America is increasingly a mission field in its own right.  Just as missionaries have to learn the language of the natives before they can present the Gospel effectively, so too do we need to do the same in America.  This does not mean (per some trends in apologetics today) adopting the ‘language’ and methodologies wholesale.  For example, some aspects of post-modernism provide legitimate insights into the nature of reality.  However, much of post-modernism needs to be rejected as rubbish.   Nonetheless, if we want to communicate with a Pomo person, we have to be able to speak their language, presenting truth in their context, without necessarily accepting as truth that context.

Fiction and narrative in general are effective measures for presenting ideas that would otherwise be incomprehensible to someone or, if presented explicitly, would be rejected.  Unfortunately, the use of narrative as means to transmit ideas is left in large part to secularists and nonChristians.   In my view, this needs to change, if only because it is increasingly becoming the only way to present the Gospel or Christian ideas to people in a way that they won’t reject at the start.

To read more about my views you can browse this blog, beginning with these links:

Literary apologetics the key to turning the Tide.

Text of a Presentation I gave on the need for apologetics in arts and literature.

Recently ChristianityToday had an excellent article on the use of science fiction to communicate a distinctly secular and atheistic world view.  If you are a Christian that cares for the state of the Church today and our modern challenge, you should read the article.

The article correctly says:

… viewers don’t leave movies such as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Hancock, X-Men, and Contact—or television programs such as The X-Files or Heroes—scratching their heads in confusion. We are intrigued, but not surprised. Why? Because stories of advanced extraterrestrials, ancient human-alien contact, superior intelligences roaming the universe, and emerging super-races have grown familiar through repeated exposure. Thanks to the longstanding efforts of a wide range of artists, popular writers, and even scientists, we immediately recognize intelligent aliens and advanced humans. We now see space and the future as sources of hope.

One of the things that I’ve noted (see this blog entry on Heroes and Philip Pullman) is that the modern method is to denounce anything we might call supernatural as nonsense in one breath, and in the other breath re-issue the same phenomena but provide a naturalistic explanation for it.   Heroes is a great case in point, as most of the ‘heroes’ have powers that, if we ever met them in real life, we’d instantly conclude were supernatural.  But Heroes prepares the way for 2 Thess. 2:9-10 in that it provides a ‘plausible’ explanation for how even the miraculous is merely natural.  (In my discussions with atheists, no evidence for natural explanations is necessary- plausibility is sufficient.  See, for eg., abiogenesis, and Dawkins hemming and hawing at the end of Ben Stein’s Expelled).

Another case in point is Carl Sagan’s Contact, where scientists are able to scientifically detect intelligent design.  We are told today that this is impossible;  the implications involved in conceding even the mere possibility of reliably detecting design are too frightening to be allowed by our ‘methodological’ naturalists.  So, Contact would not have been written today, but even so it served to show how ‘advanced’ information is no evidence at all for God, and can be- and should be- interpreted in natural terms.  With this method in mind, it is no wonder that atheists conclude there is no God.  They are merely ahead of the pop culture trend, prepared to interpret all facts in naturalistic terms and then smug in their conclusion that no facts exist to support supernaturalism.

So how does one combat this?

Christians are not losing on facts, argument, logic, evidence, and reasoning.   We are losing because we are not effectively transmitting the faith to the next generations and probably haven’t been doing so for some time.  With more nonChristians in society, logically enough, this is manifested in pop culture.  Fixing how we pass on the faith is one of the most important things Christians must do.  With more informed and grounded Christians in pop culture, this will have its logical effect.

The second thing is we have to fight fire with fire.   The author of the ChristianityToday article doesn’t make this point and I am at a loss as to why not.  He does say, correctly:

“…the church needs to broaden its apologetics work to include serious analysis of and response to popular culture, now our most potent form of religious persuasion. Frankly, we have given these narratives a free pass in our eagerness to appear culturally savvy. But we must be clear: Arguments against Christianity and in support of rival worldviews now arrive daily as embedded components of visual and written fiction. Pop-culture fiction, not academic nonfiction, is now the cutting edge of public discourse on spirituality.

You might expect the author to draw the conclusion that we too should be using ‘pop-culture fiction’ but surprisingly he doesn’t.  Perhaps an oversight?  Or perhaps I missed it.

At any rate, our apologetics cannot be confined merely to ‘serious analysis and response to popular culture’ at the level of discernment and confrontation.  Our response must be in kind.

This is why I have been changing the direction of my own apologetics ministry.  As much as I’d love to keep banging heads with atheists and secular humanistists, that is not where the battle is being won, even if that is often where it is fought.  I don’t know if my own Birth Pangs series succeeds on this score at the level of the greats like Lewis and Tolkien but it is at least an unashamed attempt to convey Christian attitudes and beliefs and perspectives in a format that is more palatable to the people of today.

It is also why my ministry is hosting a Christian writing contest.  We need to encourage Christians to write, and write well.  We need them in our newspaper conference rooms, as producers on TV and cable networks, writing sitcoms, in Hollywood, and as always, as authors of books competing against great secular authors.

If you would like to join me in this effort, I invite you to contact me.  I don’t believe it is too late (yet) to make a difference.

But these searchers want to know if Christians should promote the belief in the commercialized myth of Santa.

