The heart of apologetics is not about mastering and memorizing a set of techniques designed to manipulate arguments to get the desired conclusion. An apologist needs to identify arguments that will carry weight with this particular audience, so different occasions call for different approaches. Instead he stresses the need to understand the question behind the question in order to give an answer that really resonates. He understands that there are significant dangers in apologetics books that simply try to provide answers to difficult questions that can be memorized and regurgitated at the appropriate time. In particular he notes the challenges of defending the faith in a post-modern context. He stresses the need for a tone of gentleness and respect and the vital importance of God’s sovereign work of salvation.Īpologetics establishes and proclaims the plausibility and desirability of the gospel evangelism summons people to enter into it and share in its benefits.Īlong the way he highlights a number of common apologetic mistakes, including the weaknesses of a purely rationalist approach to defending the faith. Apologists have the task of defending, commending and “translating” the faith. “Apologetics aims to convert believers into thinkers, and thinkers into believers”. McGrath begins with giving some background to apologetics. I suspect that the writing of this book in some way formed part of his background research for a more recent publication of a biography of Lewis. This is quite deliberate since McGrath devotes considerable attention to C.S.Lewis’ uniquely creative and multi-faceted approach to apologetics. The book title, “Mere Apologetics” is of course evocative of C.S.Lewis’ classic apologetic work “Mere Christianity”. He has a scientific background, and wrote a major work some time ago on Scientific Theology (I reviewed a condensed version of it here). He has debated a number of prominent atheists as well as writing a number of books responding to their position. McGrath, a former atheist himself, is well placed to address the topic of apologetics. So I thought I would try this relatively short book to see if it provides some good pointers to enable me to share my faith more effectively. This book is subtitled “How to help seekers and skeptics find faith”, and though I wouldn’t describe many of my work colleagues as “seekers”, “skeptics” would be a fair description of many of them.

But I think there is an important place for learning from those who have a particular expertise in defending the faith.

It’s partly because it feels like “cheating” to borrow someone else’s reasons to believe instead of thinking for yourself. Apologetics is a subject I rarely read books on.

Mere christianity cliff notes