Connecting Christ: How to Discuss Jesus in a World of Diverse Paths

PRAISE FOR CONNECTING CHRIST

"Many times evangelical treatments of new religions (pejoratively labeled cults)—and at times world religions—consist of doctrinal comparison, usually followed by apologetic refutation. Paul Louis Metzger’s volume moves beyond this template to consider new and world religions on their own terms while also relating them to the Christian faith. Not content with mere description, contrast, and rebuttal, Metzger invites representatives of the religious traditions he engages into conversation that includes critique. This dialogical approach is a refreshing addition to evangelical treatments of religion that should be of value to Christians in the academy, the pulpit, and the pews."

—John W. Morehead, director, Western Institute for Intercultural Studies; and director, Evangelical Chapter of the Foundation for Religious Diplomacy

In this wise and stimulating discussion, Paul Louis Metzger calls for evangelical Christians to pursue ‘relational, incarnational apologetics’ in our engagement with a religiously and culturally diverse society. Drawing upon his extensive personal relationships with those from very different perspectives, as well as his experience in teaching theology, Metzger presents a fresh approach that listens carefully to Christianity’s critics while also pointing others to Jesus.

—Harold Netland, professor of philosophy of religion and intercultural studies, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

"In Connecting Christ: How to Discuss Jesus in a World of Diverse Paths, my good friend Paul Louis Metzger writes on a topic he daily lives out— connecting Jesus to our post-Christian culture. How can we join the most important conversations of our time, rather than retreating to the comfort of our own subculture? Metzger has labored hard to build bridges here, in very progressive Portland, Oregon, making this a work deeply rooted in real-life experience. In this timely and compelling read, you will learn how to engage the culture more effectively for greater kingdom impact."

—Kevin Palau, president, Luis Palau Association

"I have trusted and respected Dr. Paul Louis Metzger so much that over the past several years we have asked him to periodically teach an apologetics course to our Young Life staff in the Northwest. His book Connecting Christ: How to Discuss Jesus in a World of Diverse Paths is consistent with why our staff loves his teaching—he weds a message of biblical orthodoxy together with the compassion of incarnational witness. Dr. Metzger’s book reads like a field manual for engaging disinterested and even hostile people with both the truth and grace of Jesus Christ."

—John Franklin, senior vice president, Young Life Western Division

"Paul Louis Metzger is among a select group of Christian apologists who correctly understands three counterintuitive missiological realities:

• the United States is a mission field;

• presenting Christianity as a religion reduces the gospel to just one possible choice in an over-saturated religion marketplace;

• our most effective mission strategy—perhaps our only effective mission strategy—is to talk about Jesus of Nazareth.

This is the best book available for instructing us all in how to talk about Jesus to people of other religious traditions. Christian witnesses must read it.

—Terry Muck, dean, E. Stanley Jones School of World Mission and Evangelism, Asbury Theological Seminary

"We all desire to share the good news of Jesus Christ with our friends, family, neighbors, and even strangers. Yet to share the profound, life-changing message of Jesus Christ effectively, we must first understand these individuals: their beliefs, their questions, and their presuppositions. In short, we must learn to dialogue, to listen, and to respond in a respectful, winsome, God-honoring way.

"In Connecting Christ Paul Louis Metzger allows us to eavesdrop on some profound conversations, giving us a glimpse into the mind-set of others from differing faiths and a better understanding of how to share with those who have yet to respond in faith to Jesus Christ."

—Luis Palau, world evangelist

"I find Connecting Christ to be as robust and clear a statement of evangelicalism as I have recently seen."

—Phyllis Tickle, founding editor [ret.], Publishers Weekly, religion

"Paul Louis Metzger loves Jesus, and this book shows that his love for his neighbors is just as palpable. Connecting Christ presents the kind of witness to Jesus that participates in the power of the gospel to change the world. The development of a viable and winsome evangelical apologetic in the twenty-first century receives a huge boost in the book you hold in your hands."