Personally, I would answer as ‘No.  No, you should not.’  The reasons are varied.  For one thing, I think that the general rule is that parents ought to tell their children the truth about reality.  Believe it or not, but I have actually encountered atheists- in real life and online- who indicated that finding out that ‘Santa isn’t real’ undermined their certainty in the existence of God and in Jesus’ resurrection.  You don’t have to believe it and you don’t have to agree with these atheists in the extension of their logic, but nontheless, there they are.

As indicated in the previous blog entry (linked above) I think that there is value, however, in pointing out that there was in fact a historical person behind the Santa story.  I expect that this will have the opposite effect of what I just described, where young people will see that their parents tell the truth, but also that just because something is old doesn’t mean it isn’t true or valid.   Though no one when pressed admits that they are dismissing something (ie, like the idea that Jesus even existed) merely because the data is old, in actual attitude that is precisely why they are dismissing it.  Examples of this are a dime a dozen.  By explaining that can distinguish between fact and fantasy from the historical record most of the time, one puts themselves in a position where they can lay important groundwork for trusting the New Testament accounts.

You might say that it seems a little ridiculous to be worried about such things when we’re just talking about something as innocent as Santa Claus but the facts are what they are.

Ironically, though in my household I adopted this position in regards to my own children, my oldest child has rebelled against my patient explanations and insists, nonetheless, that Santa Claus- the commercialized myth- exists.  He also felt that it was important that I go along with it- and to some degree we are.  When he confronted me about it (and yes, he did confront me, at the ripe old age of six) I insisted that he at least have some reasons.  He promptly produced his reasons and in my opinion that’s good enough for now.  Ie, it is not ‘blind faith.’

So, you see that despite my own counsel I’ve found that in my household it had to be toned down a little bit.  But I think this is telling, as well.  The fact is that humans love Myth, they love the fantastic, and they eagerly wish that there was a flying gift giving Santa Claus- as well as pixies, faeries, and superheroes with superpowers.   This is an indication about the true nature of humanity, to be repressed at our own peril.  In fact, I think its safe to say that the natural tendency is to believe in the fantastic and it requires persistent stomping by adult cynics to get rid of- if it can be gotten rid of at all, which I am not convinced is possible.  Even atheists love Myth, so much so that besides enjoying many of the great myths of our time… Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, Dune, etc, they’ve created a few of their own.

Understanding this is why I haven’t berated my son for continuing to believe ‘in Santa Claus.’

Anyway, the upshot of it all is that whatever you as a Christian father or mother do, you should understand that what you do will have consequences and you should be strategic about it.  Don’t assume it is just ‘innocent’ and be prepared to anticipate the consequences of which ever direction you go.

As my World Religions prof said in college, a ‘Myth’ is no more than a story that some people think is true.  The most fulfilling stories are not only the ones that are true, but the ones that are true and deeply satisfy our created nature.

It is also useful as a stalling tactic while I continue to work on other projects.

Because of the length of this presentation (9 pages in Word, single spaced), I have also made it available in PDF so that you can download and print it. It is important to note that this is only the first half of the presentation. The second half is not available in text. I may at some point make it available in audio.

Also, my graduation speech “The Fellowship of the King” came up during the Q+A section. You can find it here, in full text and Youtube: http://sntjohnny.com/front/the-fellowship-of-the-king-graduation-speech-2005/217.html

March 10^th, 2008. Presentation by Anthony Horvath to the Philosophy Club at Concordia University Wisconsin. Copyright 2008, All Rights Reserved.

It is an honor and a pleasure to be here today. I have been asked to speak on apologetics through the arts, such as literature and music or in other words the promotion of Christianity through the fruits of the creative mind. In order to understand where I’m coming from it will be helpful to give a little bit of background.

I grew up going to a Lutheran grade school and high school and went to college- this college, in fact- with the intent to become a pastor. I enrolled in the pastoral ministry program and promptly became an atheist. Normally they want your pastors to believe in God so this was a real problem. A short time into my second semester I was a Christian again but under new terms. I really understood what I believed and why I believed it. I also realized that I didn’t want to be a pastor anymore but rather someone who would help people who had been in a situation like my own. I stayed in the pastoral ministry program because I was enjoyed theology and such, which probably wasn’t the best career move. It did allow me to finally get some teaching positions. I taught a year of 9^th and 10^th grade religion in Minnesota and then 7^th, 8^th, 9^th, 10^th, and 12^th grade religion in Rockford Illinois, where I also taught Biblical Greek and philosophy and Christian apologetics at a local Lutheran bible college.

I then moved to Wisconsin where I was the Director for Parish Ministries- sort of a glorified DCE position- for three years. In the meantime, in the midst of my professional church work career, I was engaging in debate with atheists, mormons, and the occasional jehovah witness on various online forums. I am now a stay at home dad, an author, a speaker, and still an apologist, but now apologetics is not what I do in my spare time but is my main endeavor.

Now, the interesting thing is that over the last 5 to 6 years my perspective on apologetics has changed. I already had a deep disappointment that the church and my Christian education had failed to equip me with even the basics of the evidences for Christianity but my focus was firmly on the nonChristian, usually the one positively hostile to Christianity. But I started to notice that most of the nonChristians I was interacting with had also grown up in the church. In many cases, their knowledge of Christianity was as bad as mine had been and in many cases much worse.

