Indeed, I think that getting people to believe that we live in a postmodern culture is one of the craftiest deceptions that Satan has yet devised. “Modernism is passé,” he tells us. “You needn’t worry about it any longer. So forget about it! It’s dead and buried.” Meanwhile, modernism, pretending to be dead, comes around again in the fancy new dress of postmodernism, masquerading as a new challenger. “Your old arguments and apologetics are no longer effective against this new arrival,” we’re told. “Lay them aside; they’re of no use. Just share your narrative!” Indeed, some, weary of the long battles with modernism, actually welcome the new visitor with relief. And so Satan deceives us into voluntarily laying aside our best weapons of logic and evidence, thereby ensuring unawares modernism’s triumph over us. If we adopt this suicidal course of action, the consequences for the church in the next generation will be catastrophic. Christianity will be reduced to but another voice in a cacophony of competing voices, each sharing its own narrative and none commending itself as the objective truth about reality, while scientific naturalism shapes our culture’s view of how the world really is.

Now, of course, it goes without saying that in doing apologetics we should be relational, humble, and invitational; but that’s hardly an original insight of postmodernism. From the beginning Christian apologists have known that we should present the reasons for our hope “with gentleness and respect” (1 Pet. 3:15–16). One needn’t abandon the canons of logic, rationality, and truth in order to exemplify these biblical virtues.

Apologetics is therefore vital in fostering a cultural milieu in which the gospel can be heard as a viable option for thinking people. In most cases, it will not be arguments or evidence that bring a seeker to faith in Christ—that is the half-truth seen by detractors of apologetics—but nonetheless it will be apologetics which, by making the gospel a credible option for seeking people, gives them, as it were, the intellectual permission to believe. It is thus vitally important that we preserve a cultural milieu in which the gospel is heard as a living option for thinking people, and apologetics will be front and center in helping to bring about that result.

2) Strengthening believers. Not only is apologetics vital to shaping our culture, but it also plays a vital role in the lives of individual persons. One such role will be strengthening believers. Contemporary Christian worship tends to focus on fostering emotional intimacy with God. While this is a good thing, emotions will carry a person only so far, and then he’s going to need something more substantive. Apologetics can help to provide some of that substance.

As I speak in churches around the country, I frequently meet parents who approach me after the service and say something like, “If only you’d been here two or three years ago! Our son [or our daughter] had questions about the faith which no one in the church could answer, and now he’s lost his faith and is far from the Lord.”