—Amos Yong, J. Rodman Williams Professor of Theology, Regent University School of Divinity

Paul Louis Metzger has given us a remarkable expression out of God’s very heart. His proposal for a relationally authentic pursuit of engaging others needs to be heard by everyone. In his writing he is clear while not being simplistic, and he is courageous without being arrogant. A relational-incarnational apologetic model will challenge and release all of us to seriously live out of God’s heart, to love unconditionally with humility, repentance, and confession.

—Dr. Randall Y. Furushima, dean and executive officer, New Hope Christian College

"What’s glaringly missing from Connecting Christ is anything hypothetical: no hypothetical conversations, no hypothetical questions, no hypothetical worldviews—this is real-world apologetics. What is not missing from this book: a Christ-centered approach to apologetics, compassion and empathy for the lost, a commitment to truth, and a thorough knowledge of competing worldviews, not as we read about them but in the nuanced manner that we encounter them. This is the manual for evangelism and apologetics for the next decade."

—Rick James, publisher, Campus Crusade for Christ; and author, Jesus Without Religion and A Million Ways To Die

"The variety of religions and philosophies across the globe is dizzying. The common way to account for such diversity—from the world’s perspective—is to say either all of it is false or there are many paths to fulfillment and the hereafter. Paul Louis Metzger, a leading expert on Christ and culture, gives us another perspective, a better way. Connecting Christ is a must-read on how to live Christianity in a world of diverse faiths."

—Michael O. Emerson, Allyn & Gladys Cline Professor of Sociology and cofounding director, Kinder Institute for Urban Research, Rice University; and author, Divided by Faith, United by Faith, People of the Dream, and Transcending Racial Barriers

"In this wide-ranging trinitarian apologetic, Paul Louis Metzger gently but firmly addresses people of various Christian denominations, other religions, and no religion from an evangelical perspective of solidarity with them, presenting the good news that because God is gracious to us in Jesus Christ, God will not let any of us go and will not let Christians separate themselves from anyone, even their enemies, because those who trust in the crucified Savior cannot let anyone else go either. Among other intriguing issues the relation of theology and science; the problem of universalism; how to understand Christianity in a pluralistic market-driven, consumer culture; and how to relate with others over divisive moral issues are also discussed.

What makes this a very compelling read and an unusual one today is the fact that Metzger never wavers from pointing readers to the only One who can make us truly one and give us genuine hope for the future of humanity, namely, Jesus Christ himself. Anyone reading this book will see just how everything really does look differently in light of a theology of the Trinity.

—Paul D. Molnar, professor of systematic theology, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, St. John’s University

Paul Louis Metzger paints a compelling and refreshing picture of our Christian opportunity to both share the good news and grow in love and relationship with others. Neither is negotiable. It is an honest look at how we have missed the mark in evangelism and steers us back to the heart of Jesus. I also love how Metzger lays out a humble and thoughtful display of different religions. He does not belittle or generalize but invites us into real relationships and real conversations with others. What a helpful resource for people who want to grow in their witness!

—Vikki Rubens, area director, Oregon, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, USA

CONNECTING

CHRIST

CONNECTING

CHRIST

How to Discuss Jesus in a World of Diverse Paths

PAUL LOUIS METZGER

© 2012 Paul Louis Metzger

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Published in association with the literary agency of Credo Communications, LLC, Grand Rapids, MI 49525; www.credocommunications.net.

Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. Unless otherwise noted, quotes are from the 1984 edition. Quotations marked UPDATED NIV are from the 2011 edition.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Metzger, Paul Louis.

  Connecting Christ : how to discuss Jesus in a world of diverse paths / Paul Louis Metzger.

      p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references (pp. 268–327).