I realized that the church itself was generating nonbelievers by setting people up for disappointment and disillusionment. Aren’t we all aware of Christians who believe that it is ‘all about faith’ and if you have questions or express doubt of any kind that is akin to the unforgivable sin? This attitude was one part of the problem. Another part of the problem was institutional. We are still in most places transmitting the faith the same way today as it was transmitted fifty and a hundred years ago if not longer. In past generations, however, the Christian church was essentially the only game in town. There wasn’t much need to be concerned that much was being left unsaid because inertia was behind the Christian church.

That is clearly not the case anymore. Today, the competition in the marketplace of ideas is fierce and there are many contenders. In fact, there are so many contenders that relativism of various sorts is flourishing. With so many different claims to truth out there surely it means that none of us could possibly assert that any one of them might actually be true. What is true for you might not be true for me. Another response has been to approach truth claims like a smorgasboard, or a buffet, picking and choosing the things that seem right to you and with an eye to the only absolute virtue remaining- tolerance- allowing others to do the same.

Sources for information have diversified as well. No longer does the inquisitive 13 year old consider his pastor or youth worker to be the first and most obvious place to learn about God. Today, the Internet holds that distinction. On the Internet, of course, any and all voices are heard and can be found quickly and easily. How well can a 13 year old evaluate truth claims, you wonder? How well does anybody in the climate we’re in today?

One solution would be to call for the destruction of all computers and the Internet, beginning with the Christian church, I suppose, but that doesn’t seem very realistic to me. Even if it was doable, I’m not even sure we’d want to. As a solution I think it would have limited effect and value and would probably make matters worse. The best solution seems to me to get out and compete and show that Christianity is up to the challenge.

Now, that brings us closer to the topic at hand but I still need to share more about how my perspective has changed over the last half decade. On the one hand, I have discovered that many people who fall away from the Christian faith fall away for all the wrong reasons- and I think I myself belonged in that category- and on the other hand I think the church itself bears some of the blame for that by being slow to realize that the situation had changed and adapted accordingly.

To add to this, I have also observed how by and large people simply are not equipped to be persuaded by evidence and argument in the first place. At least, they are not built as it seems that they were in the past. This is not a new reality. Dorothy Sayers and CS Lewis are two Christian luminaries who complained about this fact. Both complained about how there was a time when one came to the view that certain propositions were correct representations of reality and changed their lives to conform to their beliefs while in their time, and in our own day, it was nothing to have people who believed any number of things- mutually contradictory ones even- and not care at all.

Sayers found herself representing Christianity only to be accused of invoking her own novel interpretations about what Christianity was about. Even the atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote that robust definitions of Christianity were a thing of the past so that before he could give his explanation for why he wasn’t a Christian he needed to offer a definition first. Incidentally, ironically Russell didn’t make use of the robust definition but rather his own view on the essentials of the Christian religion.

It would be an interesting discussion on its own to talk about why some of us, myself included, actually are persuaded by evidence and argument and that conversation is one worth having at some point. For now, though, it is better to stay on the relevant observation that by and large for as much as people talk about wanting to know what truth is when it gets down to it they feel their way along and do a fair bit of picking and choosing. What does seem to move people is story.

Now, this isn’t a very controversial observation. The controversy might begin when we begin asking ourselves how we are going to adapt- or even if we’re going to adapt- to this reality. The prominence of post-modern thinking (if it can be called that) in the last few decades is certainly well known. Already there are Christians out there who have taken the approach that the United States is a mission field of sorts and like other mission fields we need to be aware of the unique cultural sensitivities we are presented with here. That means packaging the Christian faith into a story form, presenting a meta narrative that hopefully appeals to the underlying desire for something bigger, powerful, dramatic, that resides in each of us and here in America seems to be craving and receiving most of the attention.

We can point to the rise of the Emergent church as an example of this way of thinking. The apparent successes of the Emergent church can’t be denied. They’ve sold a lot of books and garnered a lot of attention and a lot of people are flocking to their buildings. We must admit to ourselves that there is something to the whole movement and we’ll return to that before we are done.

The idea that the US is a mission field isn’t something I object to. I absolutely agree. Nor do I object to observing that we may find it to be wise that we’d want to speak in the language that the natives understand within the cultural context in which they move and breathe. It is important to remember, however, that missionaries are advised to understand the language and culture but that doesn’t mean that they are encouraged to accept any and all tradition, ritual, or way of thinking that they are presented with. If an African tribe engages in human sacrifice the missionary is not called to participate and even if there are certain cultural matters that we have no right to judge because they are merely different, the Christian missionary understands that there are some that are positively evil and wicked and ought not be tolerated in any culture.

So, even though we find ourself in a culture that is drenched and saturated in post-modernism and relativism it doesn’t follow that we can adapt ourself uncritically to that culture. This is something that seems to be a major flaw in the Emergent church. On the other hand, it also doesn’t follow that there isn’t anything that we can learn from our culture. Things succeed because they resonate in some way with our experience of reality as humans. If you believe as I do that God created us in his image and that anything good, really good, comes from him, the source of all good, then it follows that when we identify things that resonate with us we might be on to something. It may be something that we can’t embrace in its presented form but it might be something that we can still find room in our theology and practice to embrace in some other form.

I would also argue that according to Christian theology there isn’t any good thing that should be abandoned to others. If there is something actually good in another world view or system or culture then it certainly belongs to us, heirs as we are to the kingdom of God.

