IrishOboe

My apologies for talking so much about this book before reading it then failing to write about afterwards.  I started notes about it and lost them so I was waiting for them to show up . . .

The book is full of little post-it note arrows that I put on pages with good quotes.  I don’t have time to give a coherent review but I think it’s a book worth reading.  I suppose one could say it’s nothing new, but I think we’ve lost sight of so many things that it is new because it has been so well forgotten.

My editing in brackets[] and my personal comments in brackets{}.

“Whatever it is that gives meaning, and purpose, and direction, and intensity to life; whatever gets us going in the morning; whatever drives us forward; whatever consoles us in misery; whatever stands at the center of our lives – functionally speaking, that is our religion.”

“No one . . . exercises ‘blind faith’ in anything – or anyone. . . Life for us humans means risk, and the wise person is the one who does not seek certainty, but seeks instead adequate reason to believe the best alternative available.  Then he or she ventures forward in faith, trusting something or someone because of what she thinks she knows about that thing or person.”

“As philosopher David Clark puts it, when I engage in apologetic conversations, “I should be aware that . . . I am not myself, at least at first.  I am whatever the dialogue partner thinks I am.” {I need to remember this when I talk about homeschooling, too.}

“The fundamental problem of religious allegiance, then, is not about what we think, but what or whom we love. And if we see that, we will see again one of the fundamental affirmations of this book: that Christian apologetics cannot convince anyone to become a Christian.  Apologetics cannot do so, in this case, because argument cannot produce affection.  The Apostle James sarcastically warns his flock that rational assent to truths about God are nowhere near enough: ‘You believe that God is one; you do well.  Even the demons believe – and shudder’ (James 2:19 NRSV).  No, the question is whether one loves God, and no one does that without conversation – the exclusive activity of the Holy Spirit.”

“[W]e must see that making such introductions [of people to Christ] is only part of the Christian mission.  Instead, our objective as those called to love God and our neighbors – to seek their best interests – is to offer whatever assistance we can to our neighbors toward their full maturity: toward full health in themselves and in their relationships, and especially toward God.  Our mission must be as broad as God’s mission, and that mission is to bring shalom to the whole world.  In short, when it comes to our neighbors, our goal is to help our neighbors to be fully converted into all God wants them to be.  ‘So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all’ (Galations 6:10).”  {I love the idea that we are to minister to our Christian brothers and do all we can to encourage their maturity in Christ and that this is as important as bringing those outside to Christ because all of it is the important work of God.}

{This is a series of questions we hear all the time that Stackhouse says we shouldn’t ask and why.  They’ve always bothered me, so it’s good to see some reasons why!}

“’Is he saved?’  I don’t know, and I cannot know until ‘the roll is called up yonder.’  The actual condition of another’s heart is mysterious, even to that individual.  So from the outside I certainly cannot presume to know, and therefore I do not need to try to know {Emphasis mine}.

“’What can I do to convert him?’  Nothing.  God’s Spirit alone can truly convert.  Again, God does not call us to do what we cannot do.  So we need not, and must not, try to convert anyone – including {or especially?} through what we might pride ourselves on as being impressive apologetics.

“’Does he need to hear the gospel?’  Of course he does.  We all do, again and again, until we see Christ face to face.  That’s one of the reasons Christians take the Lord’s Supper regularly: to hear in it the gospel once again, the gospel of everlasting forgiveness and empowerment to overcome evil and enjoy the good.  If we therefore have any opportunity to tell the gospel to another, we should tell it.  No one outgrows it.  {I might add that this changes our idea of what ‘telling the gospel’ means.  We might need to hear the traditional words, but I think telling the gospel in different words in different ways through action and love will encourage Christians and touch nonbelievers more effectively.}

“The good question to ask instead is simply this: ‘How shall I treat him?  How shall I treat her?’  And the anser is just as simple: with love.  Until all of our neighbors are fully mature in Christ, there is something left for serious Christians to do, and when we have the opportunity to assist that neighbor somehow, then we should take it.  I daresay that will keep us all plenty busy until the Lord Jesus returns.”