  ISBN 978-0-8499-4724-7 (trade paper)

1. Witness bearing (Christianity) 2. Apologetics. 3. Christianity and other religions. I. Title.

  BV4520.M46 2012

  248’.5—dc23

2012002938

Printed in the United States of America

12 13 14 15 16 QG 5 4 3 2 1

In memory of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, profound

witness to the all-powerful weak Word—Jesus.

And to the memorable witness of the Lord’s wise

fools, Paul Isihara and Yaeko Miyamoto.

Also to the respondents at the end of this

volume, whom I will remember for their gracious

investment of time and thoughtful engagement.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Wired for Relationships

Part I: A Relational-Incarnational Approach

1. What Is Relational-Incarnational Apologetics?

2. What Are We Making an Apology for Anyway?

3. Who’s the Stumbling Block—You and Me or Jesus?

4. Why Should We Apologize?

5. How Is Christ’s Church God’s Apologetic?

Part II: An Engagement of Diverse Traditions

6. The Jewish Question (Judaism)

7. Whack Jobs (Islam)

8. The Jesus Box (Hinduism)

9. The Dewdrop World (Buddhism)

10. Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up—and Sit Down? (Unitarian Universalism)

11. The Burning Bosom (Mormonism)

12. All In (Nietzschean Atheism)

13. Avatar (Neo-Paganism)

Part III: An Engagement of Hot Topics

14. All Roads Lead to Wall Street

15. Dead Metaphors and Living Hell

16. The Missing Link

17. Homosexuality, Holy Matrimony, and Hospitality

18. Beyond Ned Flanders and the Fascists

Part IV: Responses from Diverse Traditions

19. Response to The Jewish Question by Adam Gregerman

20. Response to Whack Jobs by Richard Reno

21. Response to The Jesus Box by Prema Raghunath

22. Response to The Dewdrop World by Kyogen Carlson

23. Response to Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up—and Sit Down? by Marilyn Sewell

24. Response to The Burning Bosom by Robert L. Millet

25. Responses to All In by Thomas W. Clark and Austin Dacey

26. Response to Avatar by Gus diZerega

Afterword: An Apology for Prayer

Notes

About the Author

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Iam thankful for my connections to numerous others when thinking through how I might discuss Jesus in a world of diverse paths. I am grateful to so many people for their insights, and, in many cases, for their long-suffering patience. When considering the themes developed in this volume, I learned that thorough study depends on dialogue with others. I am very grateful that many people have determined to stay connected with me to discuss these matters, keeping the conversation going and never giving up. Here are some of them.

I wish to express appreciation to the administration of Multnomah Biblical Seminary and University, including present seminary dean Robert Redman, former seminary dean Donald Brake, president Daniel Lockwood, and provost Wayne Strickland for their vision for seeing our institution expand its forms of cultural engagement in connection to Christ. I also wish to thank former and present seminary and university colleagues Albert Baylis, Ron Frost, R. G., Michael Gurney, Brad Harper, Tony Kriz, and Karl Kutz; and students and teaching assistants Michael Badriaki, Gretchen Cain, Wink Chinn, Joe Enlet, Matt Farlow, Ross and Rachel Halbach, Chris Laird, Andreas Lundén, Derrick Peterson, Ronaldo Sison, and Sam and Desiree Titus with their friend Jackson Prakash for their contributions, including keen analysis of the themes and arguments developed in this volume. My world religions class and Young Life apologetics class at Multnomah have been invaluable experiences as students and I have wrestled through these issues together.

I wish to express thanks and appreciation to Matt Baugher, Paula Major, and their team at Thomas Nelson for their vision and enthusiasm for this project, David Sanford and Tim Beals of Credo Communication for supporting this project, Madison Trammel for his insights and interaction through various stages of the work, and the invaluable assistance of Beyth Hogue Greenetz, my assistant and colleague at the Institute for the Theology of Culture: New Wine, New Wineskins. Beyth and the interns, advisory council, and faculty committee at the institute have been phenomenal ministry partners. I am honored to journey with the New Wine, New Wineskins community and to live into the theology of cultural engagement articulated in this book with them.