I believe over the last three or centuries we’ve seen exactly that: an abandonment. During the enlightenment, for example, we saw the secularization of the arts and the life of the mind. Sacred art was the norm but then as intellectuals and artists alike became more secular it wasn’t merely that secular art became more common. Christian artists themselves became scarce. While there was a time when the arts were subsidized by the Church, today those Christians with artistic inclinations fend for themselves in the marketplace. Outside of the Christian university, the Christian church is most likely going to fund a narrow range of skills, strengths, and passions. For example, if you’re a pastor or a teacher or an administrator, or perhaps an organist and choir director, you will find that there is at least some money to back you. If you are a painter, an author, a Christian music band, or have a passion for some other more creative expression of the Christian faith, you’re largely on your own. If you’re lucky, there will be a publishing house or label that will pick you up but over the last thirty years or so we’ve seen that even Christian publishers and music labels serve other masters these days, having in many cases been bought up by secular companies and the like.

This isn’t to say that we don’t need to our pastors and teachers and it certainly doesn’t mean that we ought not pay them. What I am getting at is that we are in a time in our country where the people we’re ministering to are most open to being evangelized to by those willing to engage them via story, through image, through music. When the US military needs to fight in places in the world that speak Farsi, they don’t stop employing generals and supply managers. They do begin employing and training up those that speak Farsi. They see a need and they take steps to accommodate that need. The Church has such a need but it has been slow even to acknowledge it, let alone take steps to address it.

I am an author not a musician or a painter so that is the perspective that I’ll be speaking from. I suppose a musician or a painter could expound on how society is currently geared towards receiving their message and it might differ or dovetail with what I’m saying. As an author, however, I can identify in the current culture some very substantial elements that fit into storytelling. Namely, the rise of post-modernism has reminded us of a very important truth about the nature of humanity. We love story. There is something about it that really, honestly moves us.

Story as we understand it is a somewhat new phenomena. Prior to the printing press, the written story was rare indeed. If you were going to put something down on paper it wasn’t going to be something as inconsequential as story, at least not usually. Oral history and storytelling of course was very common and the traveling bard a well known fixture of ancient times. Even with the advent of the printing press it wasn’t until later when publishers were producing romance novels and cheap paperbacks, capitalizing on the fact that not merely do people resonate with Story, even a crappy story can attract attention and dollars.

The relatively new medium of film has taken matters even further. I find it overwhelmingly interesting that Hollywood has figured out the power of Story even before the Christian church has. In fact, they’ve got it down to a science. How many movies are merely reworkings of tried and tested themes? And we aren’t even usually all that insulted when the boy meets girl story is presented in yet another movie. The action adventure story is basically the same. Real innovative movies are few and far between. It is worth noting that Hollywood is in it for the money and they’re inclined to put their money in the places where they think they’re going to get a good return on their money. In other words, while relativism seems to carry the day, there are certain themes that resonate across the board. Hollywood knows it, knows what those themes are, and exploits it for financial gain. It is not uncommon to find a movie with religious themes and even content somewhat supportive of Christian ideals. In some cases they even seem to get it pretty well right, such as a movie like Bruce Almighty. In other cases, not so well. None of us should be fooled, however. Hollywood doesn’t have any interest in promoting solid Christian content. They’ll present it if it has a good chance of adding to their bottom line but if they can make money in some other way, say, a movie like the Da Vinci Code that aims to undermine the Christian faith, they have no objections.

There is no doubt in my mind that quality movies expressing an outlook favorable to Christian teachings would go a long way in helping to transform the culture, though poorly made movies (and books, for that matter) will only serve to marginalize the Christian community. But can you imagine a major Christian denomination sitting down to spend millions and millions of dollars on a big budget blockbuster movie that is thoroughly Christian in its world view? That might seem like the last place to put our hard earned dollars when you’ve got pastors and teachers hovering just above the poverty line and yet perhaps a series of such movies would actually serve to prepare a huge number of people to be receptive to what the pastors and teachers have to say. Not that we want to always think in these terms, but you might even say that such a campaign might put more people in the pews which would hopefully bring more money in to pay the traditional church workers a higher salary.

That is a somewhat crass way of looking at things because after all in principle and in theory what we’re really interested in is the salvation of souls.

What I’m driving at in all of this is that it is my conviction that Christianity not only can be expressed powerfully in story but that it doesn’t even need to be adapted for that purpose. The doctrines of Christianity are extremely evocative in their own right and if we add to that and actually assert that they are true, well then! That is something really remarkable! That is earth shattering.

Let me give a very simple example. On the one hand we can express the doctrine of incarnation and fight back and forth about this nuance or that until we finally come to the orthodox position. We put it into a creed and we leave it there and use it as a litmus test to determine who is a Christian and who is not. But what if it is more then that? What if it is actually true? What if the teaching that God became man, really became man, is really true? What if it is not merely a particular doctrine of our particular religion that this man, Jesus, who was also perfectly God, died on a cross but also rose from the grave, but an actual event in history? That changes everything. This is a story worth telling, is it not?

