to our imagined image of him is somehow justified. This dangerously amounts to inviting non-Christians to violate the first and second commandments and presenting this as a true life of faith. Even for the most mature Christians, the way God is described in the Bible will not always seem beautiful or good. The true journey of faith involves a spiritual struggle to conform OUR imaginations to the reality of her person and character as revealed in Scripture. Submitting one’s imagination and will to someone else is always a struggle, but Christians simply have no right to do otherwise and call this true (“authentic”) faith.
Submitting to the authority of others is anathema to the ethos of authenticity. Again, Bailey understands this, noting that we need to direct and “reframe” the quest of non-Christians as part of God’s plan, but I’m not convinced that he has really succeeded in squaring the circle. Essentially, it uses the textures and channels of authenticity (what resonates with the seeker) to move the seekers. pass And out of authenticity towards voluntary and joyful acceptance of authority and direction in life not theirs. But I’m not sure Bailey recognizes the contradiction, assuming instead that, at best, Christian faith dovetails perfectly with the aspiration for authenticity. Sometimes that’s not the case, and we need to find a way to get non-Christians to recognize that. Reinventing apologeticsgives us some precious little tips here.
Competing authenticities
Furthermore, we live in a world of multiple and competing authenticities. Simply showing the “thickness” of the Christian vision will not be enough. Tara Isabella Burton’s recent book Strange rites: new religions for a world without God explores a dazzling array of “intuitive” religions that have turned people away from traditional religions in the Internet age, with examples ranging from online fan cultures to occult and “feel-good” movements to ideologies left and right politics. All these communities are super “thick” in the imagination of their members . They resonate deeply in the minds and lives of their followers. How can we differentiate between thick and competing imaginative visions?
This is where “presuppositional” apologetics, which places the Christian faith as the foundation of all thought, provides important insights. Bailey rejects it in a footnote, calling it a form of biblical “foundationalism” focused not on rational truthfulness, like classical apologetics, but on biblical truth. This struck me as both unfair and curious, given that his own imaginative apologetics (feeling/seeing/shaping) bears a striking structural resemblance to the presupposed argument: trying out the non-Christian’s perspective, showing how it works. collapses, then invite the non-Christian. -Christian to see reality through Christian eyes.
Bailey is right. Apologetics needs imagination. But let us use it within the confines of Scripture, which alone can sort out the competing authenticities.
A few years ago, I taught a student who admitted to me that my class had convinced her that she was not a Christian. Intrigued, I asked to discuss his revelation over coffee. She told me she used to pray, and she thought this kind of behavior – practiced in one of the most atheist countries in the world (the Czech Republic), no less – set her apart as a Christian. But that changed when she took my Comparing Worldviews course, which begins with Christian theism. She learned that God is not a vague idea but a person with specific traits and desires. This did not please her at all and so she stopped considering herself a Christian.
We talked and I tried to persuade her that God exists and that it was something to celebrate. I always found this exchange strange. On the one hand, this result seemed inevitable: God is who he is, and I could not have denied that in my teaching. On the other hand, I felt like I was doing the opposite of what I should have been doing. If I had read Reinventing apologetics before these conversations, I would have spent more time exploring Why she prayed, how did it happen feel, and what resonated with her about the connection with God.
Many who read this book will feel provoked. But Bailey also gives us a lot to chew on and a lot to learn.
Ted Turnau teaches culture, religion and media at the Anglo-American University in Prague, Czech Republic. He is co-author of The Pop Culture Parent: Helping Kids Engage Their World for Christ.