If you were to write a book on Christian apologetics, what title would you choose? Peter C. Moore would have chosen Out of the Iron Furnace: Exit Routes from Today’s Secular Faiths. I’m not sure which I like better, that title or the one actually given the book by its publisher. But I am sure that I like Moore’s approach to the task of defending the Christian faith when skeptics make their case against it. Moore defends the claims of Christians against the attacks of a host of –isms and employs the methods of both presuppositionalist and evidentialist Christian philosophy. Moore is a well-educated and well-traveled Anglican, so if you read this book, get ready for that. In the opening chapter, he laments over how “much that has gone by in the name of evangelism has been manipulative, anti-intellectual and culture-bound.” [20] As a Baptist who has sat through far too many extended “invitations” tacked onto the end of sermons, I must say that I agree.
Here is perhaps the most helpful line I learned from Moore for use in conversations with skeptics: “You may be right in what you say is wrong, but are you right in what you say is right?” [32] Obviously, all skeptics have some sort of critique of Christianity as they understand it. While conversing with skeptics, Moore builds bridges by going as far as he can with their criticisms. Before too long, he seeks to show how the other worldview is not able to be lived out consistently. Then, he respectfully shows his opponent the superiority of the Christian gospel.
In his chapter on the “New Age” movement, Moore helpfully highlights its essential mysticism, monism, syncretism and atheism blended with “spirituality.” The contrast between the impersonal emphasis of the “New Age” movement and the personal language of the Bible is striking. Our God speaks clearly in particular words to a particular people at particular points in human history. Therefore, “we must hold on to the significance of who we are and being with a resolute determination neither to dissolve our identity into the impersonal, mystical Absolute nor to surrender our rationality to a one-sided intuitive, elite path to insight, but rather to listen to the still small voice that addresses us as whole people.” [60]
Moore provides his readers with succinctly devastating critiques of a variety of skeptical perspectives. He concludes that “Humanism, by seeking a way to elevate us from mere corporeality, robs us of the ability to find our true dignity in our relationship to God. It first turns us into gods, and then proceeds to smash the very idols it has made.” [82] He highlights how relativists, like humanists, “cheerfully claim values like humility, love and compassion for their own system, even if they have no final reason for choosing them over their opposites.” [101] He explains how narcissism is “not a thought-out view of the world with merits which must be given due weight alongside the merits of other systems. It is, rather, a flight from responsible decision making and in its worst forms an implosion of the self in upon itself that renders impossible what normal people call maturity.” [117] The real reason agnostics refuse to consider Christianity with an open mind is not because there is not enough evidence, rather “they have accepted a faith that will not permit that consideration.” [143] Pragmatism drives the “faith” of many “Christians” today, who “present the gospel as believable not because it is true, but because it is workable.” [158] But all must live in a world with real suffering, and pragmatists have no means of suffering with hope. Hedonists are confronted with the twin realities that “pleasure and pain can be easily confused” [178] and that “Loneliness and meaninglessness dog the steps of the hedonist and narcissist alike.” [181]
Do you know anyone who self-identifies as a hedonist, or a narcissist, or a relativist, or a pragmatist? I don’t either. But Moore is right when he says that “This does not mean that their world view is not shaped largely by one or more of these isms.” [196] While one might quibble with Moore on a number of his off-hand theological comments, he makes a greater point that “to establish the truth of any system we need to examine not only what it says is wrong, but also what it says is right.” [198] Even though this book is nearly 20 years old, Christians who want to train themselves to be godly apologists will be well served by reading this book.
Disarming the Secular Gods, Peter C. Moore, IVP, 1989
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