Not God’s Type: A Conversation With Holly Ordway
I have been posting a number of interviews with Christian leaders and have been getting a good response. This interview with Holly Ordway will be unique in that she will be the first non-Canadian to be featured.
I first encountered Holly when she was interviewed by Greg Koukl on Stand to Reason a couple of years ago. Her testimony really moved me. Although we have never met in person, we have had some interactions since then. She had an article published in Hope’s Reason: A Journal of Apologetics, a journal that I edit. It is wonderful to have her participate in this series of interviews.
Holly, you share your story of discovering faith in your book, Not God’s Type. Could you give us a short summary of why you left atheism?
The short version is that I realized that Christianity is true! I was an atheist because I thought that it was true that there is no God, and that the material world is all that there is. I never rebelled against God or was angry at Him – I genuinely didn’t think He existed. I was raised in a non-religious (though ‘culturally Christian’) home, so I never really thought about religion at all, never went to church, and never read the Bible, but I also wasn’t especially hostile to faith (just rather puzzled and uninterested) until I went to college and began to absorb the prevailing attitude that Christianity was a superstition, and that science was a superior way of understanding the world.
However, even as a committed atheist, I found that I couldn’t quite resolve all the inconsistencies in my own experience. I knew that it was important to try to be a good person, but I had no grounds for morality. I longed for meaning in my life, but my attempts to ‘construct’ meaning for myself failed. I had a profound appreciation for beauty and meaning as I encountered it in literature, however – especially in fantasy, and above all in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. I wrote my dissertation on fantasy, centered on Tolkien, in fact.
Eventually, after I had my PhD and was a college professor, as I was re-reading Christian poetry in order to teach it, I realized that authors like Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, John Donne, and Gerard Manley Hopkins were all profoundly Christian, yet they were extremely intelligent men; I realized that perhaps I’d been a bit too quick to dismiss ‘faith’ as irrational and blind. I didn’t have any desire to become a Christian (I didn’t think it could possibly be true), yet I began to desire to understand better what these authors meant when they talked about God and faith – maybe it was more interesting than I supposed…
This led me to starting some conversations with my fencing coach (whom I had discovered was a Christian, but who was respectful and not pushy about it). He was knowledgeable about apologetics, and this led to my doing a lot of reading and discussion of the philosophical and historical arguments first for the existence of God, and then for the truth of Christianity (especially of the Resurrection). In short — I discovered that it made more sense, and was a more consistent, coherent, and explanatorily powerful system than atheism… and it finally connected both rationally and imaginatively.
One of the areas that you are involved in is literary apologetics. What is literary apologetics?
Literary apologetics is one aspect of imaginative apologetics, which is the work of presenting and defending the Christian faith through the use of the imagination, and particularly through the arts (as a complement to rational, or propositional, apologetics). Literary apologetics makes use of stories, poetry, and drama as modes of expressing truth in ways that argument cannot.
Our Lord gives us the model in his parables: a story like the parable of the Prodigal Son expresses, in imaginative form, the truth that God loves us and desires us to repent of our sin and return to Him. The propositional statements are important, and allow the ideas to be understood in a certain way, but the story allows us to ‘enter into’ the truth, and see ourselves in it, and understand it. In fact, the parable functions to make the idea that “God loves us” meaningful in a way that it may not have been before.
There is both an analytical and a creative aspect to literary apologetics. On the analytical side, we can examine how stories work, and how the imagination functions as a mode of knowing. (C.S. Lewis’s essays “Bluspels and Flalanspheres: A Semantic Nightmare” and “Meditation in a Toolshed” are great examples of this kind of analysis of how the imagination works.) We can also look closely at specific literary works and understand more fully how they convey ideas about the way the world works, whether false ideas or true ones.
One particularly valuable aspect of this analysis is seeing how powerful works of Christian fiction and poetry convey truth in non-propositional ways. I would particularly recommend my friend and colleague Dr Michael Ward’s book Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis as a stellar example of this kind of analysis.
On the creative side, we have Christians producing new works of literature, poetry, drama, screenplays, and so on. This is a very important aspect of apologetics, and one that is under-developed. Too often, Christian apologists think they can just take an apologetics idea, wrap a story around it, and be done with it, without realizing that this just results in bad, unappealing, clumsily didactic works that don’t have much of an effect.
We need to encourage Christians to be well grounded in their faith, with a solid, deep knowledge of doctrine and a strong, integrated devotional life, and then to do the very best writing they can: telling great stories and writing great poetry in which the author can express Christian ideas in a way that’s is natural and unforced, and is artistically well done. We want people to be reading Christian works because they’re worth reading!
One example of this is the poet Malcolm Guite, whose collection Sounding the Seasons: Seventy Sonnets for the Church Year is, itself, a powerful work of literary apologetics. It’s hard work to be a creative writer – I’m a published poet myself, so I know how much work it is! – so we need to support, encourage, and challenge our fellow Christians to do good work.
You are the Director of the Master of Arts in Apologetics at Houston Baptist University. What is the goal of the apologetics program at HBU?
