“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.”
1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (NIV)
How often do we find ourselves tuning out background noise? How often do we immediately shut down any attempt to change our minds? What are the reasons we put up these defensive walls around our own beliefs, worldview, and way of life? More importantly, how do we get around those barriers?
These questions are foundational to how we experience life. From the products we consume to the way we vote, people all around us are trying to break through the apathy and contempt that we have for what they are peddling. Many of us have a hair trigger on these defenses and put them up the moment we sense possible conflict. Others wait to isolate themselves until they feel their beliefs shaking under their feet. Yet it seems that most people don’t assume the person they’re talking to has the same reaction to challenges.
How many times has someone changed your mind by yelling at you through a commercial? Through a speech? From a box on a street corner? In fact, let’s make it more applicable to apologetics. How many times has someone changed your mind in your first debate with them? Second? Third?
It’s not uncommon for us to budge on a single issue after a lengthy heated debate with someone. However, the entirety of a person’s worldview is unlikely to change after one of these encounters. In fact, many times if we engage people in a way that is aggressive, condescending, rude, or just apathetic, we can contribute to these people fortifying their walls and digging into the trenches they’ve already spent their life forming.
This phenomenon has led many apologists to propose their own ways of getting around these walls in short conversations. Greg Koukl in his book Tactics lays out an effective way to, as he puts it, “place a stone in [a person’s] shoe”. The idea of this is that through a short series of innocuous, thought-provoking questions with a statement or two thrown in, you can effectively get someone thinking about what you said for the rest of the day. Koukl is quick to point out that this method might not see immediate production, as people are far from willing to admit that you have changed their mind or even acknowledge that they might be wrong.
While this method, and others like it, certainly have their time and place and can be very effective, I would propose that in the realm of apologetics, and to wider extent evangelism as a whole, would benefit greatly from increased patience and increased commitment on our part. This is by no means a novel idea- far from it. I am not the first person to claim that our evangelistic efforts would see increased production if we simply took the time to sit down and get to know the person we’re speaking to. This model is seen throughout the Bible, both Old and New Testament. Most of Jesus’ ministry was spent with him sitting around a table, eating, talking, and learning about people. If we are to be “Little Christs” as the title Christian dictates, we must learn from and emulate Jesus in every way, especially this one.
Now, how does one effectively do this? Well, I’d like to introduce you to the wonderful drink called coffee! Or tea, or ice cream, or brunch. The consumable is not the point of this, and while Coffee Shop Apologetics is the title, what I propose is dependent on the time spent with someone, not what you’re doing. (However, I do strongly encourage that activity involving food or drink of some variety.)
Before discussing the general guidelines, I think are important for Coffee Shop Apologetics, there is an underlying idea that I hope to hammer home by the end of this: the goal of apologetics is not conversion, it’s conversation. In fact, I’d argue that the goal of evangelism isn’t even conversion. If it were, Jesus would not have said “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:18b; emphasis mine) in the Great Commission. Discipleship necessitates ongoing, consistent relationship with the disciple, not a one-off conversation and a prayer.
So, how do you go about doing this effectively? As I said, I am far from the first person to discuss this matter and there are many older and wiser than me that have done so. However, I think this matter is discussed far too infrequently for a variety of reasons within the apologetics community, so I hope that the wisdom and insight I contribute to the ever-growing narrative are beneficial and may be worded in a way that resonates with you. Now for the general guidelines of engaging in beneficial, relational apologetics:
- Treat the person you’re talking with as a person, not a project. This plays out in a variety of ways, but the most obvious way to tell if you have begun viewing them as a project is if you are more concerned with convincing them that they’re wrong and you’re right than you are concerned with loving them. As Paul eloquently states at the beginning of 1 Corinthians 13, if we speak without love we are only a clanging cymbal. The moment someone suspects you are only talking to them because you have a perceived selfish goal, their walls will go up faster than you know it. If your main goal is just to convert someone (even if that goal is spiritually noble), you will likely find yourself disappointed and inadvertently hurting the person you’re talking to.
Now, this is where the coffee (or whatever) comes in. One of the best ways to build a personal relationship with someone is to eat with them. Meet up consistently, whether that’s once a month or once a week. Build it into your schedule. But don’t come to these meetups with an apologetic agenda. Let conversation flow naturally and genuinely get to know the person across from you. This means that some days you will talk with them about Jesus and the evidence supporting the Christian faith for hours while some days you’ll never even bring up apologetics. Apologetics should not be the center of your relationship with a person. Finally, your relationship shouldn’t end after conversion. Continue meeting with them and discipling them. - Be intellectually honest. The most powerful words you can say in some situations are “I don’t know”. If you genuinely do not have an answer to a question, tell them. Don’t try to make up an answer or hack your way through ignorance to get to a feigned response. If you don’t know something, say it but always follow it up with something along the lines of “let’s figure that out together”. Similarly, intellectual honesty requires you to agree with points they make. Don’t automatically dismiss what they’re saying simply because it comes from another worldview. Once again, don’t act like you agree with them when you don’t. This forces you to provide thoughtful answers that take time to construct and think through.
- Silence and pauses are good; don’t feel the need to have constant conversation. Conversations should feel natural. If you’re forcing answers, questions, or general comments because there’s a moment of silence, a few things can happen, and rarely is it good. First, you can come across as aggressive, which causes those defenses to go up. Second, you remove the time they have to think about what you’ve just said. This is vital to the process of changing someone’s mind. If you don’t give them time to think, they lose the opportunity to evaluate the validity of what you said and what they believe. Third, you limit their opportunity to expand on what they said or clarify points. This falls into the intellectual honesty category as well. If you start attacking a claim that you misunderstood or only partially understood, your argument may not actually be effective. Don’t be afraid of silence or pauses. It’s in these moments that the weight of your words and the Holy Spirit work.
- Grace and love should be your first response to everything. Don’t get so caught up in proving what you know that you miss the point of a question. Don’t let your excitement about a topic blind you to the hurt that underlies it. Don’t be so quick to answer a question that you don’t acknowledge the motivation for the question. If they get upset with you, don’t respond in kind. How you act in moments like this may be the defining moment of your relationship with them and be more influential in their journey to Christ than any argument you make.
These guidelines are by no means exhaustive, but I think these four provide a solid framework for productive and positive experiences. At the heart of it all, it’s important to remember that our best testimony is how we love as Christians. There is no silver bullet argument. There is no surefire way to bring someone to the feet of Jesus. There is no 12-step process to bring someone from atheist to fully devoted Christian. Everyone is different and if you don’t take the time to know them on a personal level, you won’t be able to effectively minister to them.
1 would like to end with these reminders. Treating apologetics as a courtroom defense is appropriate at times but is rarely effective in one-on-one conversations. Truth needs no defense; it simply needs illumination. Conversion is never the end of a relationship, it’s always the beginning. And finally, apologetics isn’t about conversion; it’s about conversation. It isn’t about indoctrination; it’s about illumination. It isn’t about debate; it’s about responding graciously to doubt.
Joshua Hack 7/28/22
BS Molecular & Cellular Biology, BA Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, President University of Arizona Ratio Christi
