Keller Center for Apologetics: At Least Change the Name?

I tweeted over the weekend “with much due respect, and much love for Tim Keller, apologetics, as traditionally conceived, is not a strategy to engage an already post-Christendom culture. Embodied witness is.” (my twitter) This got a bit of a response on twitter, much of it over-assuming what I was (or was not) saying. So here’s just a few comments on what I was (trying to) saying.

When I say “apologetics as traditionally conceived,” I’m thinking apologetics, as once conceived within the tradition of evangelicalism, taking its cues from Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands A Verdict and Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christianity. Those books were written to convince those outside the church for the case of Christianity, even though I think they were mostly read and influential among us evangelical Christians already within the church. To me that’s good work. We should never look down our nose at the important work of building up the faith of believers.

These famous books, which sold hundreds of thousands of copies (I’m so jealous!) were based on a belief that the church and culture had a common set of assumptions. You present some evidence, in some kind of court, then you need make a verdict. But, in my opinion, this belief can no longer be assumed after the culture’s dramatic shifts from Christendom to post Christendom of the past twenty to fifty years (depending upon where you live). These books assumed a common rationality, a common set of questions, a common set of existential concerns, and even a common language that we all can understand, Christian or no Christian. I strongly contend, this no longer holds (perhaps the Bible belt south is an exception).

To the extent that the Keller center is continuing on, in any significant way, in this evangelical tradition, I am wary. BUT!!! the Keller Center does seem to be more than aware of and grappling with the notion that our culture is no longer Christendom. This seems to be the new Center’s reason for being. Listen to Tim Keller’s introduction to the Center here. The way apologetics moves for them seems to be the reverse of the church to culture direction, to instead, listening to culture and the church responding. This to me is of significant interest. This is a kind of apologetics I’m interested in.

But there are some significant hurdles here to be overcome, all of which might argue for dumping the term ‘apologetics’ entirely.

For one, Culture?

In its language, the Center talks about Culture as if it is one single monolith? They talk about culture in their promos (including Tim Keller himself) as ‘Culture’ (capital ‘C’ singular). I don’t believe we can assume any longer that there is one singular monolithic Culture in the West, nevermind the United States. We have morphed into a host of culture(s) and so instead of seeking to engage Culture (capital C, singular) we need a center that teaches us to engage cultures (lower case ‘c’, plural). We now live in sea of cultures (little c plural), not a monothic Culture.

This means churches need to be present to their specific local culture, go to the places where people are, the hurting are, where conversations are and listen to the questions being asked, the language being used, the way people think. It is out of this place we can then seek to make sense of faith and contextualize faithfully the gospel of Jesus Christ. If the Keller Center has a Culture - big C - view of engagement, it will tend towards a hegemonic approach to reason and engagement. All questions and solutions will apply equally across the cultures and this sets up a hurdle as opposed to a help to the church in engaging the cultures surrounding us. Such apologetics  may even come from that much despised privileged space of white culture (not saying it, just warning against it). All of this reveals that there may be a hurdle here in this way of talking about ‘Culture’ versus ‘cultures.’

For two, Posture?

I worry about the posture that apologetics, as traditionally conceived, trains us into. It can, if we’re not careful, think about answering questions that we do not even know if they’ve been asked yet, within our own specific culture. It’s a posture problem. We presume to know what people are asking before we have listened to them, and see how the Holy Spirit is working in people’s lives? This is bad posture.

In Hauerwas’ 2013 book Approaching The End, he had a chapter titled “Witness” (written along with Charles Pinches) where he suggests “… the Story when told in witness, does not end all arguments but rather opens up space for them to appear (maybe for the first time).” In other words, we enter our cultures always in a posture of listening and responding in mutual learning. It’s out of this space that we respond by telling our story of the gospel in our lives, The challenges and arguments flow from these places and grow us in our faith and open up space for the gospel. We do not presume to know the issues/problems that arise in each person.  As Hauerwas (And Pinches say) “…if we are to have arguments, we will need people to argue with, ones who do not begin from where we begin. Witness assumes this to be the case. (p. 46).” Witness assumes that the ones we are in dialogue with will have different questions/concerns than our own. This is all part of the posture of “being with” persons and cultures as we seek to engage culture for Christ. Hauerwas and Pinches then go on to show us how this kind of witness is illustrated through the book of Acts. I strongly recommend this chapter in Hauerwas’ book.

Apologetics, as traditionally conceived, has not had this posture of witness. And so I hope that all the contributors of the Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics will speak ethnographically about the questions of each of their cultures and speak from these places on the skills of apologetics. On the other hand, if the Keller Center presumes to know the answers before it has listened to the questions, this too will be a hurdle to be overcome.

For three, Embodied Witness?  

Any apologetics that shall engage a culture for the gospel in these times of post-Christendom, must be displayed in a person’s life, or a community’s life, as lived. It’s an old adage, that no one has ever been argued into the Kingdom. No one becomes a Christian based on a rationally argued reason. It is the compelling, often jarring, witness of how a person’s life is changed, and lived, that becomes a compelling reality that challenges another person’s life, and a culture’s injustice. This is what I fear can be lost with a center for cultural apologetics. We live in a culture that has become unequivocally turned off to the Christian faith because of the way people have lived their lives as Christians before a watching world. We have seen hypocrites, dispassionate people, even violent Christian Nationalists, act out terrible things in the name of Christ these past decades. Our own kids are walking away from church in droves because of this. Perhaps it’s not a Center for Apologetics we need for the engagement of culture, it’s a Center for Apologizing to all the people we have mistreated, all the ways we have been hypocrites, in this culture.

I’m not blaming Tim Keller for any of that BTW. He’s been stalwart at calling out the hypocrisy of Christian Nationalism and hateful coercive churches.  But if creating a Center for Apologetics allows us to take our focus off discipleship and embodied witness, then this too will be a big hurdle for engaging culture for Christ and His Kingdom

OK OK We Still Need Apologetics

I am, of course, aware of the more historic understanding of apologetics, that even dates back to the early church fathers, as offering a defense to the charges delivered against Christianity by the culture. This is apologetics done as a minority people in the culture primarily for Christians and those seeing to make sense of our faith. I think our children are in sore need of these kind of healthy discussions, especially in relation to Justice, Economics, Science, Sexuality, Gender. Let us do this kind of work for our own better understanding and living of our faith before a watching world. Let us learn how to be present, have convictions, with out violence, working to be among and allowing Jesus to work in our midst. If this is the work Tim Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics is doing, then let’s roll!!

Perhaps Dr Keller, whom I admire and respect, is aiming at all this? In that case may I recommend a slight change in name? Instead of Tim Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics .. how about Tim Keller Center for Faithful Embodied Witness.

Peace on!!

Books I’d recommend:

Stanley Hauerwas Approaching the End

Myron Penner The End of Apologetics

John Stackhouse Humble Apologetics