“I’m going to read some books and prove you wrong!”
The young man who said this was an American exchange student in the comparative religions class I teach at a university in Prague, Czech Republic. We were working through a unit on postmodern religious relativism. I’d spent the better part of 90 minutes laying out a series of arguments that showed how relativism makes no intellectual sense and is actually intolerant of religious belief unless that belief is relativistic (“All paths lead to God”).
None of that mattered to this young man. What mattered was that relativism made sense for him, and therefore, whatever its logically fatal flaws, it was still true—for him. He perceived freedom and the good life as intimately bound up with seeing the world in just that way. If you’ve had discussions about religion and spirituality with someone who sees life differently, you know what I’m talking about.
People seem harder to convince nowadays; they think with their passions. However, this isn’t to suggest evidence and arguments are useless—consider how closely people pay attention to research around the climate crisis and the pandemic and adjust their lifestyles accordingly. But when it comes to ultimate beliefs, they seem strangely buffered against rational argumentation. Their “basement level” of worldview responds differently, and so a different approach is needed.
Does this mean apologetics is useless? RIP apologetics? No, but it does mean we need to rethink the narrow bandwidth that apologetics generally employs. Most Christians define apologetics (if they even know what it means) as “rationally persuading someone of the truth of the Christian faith through arguments and evidence.” That approach is too blinkered, for it fails to account for the wider context where people are persuaded and beliefs are formed.
For instance, Psalm 34:8 doesn’t say, “String together a set of logical propositions and come to understand that the LORD’s existence is both logically coherent and backed by empirical evidences.” It says, “Taste and see [both sensory words] that the LORD is good [i.e., his character is trustworthy and beautiful].” It isn’t enough for the gospel to be seen as true; it must be seen and felt by our conversation partners as deeply good, a vision of reality that’s life-giving and beautiful and provides hope. Our apologetics, in other words, needs imagination.
Defining Imagination
What is the imagination, this linchpin of apologetics? In my book Oasis of Imagination, I describe the imagination as
a human power that orientates us—mind and body—in the world, through which we perceive and create. It orientates us both individually and collectively, so we can speak of a “collective imagination” or “imaginary landscape.” The imagination inspires us to create, and it colours our experience of the world and our assumptions about reality. The imagination mediates: we shape our world through it, and through it our world shapes us.
The imagination is what Paul alludes to in his beautiful prayer in Ephesians 1 as “the eyes of [the heart]” (v. 18), the lens through which we see and feel the world and from which we create out into the world.
Some Christians view imagination with suspicion—or ignore it entirely. Many see imagination as a disposable accessory of life, something for children and artists that the rest of us can get along fine without. It’s like the appendix: an organ that’s there, but unnecessary. Theologian Trevor Hart wrote that the imagination is less like the appendix and more like the human circulatory system. It’s as deeply woven into our existence as our heart, arteries, and veins, and without it, we wither.
Why We Need Imaginative Apologetics
One symptom of an emaciated imagination is a lack of hope, which is in especially short supply these days. I scroll memes to see what people (at least the denizens of this particular corner of social media) think and feel about life. I notice trends, a “vibe” deeply infused with despair at the state of the world, whether it’s one’s own dysfunctional family, romantic failures, politics, climate, or the economy. The despair runs deep. There’s a genre of memes that jokingly glorifies death and suicide.
Doctor: “You have only two weeks to live.”
Me: “Promise?”
People, particularly young people, need hope. But it must be a credible hope that connects with our non-Christian friends not only as true but as answering their deepest desires. Sixteenth-century mathematician and apologist Blaise Pascal famously said, “Men despise religion; they hate it, and fear it is true. To remedy this, we must begin by showing that religion is not contrary to reason; that it is venerable, to inspire respect for it; then we must make it lovable, to make good men hope it is true; finally, we must prove it is true.”
We focus exclusively on the “true” part and neglect the “lovable” part. Our goal should be for our conversation partners to connect so strongly with what we share that they think deep down, Man, would I love to experience the world through this person’s eyes. I want to be able to love those around me with that kind of love. We mustn’t connect only with the mind, through intellectual arguments. We must connect to the heart, passions, and desires through the imagination. This is a taller order than we usually strive for in apologetics.
We must rethink our definition of apologetics to include more imaginative aspects such as art and poetry. Try this definition on for size: Apologetics is the art of presenting a vision of reality rooted in the God of the Bible that resonates with unbelievers as deeply true, beautiful, and good, while equipping Christians to respond to competing visions of reality with grace and conviction.
Note that the line between apologetics and imaginative, artistic, and poetic creativity is fuzzy—because it needs to be. Persuading someone in a post-Christian culture is deeply relational (we ourselves must be kind and good) and captures imaginations. It presents a vision of the world that resonates with the lost, a vision they can lean into as good and beautiful. To do this well takes imagination.
How to Engage the Imagination in Apologetics
The faith of a Christian or non-Christian flows from and is an expression of an imaginative grasp of how the world is and how it should be. Apologetics must appeal to the imagination.
How can we do this? How do we persuasively engage imaginations in a post-Christian culture?
First, we must abandon our obsession with the culture wars that so effectively create resentment among non-Christians (and ex-Christians). We may not always agree with mainstream culture’s moral tenor, but we must be aware of our cultural posture. Our non-Christian friends need Jesus first and foremost. An attitude and approach that seeks to conquer out of fear for the nation’s moral fiber too often only puts obstacles in the way of those who need Jesus most. We must be missionaries to, rather than warriors against, our culture. We need not and must not abandon a biblical moral stance, but our non-Christian friends must know intuitively that we love them and are for them, that our vision of the good life includes them.
Second, apologetics must recover the doctrine of common grace: the idea that there’s goodness, truth, and beauty to be found in culture created by non-Christians. Be willing to appreciate aspects of secular cultural works, for that’s our point of contact, the place where non-Christian hearts resonate. Of course, there will be elements you must critique. But before critiquing, find places where non-Christian and Christian hearts find common ground, and locate the deeper significance of those places from a Christian imaginative perspective.
Third, realize that engaging non-Christian culture isn’t enough. We must get better at contributing positively to the culture at large, particularly through the arts and entertainment. While cultures are built in a thousand different ways, churches must intentionally invest in the creatives in their pews. Decades of underinvestment have created a Christian subculture whose works are too often sentimental kitsch or manipulative propaganda. We’ve largely defaulted on our aesthetic witness before a watching world.
This underinvestment has also made creatives feel unwelcome in our churches. Creatives need churches who love and support them well while they do the difficult work of being the interface between the church and the world, addressing the collective imagination of a post-Christian culture and trying to “plant oases,” works that stir up the imaginations of Christians and non-Christians alike to refresh, challenge, comfort, and provoke—works that open a space for conversation about the things that matter most.
Practically, this might look like hosting movie discussion nights, talking with friends about what’s creating buzz in popular culture, or encouraging budding artists in the church. Whatever form it takes, let’s widen our view of what makes for effective Christian persuasion. Once more . . . with feeling.