"Like ethics, Christian apologetics is a daily activity writ large upon the life of Christians and Christian communities whether they realize it or not. The world hears clearly their message with or without words. For they go about life confessing, commending, defending, and living the gospel, showing the world an ethic and a religion whether they speak of these things or not. Both disciplines are thus inherently Christian activities, disciplines that must take seriously the responsibility the identity imparts. The Christian is a person of the Book, commanded to remember the movement of God in history, the nearness of the Spirit today, and the promise of Christ's return in every word he speaks, in every thing she does.
In the midst of this great reality, the Christian need not live as one who holds every answer, but as one who lives with the confidence that is ours through Christ before God, as we grow further into our conversions and the abundant life Christ describes. In this, both the world and the Church is benefited when believers learn to see their own conversions as a process, salvation as more than a ticket to heaven, and faith as something deeper than sheer preference or unquestionable certainty—for this will likewise help us see that reaching our neighbors is a lifelong activity. In the meantime, John Stackhouse argues that it is imperative for the apologist and the ethicist to take with her the right questions.(2) Instead of evangelicalism's favorite foci—Is he saved? Does she have a personal relationship with Christ? Or, what must I do to convert them?—a far better question was entertained by the one the believer follows: Who shall I say is my neighbor? At this question Jesus recounted a story that left everyone asking appropriately, If the world is filled with my neighbors, how then shall I live?"
Carattini
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