I am also grateful for my interaction with religion scholars Harold Netland, Daniel W. Brown, John Morehead, and Randall Furushima, and to the Association of Theological Schools, especially Stephen Graham and Francis Pacienza, for the opportunity and privilege to participate in the project Christian Hospitality and Pastoral Practices in a Multifaith Society, and to coauthor the evangelical team essay with Sang-Ehil Han and Terry Muck. I also wish to express gratitude for the influence of my doctoral mentor, the late Colin Gunton, who developed a uniquely trinitarian apologetic and who inspired me to develop my own particular trinitarian apologetic framework.

Some of the respondents in the volume have become personal friends. I hope that will soon be true of the other respondents after our continued interaction. They, together with Buddhist priest Takakazu Fukushima, under whom I studied Buddhism in Japan, have enriched my life through the time and energy they have invested in connecting with me.

I am always tempted to dedicate every book to my wife, Mariko, and children, Julianne and Christopher, given their diverse forms of connection to me every day of my life. Their presence, patience, and passion for life—and my wife’s particular global theological-cultural instincts—are so dear to me. Still, I have chosen to dedicate the book to the respondents and a few others. There is the late Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose influence is keenly felt in my heart and mind as I finish this volume. His costly discipleship (like that of friend and mentor John M. Perkins)—bound up with bearing witness to Jesus, who is the all-powerful weak Word hanging in the gallows—inspires me to pursue a more cross-centered apologetic. Few people have demonstrated the cruciform apologetic of Jesus’ love better in my midst than friends Paul Isihara and Yaeko Miyamoto. Their witness of staying connected to and supporting my family and me during very difficult times inspires me to connect with others more during trying circumstances so as to develop enriching and life-giving, life-transforming conversations and relationships.

INTRODUCTION

WIRED FOR RELATIONSHIPS

All people long in one way or another to connect with Christ. They may not know him by name—as of yet—but he knows their names. The triune God in whose image everyone is created has wired people for relationship with Christ. Everyone pulls at the wiring in one way or another, but no amount of pulling bound up with the devastating tragedy of our rebellion can remove people from God’s reach and the power of his love. As Christians, we don’t connect Christ to anyone, or anyone to Christ. The Spirit does all the relational connecting, but we are called to be witnesses to Christ. As his witnessing people and body, we may be conduits for the Spirit, acting as Jesus’ voice, his hands, and his feet as we proclaim his good news in word and deed. Such witnessing may involve all kinds of robust ideas and strategies. But we must always ensure that our ideas and strategies are conduits for Jesus Christ’s incarnate love.

There is more than one way to discuss Jesus. How can it be otherwise, when the Christian Scriptures include four diverse and harmonious accounts of Jesus—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? The gospel writers were overwhelmed and amazed by the mystery of God incarnate, as were the rest of the New Testament authors. Approaching Jesus the Christ from their respective vantage points, they penned for us authoritative accounts of the Lamb of God, Son of Man, Son of God, Messiah, Lord. How could the biblical writers not present Jesus Christ in this multifaceted way when his mysterious being defies singular definition?

As God incarnate, Jesus Christ is no abstract concept or remote figure of the past. When he removes the veil and discloses himself to us, we are undone by his glory, humility, holiness, mercy, and love. Like Peter who experienced Jesus’ miracle of breaking the nets with a great catch of fish, we are brought to our knees, realizing how broken and petty and sinful we are: Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man! (Luke 5:8). Be assured that when we are undone in his presence in this way, he will renew us and call us to himself: Don’t be afraid; from now on you will catch men (Luke 5:10).

