Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions (2 page)

13.    Just the Facts, Ma'am

14.    More Sweat, Less Blood

Notes

WHEN I hosted a national television program called
Faith Under Fire,
which featured short debates on spiritual topics, I decided to invite best-selling New Age author Deepak Chopra to be a guest. The topic would be the future of faith. To offer a different perspective, I asked my friend Greg
Koukl
to represent Christianity. The idea was to tape them as they interacted for about fifteen minutes via satellite, the typical format for a segment of the show.

That plan quickly went out the window.

Greg was simply so engaging and so effective in poking holes in Chopra's worldview that I had to keep the cameras running. Time after time, Greg was able to expose the faulty thinking underlying Chopra's amorphous theology and correct his inaccurate claims about Jesus and the Bible. Before I knew it, we had consumed the entire hour of the show. Chopra — who was accustomed to spouting his opinions unchallenged on television and radio — was left thoroughly defeated and deflated.

As soon as the taping was over, I turned to my producer. "That," I said, "was a textbook example of how to defend Christianity." For the only time in our show's tenure, we decided to devote an entire program to airing one debate.

Why was Greg so incredibly successful in that encounter? He wasn't belligerent or obnoxious. He didn't raise his voice or launch into a sermon. Instead, he used the kind of tactics that he describes in this book: winsomely using key questions and other techniques to guide the conversation and unveil the flawed assumptions and hidden contradictions in another person's positions.

That is what makes this book unique. There are plenty of resources that help Christians understand what they believe and why they believe it—and certainly those are vitally important. But

it's
equally crucial to know how to engage in a meaningful dialogue with a skeptic or a person from another religious viewpoint. This is the territory that this book covers with wit and wisdom, using examples from Greg's own life and insights gleaned from his years of fruitful ministry.

I had the privilege of having many of the country's top Christian apologists, or defenders of the faith, on my program — and Greg was consistently among the very best. When we needed someone to deal with some of the most difficult challenges facing Christianity for the film based on my book
The Case for Faith,
we again called on Greg — and once more he embodied what it means to be a prepared ambassador for Christ.

In fact, Greg is so good that Christians might say, "Well, he is really smart, uniquely gifted, and has a master's degree in this sort of thing. I could never do what he does." But they can — with a little help. One of Greg's driving passions has been to train ordinary Christians in how they can use easy-to-understand tactics to dissect another person's worldview and to advance the case for Christianity. He has been conducting seminars on this topic for quite a while — and I'm so thankful that he has now distilled his best material into this helpful and valuable volume.

We live in a day when militant atheism is on the march. Christianity is coming under attack, not just from best-selling books, skeptical college professors, and television documentaries, but increasingly from neighbors and co-workers. It has become a faux pas to claim that only one faith leads to God, that the New Testament is reliable, or that any tenet of neo-Darwinism might be open to question.

Each day the chances are increasing that you will find yourself in a conversation with someone who dismisses Christianity as a mythology-ridden anachronism. What will you do when they paint you into a rhetorical corner and belittle your beliefs? How will you persuasively present "the reason for the hope that you have" (1 Peter 3:15 TNIV)? How will you seize opportunities to get into potentially life-changing spiritual discussions with people you meet?

FOREWORD

You've opened the right book. Let Greg be your mentor as you master new approaches to talking with others about Jesus. As Greg likes to say, "You don't need to hit home runs. You don't even need to get on base. Just getting up to bat—engaging others in friendly conversation — will do."

That means everyone can embark on this adventure.
Take advantage of Greg's lifetime of study and experience by getting equipped now — so that God can use you "in season and out of season" (2 Timothy 4:2) to be his ambassador in a spiritually confused world.

— Lee
Strobel
, Author of
The
Case for the Real Jesus

I am thankful for the many people who have helped shape both the ideas in this book and the way I explain them to others. My wonderful team at Stand to Reason has challenged me, counseled me, and corrected me over the years and has had a major influence on the ideas in this book. My radio callers over nearly two decades have also helped sharpen my tactical skills.