Let me continue. Imagine how the story might run… humans live out their daily existence in tedium. Still, for many people, something just doesn’t seem right. There is something about our experience of reality that drives us to long for more… in fact, most of us intuitively think there is more. But what is that more? Then, one day a prophet emerges. He says that he can tell you if you want to know but you have to have an open heart. A choice is made, and sure enough the illusions and delusions about reality fade away and it is discovered there is a whole other realm, a spiritual realm, if you will, with good and bad fighting it out. The battle seems hopeless with the outcome almost certainly ending with the human race in blissful ignorance of their own pitiful plight. But they have hope, those who fight this battle of righteousness because there is a prophecy about one who will come who is above and beyond the world and who will overcome it. Behold! The New Man arrives. He is killed, but he rises with a new body and new powers and now the dark enemy is on the run.

A very interesting story line to be sure and most of you I think will recognize it as the general outline of the first movie of the Matrix series. The dying and rising God motif, with twists here and there, is in fact one that powerfully moves the human soul. But here comes the critical point: In Christianity we don’t merely believe that we have another version of the motif played out, our own preferred myth, rather we believe we have the definitive expression of the myth as real history. A real man claiming to be God who did real miracles in a real place at a real time surrounded by other real people who really died and really did rise from the dead, defeating death and the devil and promising to return.

It makes a fine story but don’t we usually mean by ‘story’ something that is probably not true that has the main purpose of entertaining us? Christianity has an interesting approach here: it does not diminish or discredit the power of story but fulfills Story, and myth, much as Jesus did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it. The book of Hebrews serves as an evocative demonstration of the methodology of the Divine Author. The law was real, compelling, binding, and yet it is a shadow of bigger and better things eventually revealed as Jesus coursed through the Divine narrative. The Psalms call us to delight in the law of Moses and we are not asked to set aside that delight but to understand it anew in a much bigger context. I would suggest that this process of not abolishing but fulfilling and transforming is one of God’s favorite narrative devices.

You see, then, that the post-modern emphasis on story and narrative is not a recent innovation at all but rather something that has been pre-figured in numerous times, places, and cultures. When leisure and resources permitted it, the human engaged in story. If there is anything new about our current expression of the power of story it is that technology has allowed ourselves to become saturated in story, so much so in fact, that even crappy stories can be told and are told and can be picked up for a dollar at the grocery store.

All of this has been said to help you understand why I believe that the artist immersed in orthodox Christian thought is uniquely placed to engage our culture. Many people perceive the Christian Gospel to be sterile dogma but if what I’m saying is true, there is nothing sterile about it, except perhaps its presentation and expression by Christians to each other and to the world.

It is no coincidence that one of the greatest apologists of the last century was also an author. CS Lewis wrote his non-fiction, of course, but we can all famously point to the Chronicles of Narnia as one of his deliberate attempts to promote the Christian faith… pre-evangelism, if you please. Then of course we can add The Screwtape Letters, the Space Trilogy, and the Great Divorce. He was a man who wrote his fiction knowing the power of fiction and possessing a mind that was fully saturated with the Christian world view. And do people find his stories boring? Not in the slightest. NonChristians, Philip Pullman excepted, are even willing to enjoy Lewis’s fiction.

A lesser known apologist but confidant of CS Lewis was Dorothy Sayers. According to the foreword of a collection of her essays that I have brought along, “The Whimsical Christian” it reads:

She was slender as a young girl, stout as an adult, and tall enough to fill GK Chesterton’s robes as president of the Detection Club- and he was six feet from crown to ground and four feet around the middle. She could sing, and her voice in conversation could be like a high wind, according to CS Lewis; no small wind himself, he ascribed the tone to her keen mind and extraordinary zest. She liked parties, and when the women withdrew from the room to discuss their ailments, she continued to converse with the men on the great theological and philosophical issues. She smoked and drank in the manner of the best-known Christian apologists of the century.

I don’t know about you, but I would have liked to have gone to the same parties as Dorothy Sayers! Sayers, was, like Lewis an author. She was popular and well known, as the quote hints, for her detective stories and she had a series of plays on Jesus that was her own attempt to use the arts to promote orthodox Christianity.

In the collection of essays I have mentioned, there is one particular essay called “The Dogma is the Drama.” It makes the point that if anyone bothered to understand what Christianity really maintains at the very least no one would find it boring or uninspiring. This is a point I agree with her on. What she doesn’t address and which I would have liked to have heard is exactly why Christianity does appear to be boring and what we can do about it. The ‘what we can do about it’ at least is something I’ll be getting to.

Before I move on, I would like to remind you that Lewis and Sayers rubbed shoulders with Tolkien and other novelists, as well. I don’t think we can call it a coincidence that so much effective promotion of Christianity and its world view and ethics has been achieved by those who not merely submitted essays but also stories. In fact, I would be remiss if I didn’t call attention to another name that was in the above quote, GK Chesterton. About five years ago I recommended to an atheist friend Chesterton’s book “Orthodoxy” which was quite formative for me. He is from England, as Chesterton was, and his response was: “The author of the detective novels?” Perhaps we detect a pattern, a correlation between effective apologists and popular story telling?

If there is such a correlation, then our apologetic and evangelism programs might want to take this into account and see what can be done and what should be done and how important it is that decision makers in the church don’t merely pass over this apparent correlation but probe it deeply and take action that reflects the underlying truths and principles that lies underneath it.

