The late Robert Webber coined a phrase in "The Younger Evangelicals" which has caught on in Emerging Church circles - "embodied apologetics". He means, if I read him correctly, that because we live in a postmodern age where young people are skeptical about the triumph of the scientific method, they are not receptive to the old apologetics approach of "evidence that demands a verdict", but do respond to a "proof is in the pudding" approach where seeing Christianity lived well is compelling.
I generally have liked Robert Webber. He does not seem to travel the path of others who are sensitive to postmodern cultural shifts - that is, though he recognizes that many enlightenment ideas art now seen as discredited in the culture at large and are considered naive by postmoderns, he does not seem to buy all of the tenets of the postmodern epistemology uncritically. Webber tends to speak in measured tones - not overstating his case, not trashing all things modern, not treating postmodern notions as the latest and greatest thing. He seems a bit more cautious than others in this regard.
So when Webber says "embodied apologetic", guys like me tend to listen and not react like we do when hearing the more provocative spokesmen of EC make their pronouncements. He seems to be saying "we need to understand the culture without succumbing to it." We don't have to accept everything in PoMo epistemology, but we do need to deal with it. If the folks we are trying to convince of the truth of Christianity don't warm to rational proofs, then we are foolish to take rational proofs as a starting point. If they do respond to genuine community, then by all means, having goals of establishing and maintaining communities that are genuine makes sense. One does not have to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Phillip Johnson quotes Alister McGrath on the topic.
"...Apologetics is not at present a core requirement in theological education, so that it is perfectly possible to move into a position of church leadership without any knowledge of the theory or practice of apologetics, or awareness of its strategic importance...It is utterly irresponsible for a church which faces hard questions about its beliefs, values, aspirations and traditions to fail to equip its public representatives to deal with these questions, in terms that our culture can understand."
I fear, however, that not all who use the term "embodied apologetic" are so genteel as Robert Webber. I fear many would discard altogether reason and evidence in the task of Christian theology and witness. I fear the substitution of experience for truth means for some that all "proofs" for the existence of God, the reliability of the scriptures, the historicity of the resurrection will be essentially discounted as meaningless. It follows, almost inevitibly, that if reason and truth are seen as cultural constructions, then defending Christianity through reason is a complete waste of time.
But of course, one does not come to that conclusion if one does not accept the premise, and I for one, do not. Reason and evidence were not inventions of the enlightenment, and the discrediting of certain aspects of enlightenment naturalism and rationalism does not necessitate the abandonment of all rational defense of the faith.
While it can certainly be true that the first question a young person asks may not be "is the New Testament reliable?" but rather "are you the real thing?", it is ludicrous to think that when that young person does ask about the reliability of the new testament, we have no answer other than a mystical experience.
Ebodied apologetics may be a good trend, but not if evidential, presuppositional and other traditional apologetics are jettisoned.
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