Concluding Thoughts - Quotes Handout: Apologetics and the Cross—Concluding Thoughts PDF

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“There is, however, a ridiculousness we should guard against: talking ingratiatingly about Christianity. I wonder if a man handing another man an extremely sharp, polished, two-edged instrument would hand it over with the air gestures, and expression of one delivering a bouquet of flowers? Would n...

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Apologetics and the Cross—Concluding Thoughts “There is, however, a ridiculousness we should guard against: talking ingratiatingly about Christianity. I wonder if a man handing another man an extremely sharp, polished, two-edged instrument would hand it over with the air gestures, and expression of one delivering a bouquet of flowers? Would not this be madness? What does one do, then? Convinced of the excellence of the dangerous instrument, one recommends it unreservedly, to be sure, but in such a way that in a certain sense one warns against it” (Søren Kierkegaard, Works of Love (San Francisco: Harper, 1962), 19091). “Christ himself, however, says no more than that the demonstrations [arguments in apologetics] are able to lead someone—not to faith, far from it… but to the point where faith can come into existence, are able to help someone to become aware and to that extent help him to come into the dialectical tension from which faith breaks forth: Will you believe or will you be offended” (Søren Kierkegaard, Practice in Christianity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), 96). “…woe to him who first thought of preaching Christianity without the possibility of offense” (Søren Kierkegaard, Works of Love (San Francisco: Harper, 1962), 192). “ ‘Look here’, we should say, ‘I didn’t invent Christianity. It wasn’t made to my design. In fact there’s quite a lot in it that I don’t like at all—all this business about repentance and self-surrender, for instance. That stuff goes against the grain with me… You’ll have to blame God. He gave us this Christianity. We can accept it. We can reject it. But we can’t tamper with it as though it were something put together by human hands or human brains’.” (Harry Blamires, The Christian Mind: How Should a Christian Think? (Servant Publications, 1978), p. 118). Talking to a non-Christian about Christianity: “ ‘You find it difficult? So do I. You find it awkward? So do I. You find it unattractive? That exactly how I often find it myself, especially round about 7 o’clock on a Sunday morning. You think it a thundering nuisance? In a way I quite agree with you. It is a nuisance at times, especially in Lent. But it’s true, you know.’ That’s the point. It’s true. The Christian mind is alive, quivering wit hthe awareness that here is truth and all truth.... So Don’t ask me what I like or what I approve of. Ask me what I think is true. The truth isn’t always nice. It isn’t always likeable. But I believe you’ve got to cling to it” (Harry Blamires, The Christian Mind: How Should a Christian Think? (Servant Publications, 1978), pp. 120-21).

“People try to persuade us that the objections against Christianity spring from doubt. That is a complete misunderstanding. The objections against Christianity spring from insubordination, the dislike of obedience, rebellion against all authority. As a result people have hitherto been beating the air in their struggle against objections, because they have fought intellectually with doubt instead of fighting morally with rebellion” (Søren Kierkegaard, The Journals of Kierkegaard (London: Oxford University Press, 1938), Papirer VIII A6 (D629), quoted in Howard and Edna Hong, “Translator’s Introduction,” in Søren Kierkegaard, The Works of Love (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1962), 11). “…the practice has been to use the category ‘doubt’ where the discussion ought to be about ‘offense’” (Søren Kierkegaard, Practice in Christianity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), 81). “Philosopher Richard Rorty argued that secular professors in the universities ought ‘to arrange things so that students who enter as bigoted, homophobic religious fundamentalists will leave college with views more like our own.’ Rorty noted that students are fortunate to find themselves ‘under the benevolent Herrschaft of people like me, and to have escaped the grip of their frightening, vicious, dangerous parents.’ Indeed, parents who send their children to college should recognize that as professors ‘we are going to go right on trying to discredit you in the eyes of your children, trying to strip your fundamentalist religious community of dignity, trying to make your views seem silly rather than discussable’” (Richard Rorty, quoted in Dinesh D’Souza, What’s So Great about Christianity (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2007), 36). By the way, if you are planning to go to graduate school, think about what this can sometimes mean for your graduate education. Don’t go in with your eyes closed. “We have accepted secularism’s challenge to fight on secular ground, with secularist weapons and secularist umpire, before a secularist audience and according to the secularist book of rules… It is high time to shift our ground” (Harry Blamires, The Christian Mind: How Should a Christian Think? (Servant Publications, 1978), p. 117). “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). “Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30)....