While the Lord Jesus certainly does not fit with static notions and cultural stereotypes of God, we can easily reduce the way we talk about him to clichés. And so it is important that we guard against speaking of Jesus Christ and the Christian faith in a rote manner when engaged in apologetics—that is, presenting a truthful and meaningful account of the Christian faith, especially in an increasingly diverse culture that does not accept pat answers. After all, we are not dealing with intellectual abstractions when we discuss the truth, for the truth is the living God. This truth is God in the flesh (John 1:14), who tells his followers face-to-face, I am the way and the truth and the life. No wonder he adds, No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6). He is not simply a way, but the way; not simply a truth, but the truth; not simply a life, but the life. These statements on their own might appear mechanical to some. That is why a person-to-person, heart-to-heart, life-on-life encounter with other people of diverse paths through prayer to God (who is supremely personal himself) is so essential. People are not simply wired to assent to truths; they must live them in relation to this God who is the living truth. As Christ’s people, we must continually seek to engage people relationally—case by case, and not in some fixed, packaged manner. There is more than one way to talk about Jesus, given who he is and that we live in a world of diverse paths.

Just as Jesus called Peter, Paul, and John, he also calls us to hook diverse people’s lives, hearts, and minds and draw them in, nets breaking. It didn’t come easily for the apostles. Just think of Peter: He was set in his good Jewish ways, and he couldn’t imagine how Gentiles could come to receive salvation on equal terms with the Jews by simple faith in Christ Jesus. He even told the God of Israel and of Jesus that he was more kosher than God: he wouldn’t eat the ham sandwich dropped from heaven in a vision (Acts 10:14)! But when God spoke to Peter, when people sent by Cornelius the centurion appeared at his door, and when Cornelius’s household experienced salvation in the same way Peter had, Peter made the necessary adjustments (Acts 10:34–35). Jesus works in mysterious ways. The same thing happened to Saul, who became Paul after his life-altering encounter with Jesus on the Damascus Road (Acts 9:1–9): he became all things to all people so as to save some (1 Corinthians 9:22).

It didn’t come easily for them then, and it won’t come easily for us now. In a religiously diverse America, many of us no longer live in a Bible Belt zone, and where the Bible Belt still exists, it is shrinking. People won’t respond if we try to lure them in with Bible Answer Man ways. Many of them are also cynical, having been burned by certain TV-preacher types who offer them Jesus to fleece them, getting a lease on their lives and access to their bank accounts.

Certainly rigorous, thoughtful answers have their place, as do meaningful attempts at contextualizing the truth in winsome, striking ways. But no matter how good the argument or how contextual, winsome, and striking the message, nothing replaces sacrificial love for others; this is how trust is built. The community of faith must become the apologetic for the faith: a holistic rationale for faith in Christ involving interpersonal and life-on-life encounters. I refer to such interpersonal and life-on-life encounters involving the investment of one’s whole person and community as relational-incarnational apologetics. Are we up to the challenge of approaching apologetics relationally and incarnationally in a world of diverse paths? Only if we depend on God and one another as Christ’s people.

I look forward to journeying with you through the pages of this book. I hope you are as excited as I am about the holistic rationale for the faith to which I allude. One of the striking features of this book is the development of apologetics that goes beyond the mere logical defense of the truth or the Christian worldview. For those of you who have not read apologetic volumes before, some of the terms like worldview and relational-incarnational may appear foreign to you. I will unpack and develop these terms as we proceed. For now it will suffice to define briefly three basic approaches: worldview, market-driven, and relational-incarnational.¹

The articulation and rational defense of a Christian worldview or belief system is often what people have in mind when they speak of Christian apologetics. The worldview approach often centers on the demonstration of the internal coherence of the Christian truth claims and the evaluation that these beliefs correspond better to reality than alternative worldviews. Such a defense is important. But I am going beyond simply making a logical defense of Christian truth claims. As stated previously, I am calling for relational-incarnational apologetics in a world of diverse paths.

