Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions (10 page)

These words — Let me think about it—are like magic because once you say
them,
you free yourself from any obligation to respond further at the moment. All the pressure is gone because you have already pleaded ignorance. You have no obligation to answer, refute, or reply once you have admitted you are outgunned and need to give the issue more thought.

Think for a moment how useful this approach is. Instead of trying to resist the force of another's attack, you step aside and let him have the floor. You invite him to make his case. However, he must do it slowly and clearly so you'll have an opportunity to fully understand his point.

Next, on your own, at your leisure, when the pressure is off, do your homework. Research the issue—maybe even enlisting others in the process — and come back better prepared next time. You might even want to start a notebook. Open a computer file and record the question and its details from your notes. Then begin to craft a response based on your research.

Finally, review what you have written. Rehearse your response out loud a few times, or role-play with a friend. If your discussion was just part of a chance meeting, you may not be able to revisit the topic with the same person. But when the issue comes up with someone else, you'll be ready. You'll own that question.

When you face a new challenge, start another entry and go through the same steps. You'll be surprised how soon your expanding notebook will cover the basic issues. There aren't that many.

The key here is to get out of the hot seat, but still stay engaged by deftly shifting control of the conversation back to you while shifting the spotlight—and the pressure—back on him. It's not retreat; it's just a different type of engagement. It greatly reduces your anxiety level, strengthens your confidence, and gives you an education so that you can be more effective the next time around.

If you take this approach, no egos are at stake, so there are no losers. You are simply asking the more aggressive person to give you his best shot. Essentially, you are inviting him to do what he wanted to do in the first place, beat you up. You're just giving him the opportunity to do a complete job.

Now let me ask you a question. Is there any Christian you know — even the most retiring, shy, bashful, timid, or reserved — who is unable to do this? Is there anyone who cannot say, "Oh, so you want to beat me up?
Fine with me.
Just do it slowly and thoroughly." There isn't. This is easy. Anyone can do it. This little technique will allow the most skittish Christian to tame a tyrant. It really works.

WHAT WE LEARNED IN THIS CHAPTER

First, we learned the second use of the
Columbo
tactic. It is based on the notion that people should be able to give reasons for important things they think are true. Instead of letting our critics have a free ride, we make them defend their own beliefs — or unbelief, as the case may be.

I called this move "reversing the burden of proof." In any dispute, the person who advances an opinion, claim, or point of view has the job of defending it. It's not your duty to prove him wrong. It's his duty to prove himself right. Our second
Columbo
question, "How did you come to that conclusion?" applies the burden-of-proof rule.

When someone says to you, "The Bible's been changed so many times," or "You don't need God to have morality," or "There's an infinite number of universes, and ours just happens to be the one that looks designed," don't retreat in silence. Instead, simply raise your eyebrows and say, "Oh? How did you come to that conclusion?"

Second, we learned how a basic argument was structured. Opinions alone are not proof. A person giving a real argument does more than just state her opinion. She supports her point of view with evidence and reasons much like the walls of a house support the roof. Roofs are useless when they are on the ground. In the same way, it's not enough for someone to contradict your view by simply telling a story. An alternate explanation is not a refutation. The new option must not only be possible, or even plausible, but it must be more likely (all things considered) than the idea you are offering.

Next, we learned how to deal with the "professor's ploy," a common move used by others to escape the burden of proof. There are two important principles here. One, do not allow yourself to get caught in a power play when you are overmatched. Instead, use your tactics. Two, refuse to shoulder the burden of proof when you have not made a claim. The
Columbo
tactic comes to your rescue in each of these situations.

Finally, we learned how to use
Columbo
to keep ourselves out of the "hot seat." When we find that we are overmatched by a fast talker in an intense discussion, we practice a little "verbal aikido" by shifting from argument mode to fact-finding mode. We ask probing clarification questions instead of trying to win our case. Then we use the magic phrase "Let me think about it." Once we understand the other person's point of view, we work on the issues later, on our own, when the pressure is off.

Up until now, we have talked about using the
Columbo
tactic in a very particular way. We have used friendly questions to gather two types of information: a person's view and his reasons for it. One of the advantages of this approach, we noted, was that it is largely a passive enterprise. We put nothing on the line. Since there is nothing for us to defend, there is no pressure.

By contrast, the third use of
Columbo
takes us more on the offensive, yet in an inoffensive way. We ask a different kind of question, sometimes called a "leading question." As the name suggests, leading questions take the other person in the direction we want them to go. Think of yourself as an archer shooting at a target. Questions are your arrows. Your target will be different in different situations. Sometimes your goal will be to defeat what you think is a bad argument or a flawed point of view. Your questions will be "aimed" at that purpose. Or you may want to use questions to indirectly explain or advance your own ideas. Sometimes you will set up the terms of the conversation using questions to put you in a more beneficial position for your next move.

