As an undergraduate student, I was privileged to sit under an advisor for whom Christian ethics and its application were a vibrant passion. With his careful drawl and smiling eyes, my professor slowly and gladly brought me to an understanding of ethics that would not allow me to ever leave it, as I might have left a stuffy, uninteresting class. Ethics, for the Christian, is no more optional than the scriptures that tell us who we are. In one of Dr. Verhey’s more recent works, he writes, “There is no Christian life that is not shaped somehow by Scripture. There is no Christian moral discernment that is not tied somehow to Scripture. There is no Christian ethic — no Christian medical ethic or sexual ethic or economic ethic or political ethic — that is not formed and informed somehow by Scripture.”(1) Christian communities are communities who practice ethics on some real level because we live by a particular identity, because it is who we are.
Now working within the field of Christian apologetics, one of the comments that I hear most often as a reason for rejecting Christianity is that of its followers: “Christians are so hypocritical!” “The problem I have with Christ is that his followers do him more harm than good.” “I am continually disappointed by Christians; why should I consider their religion a viable option?” “The problem I have with Christianity is Christians.” I try appealing to these voices to see the gap in their logic; I try reasoning that the abuse of a religion must never stand in the way of getting at the truth of a religion. But many will not be swayed. I leave these conversations saddened not merely because the obstacles seem immovable, but because I fully understand the grievance. The letter of recommendation written upon the countenance of professing Christians is sometimes a message that deters.
Like ethics, Christian apologetics is a daily activity writ large upon the life of Christians and Christian communities whether we realize it or not. The world hears clearly our message with and without words. The Christian goes about life confessing, commending, defending, and living the gospel, showing the world our ethic and our religion whether we speak of these things or not. Both disciplines then are inherently Christian activities, disciplines that must take seriously the responsibility our identity imparts. We are people of the Book, commanded to remember the movement of God in history, the nearness of the Spirit today, and the promise of Christ’s return in every word we speak, in every thing we do.
In the midst of this reality, Christians need not live as those who hold every answer, but as those who live with the confidence “that is ours through Christ before God” as we grow further into our conversions and the abundant life Christ describes (2 Corinthians 3:4). In this, learning to see our own conversions as a process, salvation as more than a ticket to heaven, and faith as something deeper than sheer preference or unquestionable certainty, will likewise help us see that reaching our neighbors is a lifelong activity. In the meantime, John Stackhouse argues that it is imperative for the apologist and the ethicist to take with her the right questions.(2) Instead of evangelicalism’s favorite foci — Is he saved? Does she have a personal relationship with Christ? Or, what must I do to convert them? — a far better question was entertained by the one we follow. Who shall I say is my neighbor? At this question Jesus recounted a story that left everyone asking appropriately, If the world is filled with my neighbors, how then shall I live? If every member of the body of Christ on earth lived an apologetic life that reflected the inherently Christ-like response to that question — with love, with grace, with truth and humility — perhaps we would find the distance between Athens and Jerusalem converging, bridged by the glory of the one who rose from the grave.
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1. Allen Verhey, REMEMBERING JESUS: CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY, SCRIPTURE, AND THE MORAL LIFE (Grand Rapids, Eerdman’s, 2002), 54.
2. John Stackhouse, Jr., HUMBLE APOLOGETICS: DEFENDING THE FAITH TODAY (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 84-85.
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Copyright © 2007 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. “A Slice of Infinity” is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.
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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #21570]