People—including Christians—are more than their belief systems. We need to engage not simply people’s minds but their whole lives. Nor are we settling for appealing to people’s tastes, as in a market-driven approach to evangelism and apologetics. I will take the opportunity to describe this approach in a little more detail, given that it is not often as immediately recognizable as a form of apologetics. A market-driven model is reflected in Christians’ appeals to affinity groups and their tastes and appetites, not their minds or the deep values of their hearts. This model is often reflected in Christian outreach events that attempt to attract seekers to faith based on the hottest or funniest or most glamorous religious brand, fad, or celebrity. In its most extreme form the market-driven approach does not entail getting to know people’s stories and their deepest longings and fears. Rather it focuses on making sure they remain stimulated and entertained by the advertisements and purchase the Christian package. Not everyone who employs the market-driven approach intentionally seeks to be market-driven. Not everyone turns the church into a Christian carnival. It is often more subtle. A lot of hipster Christianity goes on in the emerging/emergent church movement. Even if the emerging/emergent church movement is not banking on its hipster appeal to draw people, it often attracts people based on its hipster ethos and aura. The same thing goes for those boomer megachurches that create family or self-help programs and justice packages to draw people. The hipster churches actually have justice packages too. However, their programs, like their services and their personal appearance, are less polished looking than the contemporary boomer yuppie alternatives—but like the yuppie alternatives, their appearance is carefully constructed. (By the way, not all emergents are hipsters, and not all boomers are yuppies—and neither camp would claim me!)²

Of course churches should promote justice, nurture families, and help people with addictions (as well as attend to their personal appearance and hygiene). Still, while they may not mean to do so, the way churches operate these initiatives may attract seekers to the programs instead of into community. Jesus does not want us to use the church to draw families but to draw nuclear families and individuals without families into God’s family. Moreover, Jesus does not help us get in touch with ourselves but helps us die to ourselves so that we can truly live in selfless love with him and others as his people. And lastly, what would Jesus do when a particular justice package no longer appeals to the consumer or has served its purpose in drawing the seeker to church? Would Jesus discard that particular justice package and promote another? When a church does so (and churches sometimes do), does it not turn justice into a commodity? How just would that be? Often market-driven proponents don’t know they are market-driven, and aren’t often aware of the implications or associations bound up with their practices and plans. In this way, too, the market-driven approach differs from the worldview and relational-incarnational models since both of these approaches are more intentional and strategic in their orientation while the market-driven approach can often be more subconscious in terms of the development of an apologetic strategy. Subconscious or not and regardless of one’s intentions, the exclusively market-driven approach, like its exclusively worldview-oriented counterpart, is not relational or incarnational at its core. Whether one is engaging primarily or exclusively people’s brains (a worldview-dominated model) or their taste buds (a market-driven model), one is not sharing in their life stories and engaging them holistically.

A relational-incarnational model goes beyond simply addressing what people think and want and focuses attention on why they think such thoughts and what it is they truly need. Relational follows from the fact that God is personal and calls us into personal relationship with himself through Jesus Christ. As Christ’s witnesses we are called to engage people relationally. Encountering people relationally entails addressing them as more than simply rational beings or as cultural creations with religious appetites. God’s Word did not become incarnate primarily to share incredible ideas about God or to promote a heavenly marketing plan or business strategy. He became incarnate to share life with us and to take us home to his Father’s house through his costly sacrifice. Of course we need to be sensitive to people’s intellectual concerns and cultural contexts and make sure we are conduits for Christ on various paths, for one size of apologetic witness does not fit all types of people. That is why we must engage people relationally, heart to heart and life on life. I don’t think anyone is truly won to Christ by beating them in an argument or arousing their curiosity and giving them a free meal. You have to win their heart. Winning the heart requires life-on-life sharing in view of Jesus, who became incarnate and gave his life for us. This is why I speak of incarnational. We Christians must follow in the incarnate Christ’s footsteps here on earth and lay down our lives for those who do not yet know Jesus so that they might respond to his incarnate love and give their lives to him. This relational-incarnational model requires of Christians personal repentance and vulnerability, sacrifice, shared story, and an expansive view of the gospel that goes beyond sin management and marketing strategies and beyond mere assent to religious propositions.