Although the content of the manuscript is mine, I had a great deal of help with the
wordsmithing
. I am grateful for Nancy Ulrich and her wonderful "ear" for writing, for Amy Hall's thoughtful insights on structure, flow, and intellectual clarity, and for Susan Osborn of Christian Communicators, who gave the manuscript professional polish.

My agent, Mark Sweeney, smoothed out what is often a bumpy road to publication. He has also been a great sounding board and cheerleader whenever those talents were required.

I am especially grateful for STR's co-founder, the multi-talented, multi-tasking Melinda
Penner
, who does everything well. She makes my entire professional life possible and stabilizes a good deal of my personal life as well.

Finally and foremost, my gratitude to my most patient and durable wife,
Steese
Annie.
Her cheerful heart does me good like a medicine, and her patience and gift of mercy are daily sources of grace to me.

Many of the ideas in this book first appeared in issues of
Solid Ground,
Stand to Reason's bimonthly newsletter available at www.
str.org.

PART ONE

THE GAME PLAN

LET YOUR SPEECH ALWAYS BE WITH GRACE, SEASONED, AS IT WERE, WITH SALT, SO THAT YOU MAY KNOW HOW YOU SHOULD RESPOND TO EACH PERSON. (COLOSSIANS 4:6)

— Paul, the apostle

APOLOGETICS has a questionable reputation among non-aficionados. By definition, apologists
defend
the faith. They
defeat
false ideas. They
destroy
speculations raised up against the knowledge of God.

Those sound
like
fightin
' words to many people: Circle the wagons. Hoist the drawbridge. Fix bayonets. Load weapons.
Ready, aim, fire.
It's not surprising, then, that believers and unbelievers alike associate apologetics with conflict. Defenders don't dialogue. They fight.

In addition to the image problem, apologists face another barrier. The truth is that effective persuasion in the twenty-first century requires more than having the right answers. It's too easy for
postmoderns
to ignore our facts, deny our claims, or simply yawn and walk away from the line we have drawn in the sand.

But sometimes they don't walk away. Instead, they stand and fight. We wade into battle only to face a barrage we can't handle. We have ignored one of the first rules of engagement: Never make a frontal assault on a superior force. Caught off balance, we tuck our tails between our legs and retreat—maybe for good.

I'd like to suggest a "more excellent way." Jesus said that when you find yourself as a sheep amidst wolves, be innocent, but shrewd (Matthew 10:16). Even though there is real warfare going on
,
¹
our engagements should look more like diplomacy than D-Day.

In this book I would like to teach you how to be diplomatic. I want to suggest a method I call the Ambassador Model. This approach trades more on friendly curiosity—a kind of relaxed diplomacy—than on confrontation.

Now I know that people have different emotional reactions to the idea of engaging others in controversial conversation. Some relish the encounter. Others are willing, but a bit nervous and uncertain. Still others try to avoid it entirely. What about you?

Wherever you find yourself on this scale, I want to help. If you're like a lot of people who pick up a book like this, you would like to make a difference for the kingdom, but you are not sure how to begin. I want to give you a game plan, a strategy to get involved in a way you never thought you could, yet with a tremendous margin of safety.

I am going to teach you how to navigate in conversations so that you stay in control — in a good way—even though your knowledge is limited. You may know nothing about answering challenges people raise against what you believe. You may even be a brand new Christian. It doesn't matter. I am going to introduce you to a handful of effective maneuvers—I call them tactics—that will help you stay in control.

Let me give you an example of what I mean.

THE WITCH IN WISCONSIN

Several years ago while on vacation at our family cabin in Wisconsin, my wife and I stopped at the one-hour photo in town. I noticed that the woman helping us had a large pentagram, a five-pointed star generally associated with the occult, dangling from her neck.