3 Things Apologists Should Avoid

There will always be a need for Christians to share the reasons for the hope they have within them. Christian apologetics, in one form or another, will always be with us. But some things are more helpful than others.

Here are some things that Christian apologists should avoid. Sadly, they are all too common.

1. Getting caught up in side issues. It is really easy to get focused on arguing about secondary or tertiary issues. We all do it. There is nothing wrong about being interested in topics outside the essentials of the faith. But when we lose sight of the essentials and get distracted by other things, there is a problem.
2. Arguing without respect. It is also easy to get so caught up in the argument that the only thing that matters is winning the argument. We will hear things like “Christian apologist X destroys skeptic Y” and we cheer. But that is not the goal of apologetics. God doesn’t care about how many arguments we win. God cares about what we did to remove obstacles to faith.
3. Let our own faith slide. There are a number of atheists out there who are former Christian apologists. There are numerous reasons for this and I don’t want to generalize. But I can say that that apologists do not always put enough effort into developing our own faith. Don’t let spiritual disciplines slip for the sake of developing debating skills.

What other things should Christian apologists avoid?

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