Part I of this book will unpack and develop this model in various ways. Part II will engage other religious traditions and cultural movements in view of this model. Part III will bring this model to bear on pressing issues or hot topics that Christians must address today. Part IV includes the responses from representative figures of the traditions I engage in Part II.

The relational-incarnational model of apologetics expressed in this book builds upon the triune God’s life story with us. The Father who shares life with his Son gives his Son to us so that we might become members of his family through the Spirit. This God makes it possible for us to share life with others who do not yet know him. Viewing God in this way makes it possible for us to conceive apologetics relationally. You may have heard it said that many Christians live like atheists. I would go so far as to say that many evangelical Christians think like Unitarians, and confess the Trinity in name only. They are often very fearful and reluctant to talk about the Trinity. If they do talk about the Trinity, they often resort to mathematical formulas and recipes: The Trinity is like 1x1x1=1 or Take an egg white, egg yolk, and egg shell, and mix them in a blender; there you have the Trinity. No wonder many Christians find the doctrine of the Trinity irrelevant, with no bearing on life and relationships. But our faith is not based on some formula or recipe. It is based on the good news that the Father and Son invite us to share life filled with selfless love with them in the Spirit. This is no incoherent mystery. While we cannot define love, we can describe and experience it. Divine love is the ultimate life-giving mystery, as the Father gives his Son’s life over to sacrificial death to save the world through the Spirit.

In this light our task as Christian witnesses is not to build on some supposed neutral, logical philosophical system but to retell Jesus’ story and show in word and deed how the Christian story makes best sense of life in view of Christ’s sacrificial love. We must not negate people’s customs, traditions, and beliefs but instead negate only that which stands in the way of securing people in profound relationships. So I will negate explanations of the Trinity that resort to illustrations of egg whites, egg shells, and egg yolks. Egg whites and shells and yolks don’t have relationships. Persons do. Impersonal notions of the triune God do not sustain people of various paths. Only an interpersonal God can sustain people in relationships. The interpersonal God Christians refer to as Father, Son, and Spirit sustains the best relational intuitions of diverse paths and traditions and invites people on these paths to encounter this God. And so, we invite these diverse religious practitioners to share life with us, just as the Father and Son share life with us through the invitation of the Spirit. To varying degrees, and to the best of my ability, I have sought to do so with my dialogue partners in this volume. While I cannot tell you this approach will be branded a success, I will tell you that I seek to be sensitive and charitable toward the traditions and hot topics I engage.

I believe you will find this relational-incarnational apologetics unique in many respects, including the striking responses by adherents of the various traditions. I am very eager for you to read these exchanges because they have a significant bearing on how to approach apologetics in our contemporary context. In writing this volume I became aware of how significant this relational-incarnational approach to apologetics is: as I got to know various respondents, trust was often established, leading to more meaningful exchanges. Much of the credit goes to the respondents. I am sure they struggled to engage me (and still do). But their relational intuitions have helped sustain our dialogues. The structure of the volume hints at the dialogical nature of this enterprise. For example, I do not provide rejoinders but allow the responses to stand on their own. It isn’t always easy, but we who are evangelical Christians must come to realize that being faithful witnesses to Jesus does not always mean that we must have the last word. Some books with rebuttals include rejoinders by their authors, and while there is merit in such approaches, they are not as realistic as the approach taken here. Dialogical, relational forms of engagement allow for space and openness. They reflect the complexity of level-playing-field interaction with those who do not share our perspectives. We must guard against imposing our categories on people of diverse paths and dismissing those who think and believe differently than we. Those who believe differently continue to exist after intense exchanges, and we must learn how to live alongside them for the long haul. Christians must learn to live, navigate, and engage other traditions in the context of such cultural and intellectual complexity, variety, and ambiguity.

