Brevity

They say short blog posts are good blog posts. So far I've found this harder than I thought it would be. I apologize for the long posts. I'm the contemplative type (a la Sacred Pathways by Gary Thomas then updated in Courageous Leadership by Bill Hybels). We tend to contemplate a lot (hence the name) on something and then pour out all that we came up with at once. It's hard to condense hours of contemplation into sound bites, so bear with me folks. Hopefully they won't all be novels. bo)

ybic (Your Brother In Christ)
KevinS

Generous Apologist in training

Differences

Generous apologetics assumes that there are differences between people in belief and practice. There are several ways we could confront the differences between ourselves and others. The goal is to be able to address those differences in a meaningful yet loving fashion, so some ways are better than others.

One method to deal with differences would be to just dive right on in with the biggest point of contention. That would be like a Protestant coming up to a Roman Catholic and telling them the top ten reasons that praying to Mary is Satanic... needless to say that wouldn't go over so well. This method is great if you really love arguing with people. If, however, you'd rather work things out - possibly winning the other person over, or at least agreeably disagreeing - then you'd probably want something better.

Another method, one I think is more suited to mutual respect and working out issues, is to start not with the greatest point of contention, but instead start with what you can actually agree on and then work on that foundation towards the points of contention. In the example above, our Protestant and Catholic friends could start by agreeing that salvation is by faith in Christ, that God is actually as He presents Himself in the Bible, etc. They may just find that they have most important things in common. After that, agreeing to disagree on Mary's role in the church may be a lot easier to do, or at least they can do it respectfully. One major advantage of this method over the former is that if you start with contention, then the other people will likely shut their minds to whatever good you may have to say. But by starting on with you can agree on, perhaps they will remain open to hearing you out. And perhaps one of you may realize that their belief contradicts the foundation they've already agreed to, and hopefully then they would change.

My hope is that I will follow this latter method here. I hope to talk about several issues that are points of contention in the church today. I will try to start with common, agreeable ideas and then building on that foundation move on to the issue at hand. Hopefully then I won't alienate any readers that disagree with me. Maybe I will convince some people, maybe I won't. But if all I do is get people to really listen to the opposing side, then I will consider myself a success.

ybic (Your Brother In Christ)
KevinS

Generous Apologist in training

Generous Apologetics

Well, I suppose that if I am going to be audacious enough to title my blog “Generous Apologist” I had better dive right on in and start with what I mean by “Generous Apologist” or more generally “generous apologetics”. (Bear with me; this is my first blog so I’m learning as I go.)

Apologetics comes from a Greek work apologia (απολογία), which means “speaking in defense” so apologetics is giving a rational defense for something. Christian apologetics then is giving a rational defense for the Christian faith. The problem is that many apologists (especially us amateurs) narrowly define the faith that they are defending. You end up with Protestant apologists, Catholic apologists, Calvinist apologists, etc apologists. It’s hard to step away from our denominational/theological backgrounds and just be Christian apologists. Generous apologetics is an attempt to do that very thing.

In generous apologetics the goal isn’t to find THE right theological interpretation. It is more about finding which interpretations are possible and which are impossible, and then, perhaps, to find the one answer from the possible that is most likely to be correct. But most importantly, the generous part is that whatever our own, personal favorite interpretation may be we need to acknowledge that other possible views may exist and if someone else’s view is different from ours then they are not automatically wrong, they may just be different.

I feel the need to distinct generous apologetics from liberal theology. They may sound similar, but they are very different. In liberal theology most everything is up for interpretation. One person’s ideas are no more or less valid than another’s and we all end up agreeing to disagree on everything, which basically means we agree on nothing. In generous apologetics, there is an absolute standard (in this case the Bible) which sets boundaries on what is possible and what is not. Within those boundaries we are free to be generous with each other’s views. Outside of those bounds we don’t just agree to disagree we are forced to accept that some things are wrong.

Here’s my favorite example. If I say the word ‘red’ different people will get different ideas. One might picture fire engine red, another might picture brick red, while still another might be thinking of a bright rose red. None of these are “right” or “wrong” - all are possible within the meaning of ‘red’. If someone thinks of an orangey color, is that ‘red’? That’s a tough one. It’s hard to say really where ‘red’ ends and ‘orange’ begins. But if someone is thinking of green, then we can know for sure that they have the wrong color. We can be generous about the shade of red, but we need to take a hard line about it really being a red. Likewise, if one person wanted to believe that Jesus had blue eyes while another believed that they were brown then we can be generous about that difference. However, if one person wanted to believe that Jesus was just a good moral teacher and another that He is God Almighty, this is something we can’t afford to be generous about.

This difference is my “safe” example in that most everyone can see that these two views have a difference Jesus and can’t be the same faith. But I promise you, there are some differences out there that are less obvious and therefore sneak under people’s radar. Want to hear about those? Well then you’ll just have to keep coming back to this blog to see following installments. I’ve already gone too long for one post. I wanted to start this journey off right so I went a bit long. But now that I’ve started the journey, care to take it with me?

Take a look at the rest of my blog. Or you can go to my blog home and see all my posts.

ybic (Your Brother In Christ)
KevinS

Generous Apologist in training

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Apologetics - A rational defense of, or the systematic reasons behind some action, idea or belief.

Christian Apologetics - A rational defense of the Christian faith, protecting the doctrines/practices of Christianity.

Generous Apologetics - A rational defense of the Christian faith that recognizes that some doctrines/actions are essential and must be accepted with others are a matter of interpretation and people can agree to disagree. The idea that the essentials of Christianity forms boundaries, sometimes narrow, sometimes broad, within which we are free to believe and act as we would like and still have unity in Christ.