For the past two millennia, Christians have sought to articulate their faith in thoughtful and compelling ways. Many of these “arguments” have been etched into church history, like Anselm’s ontological argument, Thomas Aquinas’s five ways, or William Paley’s illustration of the watchmaker. More recent times have witnessed a shift toward engaging the surrounding culture with the truth and the practice of Christianity. Men like Francis Schaeffer, C. S. Lewis, and E. J. Carnell have argued for Christianity not solely on one point but rather on the entirety of the faith. In other words, we’ve seen a shift—at least since Abraham Kuyper—toward defending and communicating Christianity in light of its overall worldview. In doing so, these men have advocated for the truth, as well as the good of Christianity.
I recently interviewed Dr. Paul M. Gould regarding his latest book, Cultural Apologetics: Renewing the Christian Voice, Conscience, and Imagination in a Disenchanted World. In it Dr. Gould argues that we live in a post-Christian culture where a view of reality inundates us that is mundane and that has lost a sense of beauty, wonder, and the supernatural. In contrast, he sets forth a new cultural and apologetic model for engaging the world around us with and for the gospel.
Christopher Talbot: Dr. Gould, thank you so much for your time and for letting us interview you for the Helwys Society Forum. To begin, for those readers who may not know you, could you tell us a little about yourself? Also, what first facilitated your interest in apologetics?
Paul M. Gould: Thanks so much for the opportunity to share about myself and my book! I’m the founder of an organization called the Two Tasks Institute and have taught philosophy and apologetics for over two decades, first as a campus minister and more recently as a professor. I’m passionate about making genuine connections with our culture so that the gospel gets a fair hearing. I’m married to Ethel, and we have four children ages twelve to nineteen. I love to run, read, and spend time with my family, usually outdoors.
My interest in apologetics began as a nonbeliever. I was invited to an apologetics course as a freshman in college. I was shocked to learn about the evidence for faith. Over the course of the year, I began to realize that my main resistance to faith in Christ wasn’t intellectual. The course had convinced me that Christianity is true. Rather, at the end of the day, I realized my resistance to Jesus and the gospel was moral. I wanted to live my life my way. After a time of wrestling, I realized that I was being foolish. I was convinced Christianity was true and so I prayed the “Sinner’s Prayer” and invited Jesus into my life.
My interest in apologetics really began to grow after college, during my first few years as a campus minister. I noticed that in my evangelism, I always veered toward the intellectuals. I loved having a conversation about Jesus and the gospel in the context of ideas. Moreover, I wanted to learn how to respond to people’s questions and objections to Christianity. I began to read and study—first apologetics, then theology and philosophy—and these initial stirrings set me on a path that eventually resulted in a PhD in philosophy.
CT: Your new book, Cultural Apologetics, was just released, and it is a wonderful contribution to the field. What motivated you to write this book?
PMG: I’ve been wrestling with the topic of this book for the last twenty years. Early on I noticed this odd state of affairs: Christianity is true, yet in the marketplace of ideas no one seemed to notice. As a campus minister, I constantly heard stories of professors ridiculing faith in God. Christianity is not viewed, especially by many of the intelligentsia, as reasonable. More recently, I’ve noticed other things too. About a decade ago, the so-called “New Atheists”—folks like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens—began writing best-selling books arguing that religion is destructive and dangerous. “Religion poisons everything” or “Faith in God is delusional.” I noticed a shift in the rhetoric from these atheists and also a shift in the kinds of questions I’d get in evangelism with nonbelievers. People still want to know if Christianity is reasonable. But they are also skeptical that it is good.
Many today now argue that Christianity is not only unreasonable but also undesirable. In the old days, folks would say things like, “I wish Christianity were true, I just don’t see any evidence for it.” Today many say things like, “I don’t want Christianity to be true—its archaic, unloving, and repressive.” This is a shift in our culture, and I realized that, if we want the gospel message to get a fair hearing today, we need to be more thoughtful about how we build bridges to Jesus and the gospel. We need to show others that Christianity is both true to the way the world is (i.e., it is reasonable to believe) and also true to the way the world ought to be (i.e., it is desirable too). I wrote this book to help Christians everywhere think more holistically about how we might be faithful witnesses for Christ in this disenchanted age.
CT: For those not familiar with the term, could you define for us what cultural apologetics is? How is it different from other approaches to apologetics?
PMG: About five years ago, I was asked to teach a course on cultural apologetics at the institution where I taught. Since I was unfamiliar with the term, I did what any teacher would do: I googled the phrase! There was very little written about cultural apologetics at the time. So, for that first class, I assigned seven books on apologetics, culture, and the gospel that looked interesting to me. Every year I’d teach that same course swapping out the previously read books with seven new ones.
After teaching the class for five years, I am happy to say I have arrived at a definition of what cultural apologetics is, at least as I understand it: the work of establishing the Christian voice, conscience, and imagination within culture so that Christianity is seen as true and satisfying. In the book, I carve out a new lane for cultural apologetics. It is distinct from rational, imaginative, and moral apologetics in that it acknowledges each of these approaches as valid and essential and integrates them into a vision of what it means to be an embodied human that shapes and is shaped by culture.
