What is the essence of a human being? This is an important question, not least because our answer will shape our approach to evangelism and discipleship. The Enlightenment project conceptualised us as thinking beings. Our rationality and thought processes were the core of who we are, hence Rene Descartes’ famous dictum “I think, therefore I am.” James K.A. Smith has challenged this rationalist assumption and suggests that humans are driven more by our desires than our thoughts – “I am what I love”[i]. He argues that we are embodied people whose lives are focused towards an ultimate end, taking us on a journey guided by what we love. At the same time, we are also people who believe – who have hopes and dreams, who have faith.
The reality, of course, is that my thinking, believing and loving are bound together in one body, a person made in the image of God. Rather than try to separate these themes out, (a very Enlightenment project to classify and put things in boxes), we should hold them together. This article addresses ways in which we might engage in apologetics to reflect this nature of our humanity. We will begin with a definition of apologetics and explore alternative approaches. But first …
A STORY
James has been praying for his friend for years, but opportunities to talk about the Lord Jesus have been hard to find. One day, quite out of the blue, James’s friend asks, “Why do you believe in God?” James is about to launch into a logical argument for the existence of God, based on creation and revelation. But something makes him pause. Instead, he says “Why do you ask?” His friend replies: “You seem a nice person, but the Church is such a dreadful institution with its endless abuse scandals.”
James’s friend might equally well have replied: “You seem so content, your family is great, I can’t imagine why you have this need for God.” Or “you seem quite intelligent, but belief in God makes no rational sense to me.” The answer that James needs to give to his friend will depend on the question behind the question and reflect different approaches to apologetics.
APOLOGETICS
Apologetics has been defined as “the branch of Christian theology which seeks to provide a rational justification for the truth claims of the Christian faith”[ii]. It is “an apologia for the Christian faith – a presentation and defence of its claims to truth and relevance in the great market-place of ideas”[iii].
Using these definitions, it is easy to see that apologetics fits well into a world that preferences rationality and is concerned that we get our thinking straight. This approach to apologetics fits into the culture of modernity, a culture that sought to establish and understand the truth.
My own early discipleship, in the 1980’s, included a great deal of useful and practical training in apologetics. We were equipped using resources like Paul Little’s Know Why You Believe[iv], which was voted one of the 50 most influential books in the evangelical world in 2006. We thought carefully about shaping answers to questions that our friends were asking. It was wonderfully useful, because our friends were asking exactly these questions. One of the principle evangelistic tools of the early [v]1980’s was dialogue evangelism supper parties. We invited our friends over for a meal and then gave them an opportunity to ask questions of a guest speaker. Friends came and duly asked their questions. Some became Christians. In many ways, apologetics was our bread and butter. For many EFAC readers, apologetics has been a key part of our journey as we follow the Lord Jesus Christ.
LATE MODERNITY
In 2026, however, we live in late modernity. This is a very different culture to my world of the 1980’s. We live in the age of authenticity where people are pursuing their own sense of flourishing and self-fulfilment without reference to God. For many people, this sense of flourishing comes from finding and expressing our own unique sense of individuality. We are in the age of authenticity not because we are trying to be true to an external standard, but because we are being true to ourselves. I am true to myself by expressing the special and unique person that I am – the world of expressive individualism.
In 2016, late modernity gave birth to post-truth politics, where it does not matter if politicians make claims that are untrue so long as those claims resonate with how I feel the world is for me.
People in a post-truth world are more interested in personal freedom than objective truth. They tend to be sceptical about big institutions, such as the church, but optimistic about an individual’s ability to know what is best for themselves. Rather than conforming to external standards such as society or traditional family values or religious traditions, authenticity values my feelings, my creativity and my unique way of living my own life. What does apologetics look like in late modernity?
APOLOGETICS AND THE IMAGINATION
Justin Ariel Bailey suggests two other ways that we can think about apologetics in our late modern world, in addition to the historic approach[vi]. The first of these is what Bailey calls church-oriented apologetics, where “the church’s communal witness and proclamation of the gospel” defends and promotes Christian faith to a watching world[vii]. If the historic approach to apologetics is challenging the unbeliever to ‘think it through’, church oriented apologetics invites the unbeliever to ‘come and see’. This approach echoes Leslie Newbigin’s argument that the local church is the hermeneutic of the gospel[viii], and is rooted in the words of the Lord Jesus: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35).
