What are you Defending?

Everyone should read C.S. Lewis. His wisdom is timeless and his journey of faith is beneficial for the Christian mission. His intellect and ability to communicate are a gift to the church and his ministry continues many years after his death. He is not only a Christian writer, he is a fantastic writer who happens to be Christian and writes often on Christian topics. Lewis spoke well of himself when he wrote, “What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects–with their Christianity latent.”

In his classic work of essays, God in the Dock, C.S. Lewis covers a wide range of issues related to theology and ethics. One of his essays is a lecture delivered to anglican clergy titled, “Christian Apologetics.” In that essay, Lewis admonishes the clergy to whom he is speaking to be honest about their convictions and their calling. In words that resonate well with J. Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism, Lewis argues that one can only claim to be a Christian if one holds Christian convictions. He goes on to point out that he primary criterion for something being true is not sincerity, but truth itself. Of these liberal opinions, Lewis wrote, “We never doubted that the unorthodox opinions were honestly held.” The issue then is not one of honesty or sincerity, but of the actual grounding of truth as it relates to Christianity. Without the supernatural, primarily for Lewis the incarnation, there is no Christianity and a man is not sincere with himself or his people of he continues to cling to his position as a Christian minister when he has obviously forsaken biblical Christianity.

Thus, for a man to engage in Christian apologetics, Lewis asserts that he must first confirm that he is defending true Christian doctrine. Next, Lewis urges pastors to defend “Christianity, not my religion.” 

Each of us has his individual emphasis: each holds, in addition to the Faith, many opinions which seem to him to be consistent with it and true and important. And so perhaps they are. But as apologists it is not our business to defend them.

Here is the rub for many pastors. We must focus on the message of Christianity and worry less about issues in the periphery.

There is a constant temptation on the part of the messenger to tailor the message to fit his personality or his comfort or his opinions or even those of his listeners. Quite frankly, there are many aspects of our Christian faith that are culturally conditioned or personally accepted that fit within the context of our worship or observance of the faith, but which must never be confused for biblical Christianity.

I preach expositional sermons in long series and I believe that to be the most appropriate method, but I cannot hold that up as a Christian standard. The Bible is our book, the way that we preach it, so long as we are faithful to the text, cannot be a test for others. I have convictions about biblical translations and appropriateness in worship, but again, outside of specific biblical commands, these become issues of preference an opinion. Our focus must always be on the “faith once delivered to the saints.”

So, Christian, what are you defending? What are you proclaiming? Where are you exhausting you energy? Make certain first that you are proclaiming true Christian doctrine–the doctrine made clear and plain through supernatural revelation in the Bible. Then, make sure that is all you are defending. A person does not have to be converted to my way of thinking, they need only be converted to Christ.