Matt Nelson – Word on Fire Blog
You may be the world’s most persuasive debater, but there will always be those for whom your every utterance —however true, charming, eloquent, and compelling—will be as vomit. These outliers we might call the Resistant. As apologists for the Christian faith, then, how might we efficaciously engage the Resistant?
Here are three options for your consideration:
Walk away and pray.
When interacting with the Resistant we may see no sign of them hearing us. Indeed, we may see no sign of them hearing themselves. In such cases, and for a variety of reasons, walking away may be both wise and prudent. Other times, we may discern it best not to walk in the direction of the Resistant in the first place.
Invite the saints, and especially their guardian angels, to do the same. By doing this we submit the Resistant to the mercy, timing, and tactics of God, and let go of control.
Plant a pebble.
Your best option may be to offer small, stimulating points to ponder. Apologist Greg Koukl likens this tactic to putting a pebble in the shoe of the other. The goal is to humbly but powerfully offer an interesting insight that will penetrate through the irrational shell to the intellectual core. We want to offer “pebbles” that will unsettle those who disagree with us, even mildly irritate them, that in private they may find themselves staring off into the cosmos musing to themselves: “Maybe it is true!”
Argue vigorously.
Well, just because someone is excruciatingly impervious does not mean that they can’t be argued with to some avail. This is what we need to tease out. How, then, should the Resistant be argued with?
A) Start where you agree.
B) Become well-acquainted with common logical fallacies.
C) Become well-acquainted with common rhetorical tricks.
Sometimes our best move will be to create or maintain distance between ourselves and our critics. Other times some tactful though subtle argumentation may be best, the placing of a pebble in our intellectual opponents’ shoes—but nothing more. And in some cases, an all-out intellectual sparring match may be called for. For there are some among the Resistant who are more easily disarmed than you imagine, who don’t know they’re committing logical fallacies, who don’t know how ill-nuanced the slogans are that they hold. You might be the first one to show them their unreasonableness. Then again, you might be the hundredth, but the first to meet with any success.
Whatever the future holds, the time is now for preparing to make a defense of the hope that is within you. That’s St. Peter’s command to us all (1 Pet. 3:15). But we should also never forget that without prayer, wisdom, and discernment, all intellectual preparation is futile.