What do I mean? I trust that most of us in this room have been exposed to evangelism programs in their churches at one time or another. You have the proclamation of the Gospel, of course, but there are usually certain preliminary steps that involve befriending someone, perhaps, or answering their objections about the Bible or Christianity, or in other words trying to prepare the ground so that the word of the Gospel will find good soil. In some programs you will have the proclamation of the Gospel alone. This might be the door to door canvas, the guy on the street with a bullhorn, the four step plan to be saved, etc. In fact, as an aside, as far as apologetics goes, some even find that it is antithetical to the promotion of the Gospel, the reasoning being that apologetics appeals to reason which is fallen and corrupted and could never be a vehicle by which a person might be saved. You’re better off just proclaiming the word, and after all, God’s word never returns without achieving its purpose, right?

(we’ll set aside the fact that reception of the Word presupposes reason and rationality and would seemingly preclude the existence- or at least God’s decision not to use- some mystical spiritual organ where the Holy Spirit is received). Don’t get me started on that!

No, what I want to suggest is that for many people hearing the Gospel, whether they’ve had their intellectual objections responded to or not, or whether or not they’ve been befriended or not, the Good News doesn’t strike them as Good News at all. Sure, there is that whole rescue from sin, death, the devil, and hell, but to what exactly? Eternal life? But what kind of life? To heaven? When many people think of heaven they think of clouds and choirs and sitting in a church pew for eternity and actually LIKING it. No offense, they might say, but to them praising God evermore singing insipid praise songs or dusty hymns of the reformation just isn’t their bag. They might say that your message of impending doom and punishment in hell sure does sound pretty bad but your message about salvation is not exactly attractive, either.

This is a good example of a situation where I believe that the Christian poet can be of assistance. It is helpful to remind ourselves that our most beautiful images of eternal life come to us in the book of Revelation but they are… let us be clear… images. After the fires burn it all away and there is a new heaven and a new earth, God will live among us on the new earth in the new Jerusalem. In other words, for those who were intimately familiar with the old Jerusalem the imagery would make quite a bit of sense and would be quite compelling. It was a day when roads were dirty and dusty and in comparison a street of ‘pure gold, like transparent glass’ really communicated something. They had city walls, and city gates, and things of this sort which today of course we don’t appreciate the value of- at least not in our society so much.

If John lived in the 20^th century, in New York, we can bet that the imagery would have been different. Like, for example the rats were actually friendly, clean, and tasty. You get the idea. What would have charged the Jew of the first century, familiar as he was with a long series of oppressions by foreign armies and ravaging bandits, doesn’t have quite the same ring for those in our time and place. Still, there are principles that John was trying to communicate that remain true even if the pictures used to communicate them today might be different. A poet who knows those principles can dig deep to cast a vision of heaven that is orthodox but compelling for 20^th century Man.

I would argue that a re-imagining of heaven is a project of huge importance that ought to be undertaken just as soon as possible.

Another example where the poet can be of service concerns another area where the offered gift doesn’t seem very interesting. I spoke of those who find some presentations of heaven to be positively hellish, well, there are some who present the sanctified life as boring, sanitized, and sterile. This is due, I think, to the easy emphasis by the Christian church on certain moral issues at the expense of other important moral issues. Here again the great apologists of the last century had much to say. I will submit again Dorothy Sayer’s who has an essay called “The Other Six Deadly Sins.” The point is that sexual transgressions is not the only area where the Christian church has historically had much to say although in the last few centuries not so much.

Today, calls to conversion are received by those who assume that if they come to Christ, not only will they have to be bored out of their mind in the name of holiness, but that holiness will mean no smoking, no swearing, no drinking, no dancing, and most of all and most depressingly, no sex. If a person is able to get past this moralizing, there is a second layer of assumption that the life of a Christian means no adventure, no quests, no battle… a man in particular might believe that’ becoming a Christian will mean becoming a simpering panzy who will become a doormat- and like it.

Jesus said he came to bring life and life to the fullest. What do you think? Is that also good news? When we speak of the Gospel setting us free do we only mean free from death, the devil, and damnation, or do we also mean freedom to live in bold adventure as well? What might it mean to have life and life to the fullest? I suggest that it is the poet who can help paint that picture.

Now some of what I have said will perhaps strike some of you as not really a problem to be dealt with. I obviously don’t know for sure. However, this is a Lutheran campus and I anticipate that there are a fair bit of Lutherans among us. The moralizing that I described just now isn’t as much of a problem in the Lutheran tradition. Lutherans are in the ‘sin boldly’ cloth and many of the things that some denominations get hung up on. A famous lutheran apologist that some of you may have heard of named John Warwick Montgomery used to attend Baptist conventions (by invitation, mind you) and bring bottles of wine to drink in their presence. I would suggest, then, that Lutherans are appropriately placed to take this particular topic on and I would encourage Lutherans to spend some time thinking about this.

Lest you think I exaggerate, today as I was cleaning up this text today I was sitting the Falcon Nest. I didn’t mean to easedrop but I couldn’t help but hear someone declare, in a somewhat different context, that he ‘couldn’t trust someone who doesn’t party, smoke, or drink.’ [The student's name is Phil. He and I ended up having a grand conversation]

I would argue that this sort of feeling underlies a lot of resistance to the Gospel. We could go a long way to advancing Christianity by taking aim at these less intellectual objections and I believe that story and the arts can do so.

