A helpful book

I have learned very much from Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions, by Greg Koukl. He is the founder and head of an Evangelical Christian apologetics ministry, Stand to Reason. The book sets out his idea of the apologist as an ambassador, treats with detailed examples the idea of relying upon questions rather than assertions, and tells how to recognize and respond to various invalid arguments.

Koukl pictures apologists as ambassadors for Christ. The “Ambassador’s Creed” says the ambassador must have knowledge, wisdom, and character — knowledge of the truths that are being taught, wisdom concerning techniques for propounding and defending the truths, and character that effectively presents the truths and does not undermine them. An important perspective is that an ambassador is speaking for someone else and is accountable to that someone else.

The book contains examples of using questions both to gather information and to act. Asking questions gives the Christian some control over the flow of the discussion and can cause the other to recognize invalid arguments. Questions artfully posed can avoid some of the defensive reactions provoked by positive statements such as “Your argument is invalid!”

Koukl presents a catalog of invalid arguments, explaining why each is invalid and giving each a catchy name to make it easier to remember. His treatment is about real-world effectiveness rather than logical purity. That is, I’ve read apologetics books by philosophers and I assume their arguments are valid but I find them unconvincing. When I read them my mind’s eye glazes over. Koukl focuses on argument failures that the Rest of Us can grok, and gives examples of responding effectively to them, usually by posing a low-key question or two.

How are we as Orthodox to relate to this Evangelical book? First, St. Basil wrote about pagan works, “Now this is my counsel, that you should not unqualifiedly give over your minds to these men, as a ship is surrendered to the rudder, to follow whither they list, but that, while receiving whatever of value they have to offer, you yet recognize what it is wise to ignore.” Second, although many of the examples have an Evangelical flavor the techniques themselves are neutral — they could certainly be used by skeptics as well as by Christians. Many of the examples of answering skeptics can be applied by Orthodox.

One caveat: There is a three-CD audio course for ambassadors, which I do not recommend for Orthodox. Large parts of it focus on eliminating unhelpful beliefs and approaches held so far as I know only by Evangelicals. I have not encountered them elsewhere. The tests on the material (necessary for getting a certificate) spend a great deal of time asking detailed questions about Koukl’s case against these purely Evangelical difficulties. I saw no value in learning that very detailed material so I abandoned the course.

The web site has many resources related to the book, including (for instance) a vinyl cheat sheet of the book’s catalog of major invalid arguments and ways to respond to them.

I said above that the techniques in this book are basically neutral. What if all sides used them? Why, a respectful, substantive, sustained discussion might break out!