Does God Need Our Protection?
In a recent Huffington Post article, Derek Penwell seemed to equate apologetics with providing God “the protection of black belt theological defenders.” While there are all sorts of things in his article that I could respond to, this is what I want to talk about.
Where did Penwell ever get the idea of apologetics being about protecting God? I think every Christian from the most liberal to the most fundamentalist would agree that God does not need our protection. I have never heard an apologist claim that they were protecting God. God does a very good job himself.
So if apologetics is not protecting God, what is it? The defence that comes from apologia (literally ‘from reason’) simply means explaining why we think Christianity is reasonable. Christians use apologetics as a personal defence when others attack our faith and as a means of clarifying misunderstandings by those who are interested in Christianity but are confused. That is it.
Penwell’s use of protecting God is simply a straw man to poke at conservatives. That is fine that he has left evangelicalism, but he should stick with more accurate criticisms of our beliefs.
I get the impression from some fundamentalists that they believe if they let go of one piece of doctrine, if they accept that one of the factual assertion required by orthodoxy–i.e., literalism, physical hell, etc.–that the whole faith unravels. Perhaps that is not as true as I perceive it. In any case, it is in response to that experience that I feel compelled to say, “God can survive questioning; you don’t need to protect God from inquiry.”