Finding the Overlap
I want to share a philosophy we learned in last semester’s WITT class, Apologetics & Outreach, lectured by Jerram Barrs. Throughout the semester’s lectures, Barrs referred to “building bridges” between us and people that don’t believe the Christian faith. The idea behind this is that many of those we talk to or write to in today’s post-Christian world aren’t familiar with the idea of God, or Christian morality, or the contents of the Bible, so it’s not always prudent to assume this foundational information when speaking with them. What’s more, they may consider themselves to live in a distinct world from the so-called Christian one, with a different standard of living, morality, and theory of existence. Though they may function as if this is true, it’s not. No matter how much distance people put between their universe and God’s, they still exist within the world God has made. They may believe there is nothing shared between their world and Christians’, but we cannot resign ourselves to believe that too. We, as apologists, must find the overlap and articulate it (hence, “building bridges”).
There are four principles to building a bridge we learned about:
1-Articulate What Others Believe
As apologists, we must gain an accurate understanding of what people believe or what convictions they hold so that we may be able to engage with them ourselves. This requires asking a lot of questions about what they think about the world, people, existence, etc, and responding not immediately with correction, but with gentleness and courtesy. Not everyone will have well-articulated convictions. In that case, we should seek to understand what people live for, what drives them to exist, or what they find to be important. The intent of this is to be able to present what others believe or live for back to them, in a way that isn’t offensive or demeaning, but that they can agree with (just as we would hope they would do for our beliefs).
2) Find the Overlap
When we get to know people we reach out to, we should identify something to affirm or commend within others’ beliefs or convictions that is good and/or true. We should expect to find this in one way or another as all people are made in the image of God and embody a degree of His glory (though distorted). For example, we may see generosity, concern for the well-being of children, strong moral convictions, or care for God’s creation in people that hate the very idea of God. The goal here is to look for evidence of the image and glory of God that people possess without them even knowing—evidence that they do indeed live in God’s world. This will help us focus on what is good and true in people we may vehemently disagree with. When we recognize it ourselves, we can then look for ways to point it out to the other with the intention of bridging their belief system and ours.
3) Challenge With Truth
As we identify points of overlap, it is our job to communicate that reality to those we reach out to. This isn’t formulaic as people will believe and live for many different things. One way to do this is to present a specific truth from Scripture to challenge the thinking of another. For example, clarifying a character trait of Jesus, like His humility or God the Father, like His immanence. The goal here is to rectify specific misconceptions about Christianity that we may learn are personally challenging for others. It’s also to offer truths from the Christian faith for people to consider that are specifically impactful to them. Another way to challenge with truth is to point out an inconsistency in the beliefs of another. For example, showing a Marxist that a high view of marriage has no basis in Marxism, but that it treated with reverence in Christianity. In all of this, we must be gentle and respectful, not brash or condescending. We also should try to be specific and clear, rather than share the whole truth of God or even the whole Gospel. Jesus Himself modeled this in how he spoke particular truths into the lives of those he encountered (e.g. the rich young ruler, the woman at the well, Nicodemus, Simon the Pharisee). This provides opportunities to follow up, build trust, and unpack God’s truth over time.
4) Use Appropriate Language
A challenge of speaking apologetically to others is finding language they can comprehend. People without a Christian background simply don’t know what theological terms mean. And even people that do have a Christian background may have definitions of these terms that are so tainted that there’s risk in us using them. We as Christians get very used to speaking with our own cultural vocabulary, but we must be aware of and even avoid this when speaking with people who don’t know it. Terms we take for granted like atonement, holy, justification, and even sin may be completely foreign to people. We must opt for words and concepts people can get while being careful to not distort the truth.
Building bridges is challenging. My hope is not that people (myself included) are intimidated by this approach, but that we always have it in the back of our minds to look for the overlap between us and non-believers in hopes to use it to communicate truth with them. Jesus and Paul are both excellent examples of this. I encourage others to study their examples in Acts and the Gospels. It’s true that building bridges requires great awareness, communication skills, intentionality, and knowledge of the truth. But, God will equip us for the conversations we are to have, and we can rest assured that our calling is not to save or to convince, but to carefully share, with gentleness and respect. May God prepare us for this.
I can’t recommend Barrs’ lecture series on Apologetics and Outreach enough. It provided a framework for sharing my faith that was both eye-opening and challenging. The entire series can be listened to for free via Covenant Seminary.