Points for Team Worldview Evangelism

I've gotta give some credit to Greg Koukl.

I've been focusing on doubt as a kind of identifier for evangelicals, a rule-of-thumb means of distinguishing conservative evangelicals from other strains of Christianity. To whit: whereas some other faith traditions embrace doubt and uncertainty as part of a Christian life process, evangelicals tend to see doubt as a sign of unbelief, evidence that one's faith or worldview is shoddy. Of course, like any rule of thumb, this distinction is only sort of true and works only part of the time.

Nevertheless, I'm convinced that antipathy to doubt remains an accurate sign of at least some of the more dominant conservative evangelical strains. I've already discussed how evangelical apologist Gregory Koukl marshals a variety of critical thinking skills to teach his "tactics" for evangelizing conversations. Crucially, though, Koukl's process of critical analysis is resolutely non-reflexive. Christians are immune from the rhetorical attacks Koukl outlines because, for him, Biblical Christianity as a worldview is simply right--an accurate, reliable, coherent, and unchanging description of how the world really is. That, say, talking to a Buddhist could deepen or challenge a Christian's perception of the world (apart from "this is what those Buddhists believe") is unthinkable.

Nevertheless, I must give some kudos to Koukl and other worldview apologetics-inspired evangelicals. I think he's right when he asserts that many non-Christians have very little critically grounded notion of what Christians believe and why. He has a point in claiming that many secular people's antipathy toward Christian faith relies on some undersupported, even contradictory claims.

In particular, I like worldview apologetics' insistence that every worldview--even and especially those that claim not to be faith-based--ultimately traffics in metaphysical presuppositions that aren't all that different from those underlying overtly faith-based systems. The "there's no proof for God" argument begs several questions about what the person means by proof and what kind of meta-proofs those initial proofs would themselves rely on. The popular anti-religious skepticism of neo-atheists like Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris (whom many atheists themselves criticize) tacitly and not-so-tacitly promotes a confidence in Science as an all-encompassing worldview that many scientists and scientific philosophers would find laughable.

I do not doubt, mind you, that many nonbelievers (an imperfect term, I realize) do have nuanced and articulate justifications for their beliefs at their disposal. I would be intrigued to see an apologist for another faith who is trained in rhetoric dismantle the blunt Columbo tactics of a Koukl disciple (I suspect Koukl himself is more skilled than his book lets on). For the most part, however, I must agree with Koukl's assessment that most people simply don't know much about why they believe what they believe.

In fairness, though, that assessment applies equally to Christians and non-Christians alike. I'd wager that most Christians lack the kind of complex, well-informed understanding of their faith that Koukl clearly has (with two graduate degrees in religion). Their beliefs could just as easily be undermined and led to a fatal internal contradiction as the non-Christians who populate Koukl's examples. Koukl's book takes a bit of an easy way out by promoting rhetorical tricks to shift the evangelizing conversation away from making the Christian define his or her beliefs. Christians aren't the only people whose worldviews need justification, he argues. True enough, but they must at some point justify their worldviews, and his book never quite gets to that step. Perhaps a sequel is in the making...

The other strength of worldview apologetics, a strength not so much in display in Koukl's book but apparent in other worldview evangelism resources, is the willingness to engage another's worldview on its own terms. In contrast to evangelists who preach the Bible and turn-or-burn to all comers or passersby uniformly, Koukl contends that apart from miracles of the Holy Spirit, no one who is not already a Christian is likely to find such approaches appealing. If you don't believe in turn-or-burn theology, there's little reason to buy it. Instead, he argues, you must initially engage others in terms of their native worldviews. If the person is a Hindu, ask her about Hinduism (using the Columbo tactics, of course, to eventually undermine that belief). If the person is a Darwinist (evangelical code for "person who believes in evolution"), ask about their views on how life originated.

To be sure, the point of such conversations is a bit less pure than an innocent spirit of inquiry. The evangelist is never to be truly open to considering that the other's worldview might be more coherent or useful than his or her own, and the point of the questioning is to draw the other into a logical contradiction of some sort. I'm curious, actually, about the thin line worldview evangelicals walk between a tactical withholding of their own point of view ("just ask questions; don't immediately jump into Bible talk") and out-and-out deception. How honest is it to pose seemingly open questions when you have no real intention of being open?

I would say, however, that even this level of openness is sometimes more than I have found myself willing to offer to people I consider opponents. It's work, I'm realizing, to try to gain a fair understanding of another's point of view when that point of view opposes your own. It's often much easier to resort to stereotypes or thought-blocking labels. I fear the progressive left too often resorts to this option when discussing conservative evangelicals.

And heaven knows that many conservative Christians have done the same and worse to their opponents. It's worth noting, however, that some strands of evangelicalism are resisting this history, striving to turn conservative evangelicalism away from blanket assumptions and toward a fairer (if not completely innocent) inquiry into other beliefs.

More tomorrow,

JF