Speaking Christian

October 03, 2011

Apologetics in our speech

A recent article on CNN’s belief blog focused on the trend of “speaking Christian”, or “Christianese” as some have dubbed it. The article suggested that when Christians use terms like “born-again”, “testimony” and “blessed”, terms that aren’t often used outside Christian circles, the message of Christianity gets lost in translation. What’s worse, the article suggests that many Christians use these types of words to boost their spiritual statuses while projecting an attitude of elitism and snobbery.

Of course, we shouldn’t be overly concerned with how we’re perceived by the world, but it’s disheartening to think that our attempts at proclaiming the gospel could be perceived this way at all. How can we proclaim the truth of the gospel without projecting a seemingly elitist attitude? How can we connect with non-believers in language with which they’ll identify?

We can find a few answers to these questions in Acts 17. Early in the chapter, we find that Paul had gone to Athens to avoid the hostility that had been mounting against him and his colleagues in the cities where they had previously been preaching. As Paul learned more and more about Athens, he became outraged at the rampant idolatry happening there and began presenting his faith throughout the city wherever he could, whether in the synagogues or the marketplace or wherever else he could find an open ear. He quickly developed a reputation as a teacher with a new philosophy they hadn’t heard before, so the Athenians brought him to the Areopagus, which was a sort of staging ground for philosophers to present and debate new ideas.

In his book The Battle Belongs to the Lord, Dr. K. Scott Oliphint, professor of apologetics at Westminster, writes, “Whenever we are attempting to defend and commend the Christian faith, we are trying to convince [unbelievers] of the truth of what we believe. The best way to do that is to use what we know of their own beliefs as tools for persuasion.”

This is precisely what Paul did at the Areopagus. The brilliance of his defense of the Christian faith is evident not only in the gospel truth it proclaimed, but also in the way it connected that truth to the culture in which he was proclaiming it. Twice he quoted Greek poetry, and at various other points he drew on the prevailing Greek philosophy of the time, often going to so far as to nearly reproduce word for word the tenets of specific philosophers, except with gospel truth intertwined. In other words, he spoke to them in the terminology with which they were familiar, but substituted the truth of God for their lies concerning false gods. And he capped it all off with an emphatic proclamation of the resurrection of Christ.

Dr. Oliphint writes, “…in using and redefining their ideas, Paul is also telling them much more than what they had thought. He uses their own concepts as elements of persuasion, but he also says, from the very start, that this God, who does not dwell in human temples, is the Lord and Creator of all things. Paul uses some of their own ideas, but he places them into the Christian context of the Creator God who rules over all.”

By making an obvious effort to use identifiable language, Paul showed a genuine desire for connection rather than separation. Nothing was lost in translation. If he had gone before them with a haughty attitude, taking pride in his exceeding Christian intellectualism, they surely would’ve lost respect for him. Instead, Paul took pride in Christ himself and used that as his inspiration. As it was, only a few people became believers that day, but others decided that they wanted to hear more about this God of whom Paul spoke (v. 32). He had planted seeds.

This is the attitude we must adopt. It’s not about our own knowledge of Christ and how good it can make us look. It’s not about using that knowledge of Christ to set ourselves apart at the expense of meaningful connection with non-believers. It’s about Christ himself. It’s about allowing him to work though us to get his message to the whole world. We must adopt the mindset Paul had in I Corinthians 2:2 and proclaim nothing but “Jesus Christ and him crucified.”