For example, imagine a movie where the Christian is the hero and his achievements aren’t merely that he died valiantly for his faith. Consider the Christian stereotype that pops up more often then not. In the movie Contact, it was the Christian radical freak that destroyed the wormhole machine. What if it had been a Christian at the forefront of the scientific research that detected the alien intelligence in the first place? What would that have communicated about how Christianity relates to the pursuit of truth? How would it have been different if our ‘hero’ was not an atheistic woman but a thoughtful, adventurous, theistic scientist?

Over time, as the narrative climate changes people may find themselves not only perceiving Christianity more realistically but they may find themselves actually resonating with it.

Now, before I go to break here and talk about how I am personally using literature to communicate Christian propositions let me make it clear that I have no desire to marginalize the role of the theologian, the pastor, the teacher. We need people in these roles just as we need the artist. We need the scholar and the philosopher and we need the poet. I fear that in the larger institutional church, however, there is an eye to supporting just a narrow range of professions for those interested in professional church work. Sometimes we will even have people who don’t want to be pastors or teachers become pastors or teachers because they want to serve God and the church but the only way they could support their family is to take the traditional line. Whether these people would make better poets or not, I don’t obviously know. However, my contention is that we need all kinds and in particular, in our ‘story’ saturated climate, we need storytellers… preferably storytellers on our side- that is to say, people with good, orthodox theology with a well thought out Christian world view. There is an old Christan song called “Why should the devil get all the good music?” Indeed. And why should he also get all the good stories, art, and movies, either?

When we come back I’m going to share with you my thoughts on how my own book, “Fidelis” is meant to promote Christianity and why it is that story works… that is, what processes are at work when we hear a story. This will require a brief chat about Richard Dawkins and Dan Dennet and certainly we all deserve a break before delving into the views represented by these two men.

Copyright Anthony Horvath 2008

I have been debating Christianity for more than ten years. I entertained atheism for awhile while studying to be a pastor and after returning to Christianity became passionate about apologetics. I have encountered all sorts of objections to Christianity. It took some time for me to realize the full implications of postmodern attitudes towards Christianity. In particular, postmodern’s skepticism of any truth claim is often found right alongside modernistic demands for evidence.

As a case in point, consider this thread on my forum. The accusation is made that Christianity and all of religion are shown up by the scientific method and its fruits. Scientific evidence for the truthfulness of Christianity is the only kind of evidence allowed to be considered. Consider this post in particular from page two:

Arguing with religion is such an unfair battle. It is so easy to dispute or agree with physical evidence because it has a basis. But it is impossible for us to even make one argument against religion. If you feel religion can be tested then tell me what basis is used to test religion? I know I have asked this question already but I feel in reply 14 I proved sufficiently that religion cannot have basis (without physical evidence). If it does have a basis then you should be able to answer the question.

My biggest problem I have with Christianity and any other religion is that they do not provide a satisfying enough explanation. For how incredibly complex this world is, how incredibly complex humans and life is. How incredibly large and amazing our universe is. I feel the explanation to all of this must be just as incredible if not more so. I want an explanation that can explain and account for why dinosaurs lived, why our universe is so large and what purpose it serves, what lies outside of our universe. I want an explanation that is so consistent and true that everyone could easily agree with it because it leaves room for no doubt (the same way every truth we know does). For such a structured world, it only makes sense that the explanation holds as much structure as the world itself. The answers religions give are unfulfilling. [emphasis mine]

Here you see a clear juxtaposition between complaints about the metanarrative combined with accusations about the physical evidence. How can we be certain here that the physical evidence, as he puts it, is relevant at all? If this gentleman found the evidence he was looking for in religion but nonetheless found it ‘unfulfilling’ would that make any difference to him? Would he accept a religion supported by the ‘physical evidence’ but was nonetheless personally unsatisfying?

Look at the part I have bolded. Since science is by definition limited to the innards of our physical universe, just how is it that this gentlemen proposes to have ‘physical evidence’ for an answer purporting to account for the largeness of our universe, its purpose, or what is outside the universe? Ironically, he wants an explanation that science cannot offer by definition and then only insists on using science to get there. This is not rational, this is not logical, this is not reasonable. Nonetheless, this is essentially where many if not most skeptics are these days.

To answer my own question from above, no. No, I do not believe that if the ‘physical evidence’ was all in support of religion or Christianity in particular that people with such a mindset, if they found it nonetheless ‘unfulfilling,’ would accept Christianity. We have to wonder how much of the criticism of Christianity has to do with its metanarrative as opposed to its evidence, physical or otherwise. I have long suspected that for most it doesn’t matter at all.

Is it really the case that Christianity is as unfulfilling and as unsatisfying as many seem to think it is? I don’t think so at all. I certainly do not believe that evolution (which the gent referenced explicitly cites in this context) is satisfying in the slightest. I think, however, that we Christians have not adequately grasped the fact that what is being challenged is not the evidence but the adequacy of the Story. Now, I don’t blame us for it because it is rare to hear anyone admit that they don’t actually care about the evidence. Note how the person I’ve cited has modernistic expectations of evidence and science while seamlessly raising postmodernistic objections. It would be tempting and impulsive to leap into a discussion about evidence and the limits of science which ought to be self-evident to this person. Writ large, with skeptics across the board cloaking their objections to Christianity’s metanarrative in the guise of challenges of the evidence, it is natural that we’d want to respond to those challenges and not necessarily see what is for many (if not most, if not all) the real objections.