The goal of our MA in Cultural Apologetics is to train integrated apologists: men and women who can use both reason and imagination to share the Gospel in ways that people today can understand and respond to, and to engage effectively with the particular problems and challenges of the 21st century. What worked for apologists 50 or even 20 years ago isn’t necessarily working now.
In particular, our focus on ‘cultural apologetics’ means that we analyze the roots of modern culture. How did we get here? Why do people have the questions and objections to the Gospel that they do? This analysis allows us, as apologists, to tackle the root causes of unbelief rather than just the symptoms.
For instance, I teach a unit on pro-life apologetics in my Modern and Postmodern Culture class, and we explore the ways that the modern focus on the autonomous self and changing ideas about personhood and the value of life have created a culture in which abortion is accepted. We need to address the roots of this evil. We also place a strong emphasis on creative expression in the MA in Cultural Apologetics – film and the visual arts as well as literature – so that our graduates are able to ‘read’ culture and use it to explore apologetics issues, and also to create cultural products of our own!
Why should a potential student consider HBU?
Here are seven reasons:
1. Cultural apologetics, and the overall approach of integrating imagination and reason, is on the cutting edge of apologetics; this is the field that has the potential to truly change culture! There’s no other program which offers this interdisciplinary approach, which provides a rich foundation for apologetics engagement, or that gives students the option, as we do, to engage in creative apologetics work.
2. We have world-class faculty and small classes (15 students max per class), with no teaching assistants or recorded courses, ever – and this is true for both our Houston and Online programs. Professors like Michael Ward, Mike Licona, John Mark Reynolds, Mary Jo Sharp, myself, and others interact with students in class, give feedback on their work, and mentor them.
3. The ‘mere Christian’ experience. Houston Baptist University has (and welcomes!) Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant faculty and students (all of whom are represented in the MA in Apologetics faculty). We have a firm commitment to the core elements of the Christian faith as expressed in the Apostles Creed, and we recognize that even when we disagree (as we do), we can learn from each other — and work together to share the Gospel.
4. Academic rigor plus a community of support. HBU’s MAA is academically robust – lots of reading and lots of writing, and lots of intense discussion. We also have a strong culture of support and encouragement: our faculty believe in an integrated academic/spiritual life, and we encourage students to get to know each other, and to support each other.
5. Diversity. The MAA has students from a wide range of backgrounds (from business to English, philosophy to art), many of whom are working, in ministry, or raising families. Our students are from all over the US, and indeed the world – Canada, Japan, and Africa thus far. The result is a dynamic classroom experience where students learn from each other as well as from their professors.
6. Flexibility and practicality. The MAA is an interdisciplinary degree. Some students will use it as the basis for ministry work or writing, others will continue on to further graduate study or use the MAA to teach at a Christian college or high school. And students are encouraged to make use of what they’re learning as they go along, whether it’s teaching at the local church, blogging, speaking, etc.
7. Integration. The faculty collaborate so that our courses relate to each other, so that what students learn in one class supports and deepens what they learn in other classes. We emphasize the theme of ‘both/and”: both reason and imagination, grace and truth, art and philosophy… and so on. We also strive to model and support an integrated Christian life, encouraging prayer and mutual support, and for instance encouraging Sunday as a day of rest and worship.
What are some of the ways that local churches can integrate apologetics into their ministry?
If the church has a newsletter or website, an easy way to integrate apologetics is to have a regular feature where a trained apologist in the church addresses a particular topic or answers questions. For instance, before Easter the church could run a piece on why we are confident that the Resurrection really happened.
Another great way is to have sessions in the adult education or adult Sunday school program, and in youth groups as well. It can start with a few individual talks, and then expand into a series or a regular class, as more people get interested. Book or film discussion groups are also an option – this is a good way to do ‘imaginative apologetics’, as a good novel or film can jump-start the discussion in ways a straight apologetics book might not. A church could also start an apologetics lending library – a shelf or a bookcase with a selection of classic titles – or a resource page on the website with suggested resources (both print and online).
All of these are ideas that can start small and then grow larger. It’s important to be patient and find ways to meet the needs of the local church. People are often confused about what apologetics is – and they may even be afraid of it at first, especially if the church culture has tended to discourage people from asking questions. If this is the case, it can be helpful to avoid the term ‘apologetics’ and use phrases like ‘why we believe what we believe’ and ‘being more confident in our faith.’ In all these ideas, consistency is key. It’s much better to have regular, small-scale apologetics engagement than to do one big thing only once in a while.
Imaginative apologetics can really help bring apologetics into the local churches, because in art and literature we have a bridge between the rational (apologetics arguments) and the emotional and devotional aspects of the faith. So, for instance, something I’ve done in the past in teaching on the Incarnation and Resurrection is to use art and poetry to help people connect with the topic, and then shift into how we know it to be true; or I’ll start with the doctrine and then use a poem or story to show the application of the doctrine to our relationship with Christ. Stories and poetry make theology accessible and even inviting!
Thank you Holly.
Make sure to check out the HBU Master of Arts in Apologetics, including their online program.
You may also want to take a look at Holly’s website, Hieropraxis.