In addition, I distinguish between a “global” and “local” aspect to cultural apologetics. Globally, the cultural apologist works within the culture-shaping institutions of the world (the university with respect to truth, the arts with respect to beauty, and the city with respect to goodness) so that others will see Christianity as reasonable and desirable. This requires a long-term vision, a correct theory of culture and cultural change (I’m persuaded by the sociologist James Davison Hunter that culture change is top-down), and Christian leadership from within these elite institutions. Locally, the cultural apologist pays attention to the obstacles and objections to Christianity “downstream” at the level of individual lives. Here, the cultural apologist learns to reason imaginatively and to utilize the atheistic currency of the culture, the human longings for goodness, and the rational arguments (traditionally associated with apologetics) in building a bridge from culture to Jesus and the gospel.
CT: Often times when we think of apologetics, we think about rational arguments for defending the faith. However, your approach goes beyond that. Could you explain why having a broader approach to our apologetic practice is important?
PMG: Man is, as Aristotle puts it, a rational animal. We long to know the truth and so any cultural apologetic worth its salt must engage the mind. Rational apologetics is essential to building a case for Christ. Importantly, however, while we are rational animals, we are not merely rational animals. We are also desiring animals, liturgical animals, imaginative animals, and moral animals. In other words, God has given us reason that longs for truth, a conscience that longs for goodness, and an imagination that longs for beauty. As a cultural apologist, we seek to enfold our vision of a fully-flourishing human into our case-making for Jesus. This means that we pay attention to a person’s loves and longings, beliefs and thought-patterns, and the imaginative story in which they locate their lives.
CT: Following that question, what roles do morality and imagination play in apologetic practice?
PMG: I love how C. S. Lewis understood the role of the imagination, reason, and the will. He called the imagination the “organ of meaning” and reason the “natural organ of truth.” The imagination helps us understand words like sin, soul, and salvation. Once a statement is understood, the imagination delivers these meanings to reason so that we can judge them as true or false. Then, reason and imagination together deliver truth to the will so we can act rightly in our pursuit of the good.
The philosopher Peter Kreeft speaks of three prophets of the human soul: our longing for goodness, truth, and beauty; as well as three three guides of the human soul: the conscience, reason, and the imagination; which help us on our quest. As we walk the “planks” of reason, which are the conscience (morality) and the imagination and are propelled by our longings for truth, goodness, and beauty, we are led, if we faithfully follow them, to Christ, who is the source of truth, goodness, and beauty. If this general picture is right, it helps us see, I think, how apologetics can (and should be) more connected to all the things we care about in life.
CT: You note in your book that the role of the apologist is to argue not only for the truth of Christianity but also for its desirability. What are some practical ways a Christian can do this?
PMG: Practically speaking, I think it begins with us. Are you convinced that Jesus is your highest good and greatest need? Have you located your life in the gospel story? Do you find your meaning, purpose, and identity from within it? Do your daily habits—your rituals or liturgies—reflect and embody the gospel story? If we are convinced that Jesus and the gospel is both true and satisfying, and we live our lives from within that story, I believe that others will see the desirability and plausibility of Christianity.
CT: Why is cultural apologetics so needed in our current cultural context?
PMG: One of the main themes of my book is the idea that we live in a disenchanted world. I don’t think the world is actually disenchanted. Rather, the dominant way that those in culture perceive the world is best described as disenchanted. For most today, the world is viewed as everyday, ordinary, or mundane. But that is not what the world is actually like. In reality, the world is deeply mysterious, beautiful, and full of life and goodness. To use the proper word, it is sacred. It is gift.
Because we live in a disenchanted age, many today are unable to see a world of deep meaning and beauty. Many can no longer imagine a world that is infused with the divine. As a result, unbelief is possible, and belief is more difficult. Disenchantment has changed everything. I do not think the church can continue with a “business as usual” mindset. We must begin to pay attention to the soil of our culture if we want to see the gospel take root. We must begin to think about the conditions of belief today if we want Christianity to have a future.
CT: What would you consider are the greatest barriers to the gospel today?
PMG: In the book, I distinguish between internal and external barriers to the gospel. Internal barriers concern with us: the church, believers in Christ. I discuss three internal barriers in chapter seven that I think are most pressing: anti-intellectualism, fragmentation, and an unbaptized imagination. External barriers are objections to the gospel from within culture. Four prominent objections in the West that I discuss in the book are: (1) the widespread belief that science renders belief in God irrational; (2) the idea that God is not good; (3) the idea that belief in the exclusivity of Christianity is intolerant; (4) and the idea that the Christian ethical teachings on gender, sexuality, race, the poor, and more is unloving, archaic, and repressive.
CT: What advice would you give to someone who wants to begin being a cultural apologist?
PMG: Well, first read my book! Then begin the work of joining with God to re-enchant the world. We do this by awakening in others the deep-seated longing for God, for truth, for beauty, for goodness and then by inviting others to see and delight in the world the same way Jesus does. I’d also encourage you to follow and support the work of the Two Tasks Institute (https://twotasksinstitute.org). As I argue in the book, we must begin to think long-term about the state of the gospel in our culture, which will require all of us to join together as we faithfully and wisely live out our unique calling in whatever context God has us.
About the Author:Paul M. Gould teaches philosophy and apologetics at Oklahoma Baptist University and is the founder and president of the Two Tasks Institute. He is the author or editor of ten books including Cultural Apologetics: Renewing the Christian Voice, Conscience, and Imagination in a Disenchanted World (Zondervan, 2019). He is married to Ethel and has four kids and lives in Fort Worth, Texas. You can find out more about Paul at www.paul-gould.com.
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