In each of these cases, questions accomplish two things that mere statements cannot. Every time you ask a question and get a favorable response, the person is telling you he
understands
the point you're making and
agrees
with it, at least provisionally. He takes another step forward with you in the thinking process.

Ultimately, we want to win someone over to our point of view. But we don't want to force our opinions. Instead, we want to persuade. When the steps to a conclusion are both clear and reasonable, it is much easier to convince someone because he can see the route clearly. He can even retrace it on his own if he wants to. With each question, we lead him closer toward our destination. In this way, we bring him along on the journey.

When you get approvals for each successive link in the process of reasoning, you move the conversation in the direction you have in mind. In that way, you carefully guide the other person to your conclusion.

There are a handful of ways that this third use of
Columbo
can work. Generally, your leading questions will be used to inform, persuade, set up the terms, or refute. Let me show you how this tactic plays out in specific examples.

THE QUESTION

As you step out as an ambassador for Christ, inevitably you will be asked what I call
"the
question." It's one of the most important questions anyone can ask, but it's also one of the most difficult because the correct answer—a simple "yes"—would be wildly misleading.

The leading New Age author Deepak Chopra put
the
question to me this way in a national TV debate: "You're saying that people who don't believe just like you are going to Hell?" Someone once said if you word the question right, you can win any debate. Dr. Chopra's was a classic case in point. A simple "yes" would be the correct answer, but it actually would distort the truth.

Dr. Chopra's question was not meant to clarify a theological point. Instead, in the gamesmanship of the moment, his challenge was intended to discredit me with the audience. If I answered directly — "Yes, people who do not believe in Jesus are going to Hell" — the debate would be over. Chopra's query would have succeeded in painting me with an ugly stereotype. Viewers would not hear Jesus offering reprieve and rescue from a judgment they each will face. Instead, they would hear conceit and condescension from a "fundamentalist" wishing Hell on anyone who doesn't see things his way.

The third use of the
Columbo
tactic helps us out of this dilemma, but there's a hitch. Remember from
chapter 1
that the first responsibility of an ambassador is knowledge—an accurately informed mind. Knowing that people need to trust in Jesus or face judgment, though, is not enough. Since this truth does not give an accurate sense of
why
Jesus matters, God seems petty, pitching people into Hell because of some inconsequential detail of Christian theology.

The hitch is this: You have to know
why
Jesus is the only way before it is helpful to tell people
that
he is the only way. Without that knowledge, the third step of
Columbo
will not help you on this issue.

In Chopra's case, I decided to sidestep his challenge rather than try to resolve such a delicate issue with a sound
byte
. Instead, I used his question as a springboard to make a different point, one I thought was strategic to my own purposes.
¹

I addressed the issue of why Jesus is the only way again when the question came up during a book promotion at a local Barnes & Noble store. I met an attorney there who didn't understand why he, a Jew, needed Jesus. He believed in God, and he was doing his best to live a moral life. It seemed to him that those were the important things — how he lived, not what he believed. Here is how I used
Columbo
questions to lead him to a proper understanding of the cross.

"Let me ask you a question," I began. "Do you think people who commit moral crimes ought to be punished?"

"Well, since I'm a prosecuting attorney," he chuckled, "I guess I do."

"Good. So do
I
. Now, a second question: Have
you
ever committed any moral crimes?"

He paused for a moment. This was getting personal. "Yes," he nodded, "I guess I have."

"So have I," I offered candidly, agreeing with him again. "But that puts us both in a tight spot, doesn't it? We both believe people who do bad things should be punished, and we both believe we're guilty on that score." I waited a moment for the significance to sink in. "Do you know what I call that?" I asked. "I call that bad news."

In less than 60 seconds I had accomplished a remarkable thing with my two questions. I didn't have to convince this man he was a sinner.
He was telling me.
I didn't have to convince him he deserved to be punished.
He was telling me.

I was tapping into a deep intuition every person shares: knowledge of
his own
guilt and a realization that his guilt should be punished. And I didn't do it arrogantly or in an obnoxious, condescending way. I freely admitted I was in the same trouble he was.

Now that we agreed on the problem, it was time to give the solution. (This is where the "knowledge" part of the ambassador equation is so vital.)

"This is where Jesus comes in," I explained. "We both know we're guilty. That's the problem. So God offers a solution: a pardon, free of charge. But clemency is on his terms, not ours. Jesus is God's means of pardon. He personally paid the penalty in our place. He took the rap for our crimes. No one else did that.
Only Jesus.
Now we have a choice to make. Either we take the pardon and go free, or we turn it down and pay for our crimes ourselves."

In this conversation I handled an awkward question by combining two things: my knowledge of what Jesus accomplished on the cross and the
Columbo
tactic. My questions led the attorney, step-by-step, to an answer to his question.

TELL THEM SOMETHING THEY KNOW