Stackhouse warns not to “hypocritically avoid the possibility of improving one’s understanding of reality in the name of fidelity to the cause of understanding reality!”  {How many times have I heard Christians defend some doctrine in this way!  I’ve learned to be careful not to push, for to many believers to question a certain doctrine is paramount to rejecting Christianity!  When did we lose faith in the living, real, figure of Christ and put all our trust in the doctrines of man?}

In quoting Blaise Pascal with “the heart has its reasons that reason does not know,” Stackhouse adds his own beautiful line: “Uneducated and unintelligent people, this great intellectual declared, can be more certain of the fundamental truths of our existence than the subtlest philosophers and most learned theologians.  They are open to such truths, and God impresses them gladly on their hearts.” {My emphasis}

{I’ll burry the bad in with the good in hopes fewer people see my complaint.  Stackhouse has the terrible habit of using feminine pronouns when he means to speak of a person of any sex.  I’m an old stick-in-the-mud about ‘he’ being just fine for that purpose, but can understand why some people chose not to stick to tradition.  However, this ‘sensitivity’ can lead to awkward writing.  Take this quote for an example “And she should try to get her friend to read Scripture for himself, to open himself up to whatever light God would give him in that encounter.”  Not to mention that, as in this case, whenever the character is ‘good’ he uses the feminine pronoun and when the character is ‘bad’ he uses the masculine.  Why?  It’s jarring and made the book slightly unpleasant to read.}

“We worship God also in our recognition of the Scriptural principle that God can use our weakness and even our failure to advance his purposes.  And we are willing to acquiesce in such humiliation for the greater good of God’s kingdom.  Sometimes it is salutary especially for us professional talkers to fail: to run out of responses, to have to admit our limitations, to agree with our neighbor that we, too, don’t have all the answers and perhaps can never answer this or that question.  We worship God as we remember that the conversation that really counts is not the one between us and our friend, but between our friend and the Holy Spirit.”

“Some churches nowadays hold meetings for seekers that are largely evacuated of worship so as to let the visitors feel most comfortable.  There is, indeed, some good sense in such projects.  But seekers also can be invited to witness the richest possible worship, to come alongside us as we enjoy God’s company and each other’s fellowship in the glory of authentic encounter.  Such experiences can also be profoundly apologetic as they can help our friends take Christianity more seriously than they had before, and perhaps provide an occasion for them to meet God in a new way.”  {Might I say the same for our children?}

“In many Christian circles, more to the point is the question of whether we will support artists in poetry, fiction, television, movies, music, and other media – and these will be our own congregants, and spouses, and students, and children.  Will we instead continue to suspect and denounce them as worldly, compromising, and superficial compared to the solid, stolid work of preaching, teaching, and writing Christian theology?  If we do not foster such creative and, yes, unsettling expression in our communities, then our communities may be rendered mute in many sectors of our culture today.”

Stackhouse quotes C.S. Lewis: “I believe that any Christian who is qualified to write a good popular book on any science may do much more by that than by any directly apologetic work.  The difficulty we are up against is this.  We can make people (often) attend to the Christian point of view for half an hour or so; but the moment they have gone away from our lecture or laid down our article, they are plunged back into a world where the opposite position is taken for granted.  As long as that situation exists, wisdespread success is simply impossible. . . . What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects – with their Christianity latent.  You can see this most easily if you look at it the other way round.  Our Faith is not very likely to be shaken by any book on Hinduism.  But if whenever we read an elecmentary book on Geology, Botany, Politics or Astronomy, we found that its implications were Hindu, that would shake us.  It is not the books written in direct defense of Materialism that make the modern man a materialist; it is the materialistic assumptions in all the other books.  In the same way, it is not books on Christianity that will really trouble him.  But he would be troubled if, whenever he wanted a cheap popular introduction to some science, the best work on the market was always by a Christian.”

{Stackhouse adds} “Writing such books, or teaching such subjects in school s and universities, or engaging in academic research in these areas are all activities that God blesses as part of his work of shalom.  They are not to be undertaken merely for the ulterior motive or apologetics, just as any other worthy work is undertaken for its own sake to the glory of God.  Lewis’s objective and mine is simply to urge Christians to consider how the intellectual resources of the Church can best be deployed particularly with an eye toward apologetics.”