As followers of Jesus we will experience frustration, disappointment, and even trauma from time to time. I still remember the pain and trauma I experienced recently when a leader of one religion said to my world religions class and me, I don’t care what you evangelicals think. Just leave us alone. His remark was very hurtful and dismissive; he did not care to engage us. Perhaps he spoke out of pain and rejection. Perhaps he and/or others in his religious tradition had experienced firsthand evangelicals shoving truth claims down their throats and trying to impose on them certain moral codes or worse. In that sense my class and I may have had it coming, given our solidarity with evangelicalism as a movement. Still, we simply wanted to interact with this leader and learn from him. We evangelicals will need to grow in tenacity to give space to others, to be patient, and to love sacrificially, always hoping and praying that they will someday respond to Jesus’ love in faith. As witnesses it is not our place to bracket and bookend others but to approach our dialogues and lives with them as open books, where the truth claims come off the page and into people’s hearts. If we are open books, people can then get the inside scoop on our lives. This will require humility, vulnerability, and tenacity on our part even as we address hot topics. So we will need to be sure that for all our inadequacies, we seek to live beyond reproach and find our adequacy in God.

My colleague Dr. Philip Johnson, who teaches church history at the seminary where I serve, told me that he seeks to introduce students to Christian figures from the past who found Christ to be their all-sufficiency in facing and overcoming overwhelming challenges, including their own inadequacies. Dr. Johnson explained that so many of our students sense that they are inadequate to serve Jesus Christ, many of them coming from broken homes and lives filled with pain, failure, and disappointment. Like them, I sense my inadequacy even as I write these words; in fact, even now I hope my sense of inadequacy in myself increases so that I might find my adequacy in Christ and not in technique or intellect, however useful they may be. Even the brilliant Paul, the great apostle and apologist, said that his adequacy came from Christ, not himself. No doubt that was one of the secrets of his own ministry’s success: Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Corinthians 3:4–6).

While I will offer recommendations and seek to model a relational and incarnational approach to apologetic witness, this is not your typical how-to book that states, Do these three things when your alternative worldview dialogue partner says these two things. As we move forward through this book, I trust that you will be ever more conscious that the ultimate how to in speaking about Christ in an increasingly diverse culture is to speak exclusively from the standpoint of dependence on him and his holy love for you and those you seek to reach. Never forget: our adequacy comes from him.

PART I

A Relational-Incarnational Approach

CHAPTER 1

WHAT IS RELATIONAL-

INCARNATIONAL APOLOGETICS?

Have you ever seen the movie As Good as It Gets, starring Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt? Nicholson plays Melvin Udall, a man who pursues Carol the Waitress, played by Hunt. Until he falls in love, Melvin is rude, insensitive, racially bigoted, homophobic, and severely obsessive-compulsive. As his gay neighbor Simon Bishop explains, Melvin is the worst kind of human. As difficult as it is to deal with Melvin, it is perhaps even more difficult to imagine that this man is a best-selling author of romance novels. In fact, when the female receptionist at his publishing house asks him how he is able to portray women so accurately in his works, Melvin tells her that women are like men, only without reason and accountability.

But what does all this have to do with apologetics? Everything. Everything, that is, if you want to engage people truthfully and relationally—and not treat them dismissively. That’s what this chapter and this book are about. But it’s easier said than done. So often I am like Melvin. I talk about romance novels—usually God’s love letter to us recorded as the Bible—but I’ll never understand the depth of his love. I talk about relationships with people, but I rarely develop them myself. I lecture on incarnational, life-on-life apologetic engagement, but I often fail to respond to people life-on-life, keeping them at a distance. And I know I am not alone in this social indifference.

Conservative Christians often approach people as Melvin Udall does. We can wax eloquent on romance and relationships, but we rarely experience them. We approach Mormons, Buddhists, and homosexuals as Melvin does: categorizing and dehumanizing them until we are forced to deal with them face-to-face. Only