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Reflections on the changing landscape of apologetics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

David Pickering*
Affiliation:
South Central Theological Education Institution (Church of England), Oxford, OX5 1GF, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Abstract

This essay investigates one aspect of the relationship between contemporary apologetics and cultural studies. It begins with a consideration of Avery Dulles’ famous History of Apologetics. While noting the many virtues of Dulles’ work, it critiques his lack of attention to the role of imagination, emotion, narrative, and personal testimony. The essay argues that Dulles’ work shows how constricted the study of apologetics has often been in comparison with its practice. The essay goes on to note recent developments in research into apologetics which have begun to apply recent philosophical and theological interest in narrative, imagination, and the emotions to this field. It explores the increasingly sophisticated conceptual apparatus available for this task, in particular the concepts of the Social Imaginary and the Overton Window. Finally, the essay attempts a dialogue with certain aspects of secular advocacy, in relation to the role of emotion in the public square. It concludes that the use of conceptual resources from other disciplines, and engagement in dialogue with secular advocacy, may be of benefit to apologetics.

Type
Original Article
Copyright
Copyright © 2021 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

1 Dulles, Avery, A History of Apologetics, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005)Google Scholar.

2 Dulles does give the occasional, brief nod to fictional works which contain an element of apologetics, C.S. Lewis's science fiction novels, for example, but very largely treats such works of the imagination as peripheral to his subject. See Dulles, History of Apologetics, p. 318.

3 Newman, John Henry, Newman's University Sermons: Fifteen sermons preached before the University of Oxford 1826-43, MacKinnon, Donald M. & Holmes, J. Derek, ed. (London: SPCK, 1970)Google Scholar, see, for example, p. 122. Newman, John Henry, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (Notre Dame, Ind; London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979)Google Scholar, see, for example, pp. 93-96, 106-111.

4 See, for example, Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, Biographia Literaria; or, biographical sketches of my literary life and opinions (London: Rest Fenner, 1817)Google Scholar.

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8 See Ordway, Holly, Apologetics and the Christian imagination: an integrated approach to defending the faith (Steubenville: Emmaus Road Publishing, 2017)Google Scholar.

9 See McGrath, Alister E., Narrative Apologetics: sharing the relevance, joy, and wonder of the Christian faith (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2019)Google Scholar.

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11 Forrest, Benjamin K., Kirk, Josh Chatraw & McGrath, Alister E., ed., The history of apologetics: a biographical and methodological introduction (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Academic, 2020)Google Scholar. It is perhaps unsurprising that it should give less coverage to Catholic apologists than Dulles, yet, the Catholic critic might ask: if Jonathan Edwards is admitted under the heading of ‘Dogmatics as apologetics’, and William Lane Craig and Alvin Plantinga gain entrance as philosophical apologists, what of Karol Wojtyla and Joseph Ratzinger?

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14 See, for example, Working with a Secular Age. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Charles Taylor's Master Narrative (De Gruyter, 2016)Google Scholar.

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21 Charles Taylor, ‘Interview with Charles Taylor’, pp. 3-15 (pp. 5-6).

22 Russell, Nathan, ‘An Introduction to the Overton Window of Political Possibilities’, <https://www.mackinac.org/7504> [accessed 7th May, 2019]+[accessed+7th+May,+2019]>Google Scholar. The author of this paper would like to thank Jonathan Pickering for introducing him to the Overton Window.

23 See, among many examples, Glastris, Paul, ‘Hillary Opens the Overton Window’, The Washington Monthly 48, no. 11/12 (2016), p. 7Google Scholar.

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26 Oleksandr Valentinovich Karpenko, ‘The “Overton Window” as Manipulative Mechanism of Public Values Transformation’, National Academy of Managerial Staff of Culture and Arts Herald, no. 1 (2019), pp. 51-54.

27 This climate analogy is far from new in this field. C.S. Lewis wrote of the apologist's task in terms of spreading ‘an intellectual (and imaginative) climate favourable to Christianity’. Lewis, C.S., Essay Collection & Other Short Pieces (London: Harper Collins, 2000), p. 182Google Scholar.

28 Channel 4 News, ‘Cambridge Analytica Uncovered: Secret filming reveals election tricks’, 19th March 2018. See < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpbeOCKZFfQ> (accessed 5th May, 2021)+(accessed+5th+May,+2021)>Google Scholar.

29 See, among many examples, Crouch, Colin, ‘Balancing reason and emotion in democracy’, The British Academy Blog, 23 February 2017, <https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/blog/balancing-reason-and-emotion-democracy/> (accessed 7 May 2021)Google Scholar.

30 Philip Pullman interview, ‘My daemon is a raven, a bird that steals things’, in The Observer, 22 October 2017, < https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/oct/22/philip-pullman-my-daemon-is-a-raven-la-belle-sauvage-interview-questions> (accessed 7 May 2021).

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32 Kirk & Madsen, After the Ball, pp. 161-63.

33 Kirk &Madsen, After the Ball, p. 163.

34 Kirk & Madsen, After the Ball, pp. 148-53.

35 Kirk & Madsen, After the Ball, pp. 153-56.

36 See, among a great many examples, ‘The Cambridge Analytica Files’, on The Guardian website, < https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/cambridge-analytica-files> (accessed 7 May 2021)+(accessed+7+May+2021)>Google Scholar.

37 Oxford Languages, part of Oxford University Press (OUP), made ‘post-truth’ its ‘Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year’ in 2016. OUP defined ‘post-truth’ thus: ‘Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.’ See <https://languages.oup.com/word-of-the-year/2016/> (accessed 12 May 2021).

38 Steuter, Erin & Wills, Deborah, At War with Metaphor: Media, Propaganda, and Racism in the War on Terror (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008), p. 18Google Scholar.

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41 McGrath, Alister E., Re-imagining Nature: the promise of a Christian natural theology (Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell, 2017), p. 143Google Scholar. See also McGrath, Alister E., The Open Secret: a new vision for natural theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 Taylor describes ‘the immanent frame’ thus: ‘we come to understand our lives as taking place within a self-sufficient immanent order’. Taylor, Secular Age, p. 543.