The practical demonstration of self-sacrificing love became a compelling witness for the early church, exemplified by the Roman Emperor Julian’s exasperation at the way Christians cared for the poor.[ix] The sacrificial love demonstrated by God’s people to a wider world remains compelling in 2026. However, we face challenges in this area. In many Western cultures, churches are considered a force for harm in society, so that our witness is easily misconstrued. And sadly, our witness is terribly mixed: it seems that despite many everyday acts of love by ordinary Christians, there are regular abuse scandals from Christian leaders that discredit the gospel.
The second approach to apologetics that Bailey focuses on is “the apologetics of authenticity: an apologetic that begins by exploring our intuitive and imaginative sense of our place in the world, locating the appeal of faith in the aesthetic dimension”[x]. Rather than ‘think it through’ or ‘come and see’ this approach asks the unbeliever ‘can you imagine?’ Bailey’s approach is based on a conviction that in the late modern world, the challenge we face is not just loss of belief, but a fundamental change in the way belief is conceived. As we’ve already seen, we have moved from a world where ‘if something is true you should believe it’ to world where ‘if something is untrue, you can still believe it if it feels right’. Bailey shows that in late modernity the conditions under which belief is even considered possible have changed. Faith must first be imaginable before it can be arguable. This in turn relates to Smith’s argument that we are what we love. If people are formed more by what they love than by what they argue, then apologetics must also address the visions of the good life that are being offered by our culture’s rival liturgies. For Smith, going to the shopping mall is a cultural liturgy that shapes and forms us to imagine that consumption will satisfy us. Can we imagine something different?
Bailey suggests that just as our minds are God-given, impacted by sin, but capable with God’s help of understanding God’s truth; so, our imaginations are God-given, impacted by sin, but capable with God’s help of imagining God’s beauty. This approach to apologetics seeks to enable people to imagine the world as belonging to God. Or as C.S. Lewis put it, to allow our eyes to travel up the sunbeam to see the sun[xi]. The imagination does not replace revelation; it is the faculty by which, with God’s help, it becomes possible to engage with revelation.
The apologetics of authenticity engages with human beings as people who love, people who desire a better future. It aims to show that believing in God is beautiful and opens hopes and dreams that are worth living for. It wants to help people imagine a world where faith in Jesus makes sense of life. One way to engage people’s imaginations is to share Bible stories with them, to invite them into narratives that shows the majesty and beauty of the Lord Jesus. Storytelling is a useful tool, but the apologetics of authenticity is about more than this. It aims to help people imagine a world in which grace, forgiveness, transcendence and hope are even possible.
This is not simply preparing the ground for later rational argument, but a way in which the truth of the gospel is encountered as good and real.
CONCLUSION
When James’s friend asks him, “Why do you believe in God?”, James is wise to pause and establish the question behind the question. Perhaps his friend thinks that faith is irrational and lacks an evidential base, in which case traditional apologetics will help James a great deal. But if the question is generated by a sense that the church has been a force for harm in society, then James might do better to invite his friend to come and visit his local church’s social outreach. And if the question is a bemused wondering about why on earth anyone could possibly believe anything in 2026, then the apologetics of authenticity might be the way to go. James might reply to the question “Why do you believe in God?” by saying “Can I tell you a story…” In each case, whether through rational argument, modelling love, or engaging the imagination, it is the Holy Spirit who opens blind eyes, not merely better techniques.
David Williams is Director of Training and Development at St Andrew’s Hall.
[i] Smith, James K.A. 2009. Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Baker Academic: Grand Rapids, MI).
[ii] Craig, William Lane. 2008. Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics (Crossway: Wheaton, IL) p15
[iii] McGrath, Alister. 1992. Bridge Building: Communicating Christianity Effectively (InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL).
[iv] Little, Paul E. 2008. Know Why You Believe (InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL).
[v] Taylor, Charles. 2007. A Secular Age (Belknap Press: Cambridge, MA)
[vi] Bailey, Justin Ariel. 2020. Reimagining Apologetics: The Beauty of Faith in a Secular Age (InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL).
[vii] Bailey, p58.
[viii] Newbigin, Lesslie. 1989. The Gospel in a pluralist society (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, MI). Chapter 18.
[ix] See for example: Amid Plague, their “Deeds Were on Everyone’s Lips”: How Christianity Conquered Rome - BibleMesh
[x] Bailey, p58
[xi] Lewis, Clive Staples. 1964. Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (Geoffrey Bles: London).