Post-modern Apologetics: Return to the Source(s)

I believe that a post-modern apologetics necessitates a return to the source(s) of apologetics in the Anglo-American tradition in which we frame our discussion today.  As David mentioned in the previous post in this series, a post-modern apologetics should begin to look at a person or persons and not a proposition.  To get there we must first deconstruct our notion of apologetics in the Western, Enlightenment tradition.

First, the word "apologetics" is first mentioned in the context of defending the Christian faith within the writings of Anthony Collins.  The OED is helpful in explaining this:

1. Of the nature of a defence; vindicatory.

1649 (title) An Apologetic Declaration of the conscientious Presbyterians of the Province of London. 1724 A. COLLINS Gr. Chr. Relig. 46 Many apologetick writings of the ancient Christians. 1875 Encycl. Brit. (ed. 9) s.v. Apologetics, Augustine's..De Civitate Dei is apologetic in so far as it endeavours to show that Christianity and the church are the only ark of safety.

2. pl. or collect. sing. The defensive method of argument; often spec. The argumentative defence of Christianity.

a1733 NORTH Lives (1826) II. 156 To drop these apologetics. 1834 Penny Cycl. II. 169/2 The science of apologetics..was unknown till the attacks of the adversaries of Christianity assumed a learned and scientific character. 1882 Athenaeligum 25 Nov. 700/1 The kind of book..most rational of all in the way of Christian apologetics.

In 1724 Collins first used the word apologetick to describe the writings of the Ancient Christians.  As Hans Frei notes in The Eclipse of the Biblical Narrative, Collins was one of the theologians in Anglo-American theology to begin the great movement away from narrative interpretation toward a scientific, "rational," historical-critical interpretation of the Bible.  In doing this, the apologetic of Christianity slowly turned from the people of God and the work of the God of the Bible in our world and toward textual proofs in the Bible that rationally argued for the Christian faith.  The development of prophetical and textual propositions to argue for Christianity with, to take the second definition within the OED, "a learned and scientific character" created an apologetics that shifted away from the apologetics of the ancient Christians such as Augustine's Confessions (focusing on a person) and toward an apologetic based on contemporary philosophical and hermeneutical principles.

The time has come to question the foundation of modern Anglo-American apologetics, which is not the Church but the Enlightenment and 1700-1800 rational discourse.  Which one would you prefer: Christianity or a secular philosophical construct?

I, in my post-modern leap into radical thinking, will choose the Church (I know, shocking!).  In this return to sources, the Church is an apology for itself: we are the people of God, and no magical, err... I mean rational, proofs will argue successfully whether what we stake our faith is 100% evidentially true.  You know why?  Because that is the way it's supposed to be.  Our faith is the evidence of things unseen, things which can never be analyzed through scientific or rational discourse.  Our faith is a story, a narrative, a wonderful incarnation of Christ in this world that has continued in the incarnation of the Church and will continue until the fulfillment of Christ's kingdom.  That is our return to the Source, which is Christ.  Our apologetic should not be proofs of texts, for that is not only impossible but far too easy.  In forming proofs and propositions we disassociate the text from our lives, from our own stories.

Let our apologetic be the Church, the Body of Christ, which is our collective story.  How do we prove our story is true?  We live it.  We make the words come true.  Christianity, and Christ, are proven when the beatitudes are lived out by every Christian, when the Shema is lived out by every Christian, when our faith matches our actions.  Then it is proven!  Christianity is true when the words of Christ correspond not to the textual evidence of Christ in dusty Greek manuscripts but instead in the narrative evidence we live out everyday in love, service, and hospitality: our worshipful offering to the Author of our faith, Christ Jesus.