Southern Seminary Magazine (Vol 90.1) The Light of Truth: Apologetics in the 21st Century

the changing face of apologetics in a secular age
at worst enemies of the common good. In other words,
the scandal that Christianity faces right now is primarily
a moral scandal.
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Finally, Reformed theology is the only adequate framework
for a genuinely scriptural and kerygmatic apologetic.
Because a theistic foundation is now so far from
the society’s imagination, our seminary graduates will
likely never live in a moment when the most basic truth
claims of Christianity will be heard or understood in
anything like the way they are intended.
Sociologist and theologian Peter Berger points out that
secularization has changed the plausibility structures
for people even if they recite the same creed. Even if
someone says the Apostle’s Creed precisely as their great
grandparents had said it, they may not believe the Apostle’s
Creed in exactly the same way.
In the US, and even in evangelical life according to
Berger, secularization works internally. Rather than taking
the Christian faith as a whole package, evangelicals
typically choose which doctrines they want to believe
and which they don’t. The same person may choose to affirm
both the bodily resurrection of Christ and gay marriage.
Confessing both doctrines feels life-giving so the
jerrymandered logic used to cobble them together goes
unnoticed. After all, belief is as a matter choice.
Berger calls this the heretical imperative, and I, frankly,
think it is quite frightening. How does the Christian
pastor or apologist speak to a culture that doesn’t even
have the foundation to hear and understand a coherent
biblical framework? How do we speak to a culture that
not only has lower rates of people who say they believe in
God, but who when they do say they believe in God, give
decreasing importance to what they’re saying?
Reformed theology is the only way. In Reformed theology,
we not only begin with the sovereignty of God, but
we understand God’s sovereign grace to be the operative
principle throughout the entire system of our thinking.
We believe that the most important work is the Spirit’s
internal work, a work which is beyond cognitive realization.
We know there is no way to break through the defenses
of a rebellious heart, even with the most ingenious
argument, until something happens inside that heart,
which can only come by the sovereign power of God.
For this reason, we affirm that the preaching of the Word
of God is the primary means of grace by which God, by
the Holy Spirit, reaches into dead human hearts bringing
regeneration, quickening, illumination, awakening.
The Christian apologist certainly employs intellectual
tools to defend the Christian faith. The task of apologetics
necessarily requires the use of intellectual tools.
It necessitates our taking ideas and truth claims seriously
and giving a reason for the hope that is in us. But
ultimately, our confidence is not in our intellect but in
the power of God.
R. Albert Mohler Jr. is President of The Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary and daily host of The Briefing.
“We affirm that the preaching of the
Word of God is the primary means
of grace by which God, by the Holy
Spirit, reaches into dead human hearts
bringing regeneration, quickening,
illumination, awakening.”
8 the southern baptist theological seminary