With themes such as this in mind I have taken to writing more stories. I don’t actually think that the skeptics really understand Christianity’s metanarrative, and this is in part because we have not spent time in fleshing this out for people- including ourselves. Having a grasp of the Grand Story will help reconcile for seekers many of the items in Christianity that don’t make sense, just as understanding the general plot of Hamlet will help make sense of certain scenes within it.

I assume of course, that these are honest and sincere seekers, and I am not so naive to think that all who claim to be really are.

To help contribute to the development of a more clear understanding of Christianity’s metanarrative, I wrote “Fidelis,” the first book of seven in my “Birth Pangs” series. The goal is to write an engaging story that people will enjoy (atheists, postmoderns, moderns, alike) and explore various themes common to humanity. Utilizing story, I mean to explore Story, and make the case that the Christian Worldview isn’t merely well-evidenced (for I think it is) but also deeply satisfying, as well. This is my first major undertaking in what is called ‘literary apologetics.’

I include in this category poetry, music, fiction… all of the intangibles which communicate truth to us in a way that we feel with our hearts and know to be real. Science is not the only way to know something, contrary to what the thread poster asserted. We know that this is not the case. Everyone knows that. Hollywood knows it, just as the entire entertainment industry knows it. It is my view that Christians have abandoned many of these venues, and that has contributed to the current crisis. It is my hope to encourage individuals in the Church and the Church as a whole to invest time, energy, and resources into ‘arguments’ that speak to our need for a satisfying Explanation.

The poster on my forum I’ve mentioned, though positively incoherent in his demands for scientific demonstration of that which is by definition outside the bounds of scientific exploration, is right to look for that which resonates in his being. It is not entirely his fault that he does not comprehend that Christianity will move him like no other world view will.

——————————-

What is about fantasy role playing games that appeal to so many people? Never mind the games- what about the movies? The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, the Matrix… these and more appear to appeal to something deep inside of nearly every human being. Why?

There are some people that think that humans are just the result of a long chain of natural processes. Survival of the fittest, if you will. But why should survival of the fittest produce people who enjoy stories? Why do we not only enjoy stories, but enjoy telling them? Not even that! Why do we so badly wish that we were actually in the stories? There are some people who wish to reduce everything to natural selection, but isn’t fantasy, myth, and mystery something that flies right in the face of such an idea?

Are you nothing more than dirt? The question is not “Is it possible for dirt to find mystery in the world?” but rather “Why should dirt find mystery in the world?”

I submit to you that we are not dirt. I submit to you that everyone who reads this knows only by looking at their own hearts and minds as they respond to deeply moving mythical and fantastical movies and stories that they are much more than dirt. However, if you, my dear reader, are like me, the same moment that you can tell that you are more than dirt (no matter what anyone else says), you know that some how the world is not big enough for us. Reality is a let down. We long for something more, hope for something more… fantasy role playing games help to feed this hunger. Even then, we know it is nothing more than a mere appetizer.

Is there any world view or belief system out there that predicts and explains these facts? Christianity does. Imagine this: the world is oppressed, and some don’t even know it, but still they feel it. An evil enemy is trying to subdue the world. The Superhero arrives and does battle with the enemy! but alas, the superhero is dealt a deathblow… he falls…. he dies… the enemy laughs, and gloats, and cheers, and looks forward to finally finishing off anyone else who stands in his way… But beyond amazing and beyond hope! A great curse is broken, a mystery of the universe unknown to the enemy is revealed! The superhero is alive! And the enemy… must flee… but his time of judgment will come… it will come…

Now, this is obviously the story of Jesus. He is God the superhero coming to a broken and oppressed world. His enemies assault him, his Enemy strikes him down. The wounded weep and the wicked ones rejoice… but suddenly its all turned upside down. Jesus is raised from the dead! He descends into the depths and in victory ascends. The enemy flees… for a little while. That is the story of Christianity, but is this not also the story in two of the stories listed above? In both the Chronicles of Narnia and in the Matrix the superhero is struck down but is raised again. Evil remains, but only for a little while… Even in the Lord of the Rings, Saruman is defeated but still remains after the Return of the King.

So, is Christianity just the ultimate pre-quel to Aslan and Neo? Is Christianity just another timeless story? It may seem that way, but that is not what Christianity claims. Christianity rests its power on the fact that the Fantasy has actually become a Fact! And why does the story so appeal to us? Because the story was built into us by God, so that we’d receive it when the story became his-story.

What other ‘religion’ looks at our love of myth, mystery, and fantasy, but does not merely explain it away? Everyone the world over loves myth, mystery, and fantasy, but only Christianity says, “Yes, that is to be expected, because we are made in the image of God, and God is a storyteller, and that makes us storylovers, and there was always in mind one grand plot- the same grand plot that we so love- and the story is the real story of our world? Only Christianity even talks about it. Only Christianity embraces it as an important part of what it means to be human. Other religions, and even some science, flatly ignores it. They have to ignore it… they have no explanation for it.

So, enjoy playing in the fantasy role playing games and bathing yourself in myth and mystery! But if I’m right, and Christianity is right, then there is more meaning to events surrounding you this very minute. If Jesus is God stepping right into the human story, we must not forget that we ourselves are part of that human story! That means each of us are characters thoughtfully included by the Author, and each of us have a part to play. It is not for us to decide how big of a part we play, it is only our duty to play it well and to the best of our ability.