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The Augustine Way: Retrieving a Vision for the Church’s Apologetic Witness
Joshua D. Chatraw and Mark D. Allen
Baker Academic (2023). 197 pp.
Christians live in a world at war. Pastors serve on the front lines, in the medical tents, and in the headquarters of the general staff, seeking always to help people (both believers and unbelievers) see past the fog and hold fast to what is true. It is difficult work, perhaps increasingly so in the swirling clouds of secularism and pluralism. And it is precisely for such a time as this that Josh Chatraw and Mark Allen want to retrieve Augustine’s model of the pastor as apologist.
The aim of their volume on Augustine’s approach to apologetics is to recover his wisdom as a guide for thinking through how Christians take on the apologetic task. They offer a straightforward argument: the contemporary approaches to apologetics have failed to address the whole person; Augustine can help us recover. The book reflects this two-part argument, first by introducing the problem and summarizing current models taught by apologists, then by examining and applying how Augustine approached apologetics, particularly in Confessions and The City of God.
Chapter 1 begins with the coming-of-age story of a boy who, having grown up in a small town in Georgia in the 1990s, moves to a secular university where he quickly discovers how anemic is the version of Christianity he had adopted. It is both an ancient and contemporary story, as it reflects Augustine’s own narrative in the Confessions as well as the experience of countless (former) believers today. As the authors trace Augustine’s personal history and cultural milieu, they bring out one of the key points in the book: a list of scientific facts and philosophical arguments does not provide a strong buttress against the captivating philosophies and empty deceits of the world, for the human heart is not a computing machine but a factory of desire.
Chapter 2 turns to consider the methods and arguments of contemporary apologetic approaches in light of an Augustinian understanding of the heart. Allen describes how the methods he learned in a seminary classroom failed to connect with people in the pew, not because they were intellectually incapable of understanding his arguments, rather those arguments failed to speak to their motives and desires (p. 36). Putting Charles Taylor into conversation with Augustine, the authors describe the “consumeristic pursuit of personal therapeutic ends” which drives Westerners today and show that the methods being taught Christian apologists are frequently ineffective because they operate on a “reductionistic anthropology” that does not speak to people’s hearts (pp. 40, 48). More than thinking machines, people are fundamentally “doxological creatures,” whose restless hearts can only be assuaged by the infinite joys offered by God himself (Ps 16:11).
In part 2, the authors turn to the constructive aspect of the retrieval project. Chapter 3 begins with an example of a deconversion story to show that separating intellectual questions from loves and longings frequently fail individual doubters. Reasoning cannot be separated from love (p. 77). They argue that Augustine’s own approach, which he describes in Confessions and applies in The City of God, holistically embraces the whole person, both by challenging their intellectual assumptions and conclusions and showing how the elements of beauty, truth, and goodness reflected in worldly belief systems point beyond themselves to the grand drama of creation, redemption, and glorification.
Chapter 4 plunges into this story to show that God always intended to meet the deepest longings of the creatures he made. Rejecting him, our cities and world systems “promise Eden but [are] closer to hell on earth” (p. 25). In this chapter, Chatraw and Allen frequently turn to Books 11–22 of The City of God where Augustine draws readers into the narrative arc of Scripture, inviting them to go on pilgrimage with him as saints on the way to the eternal City.
Finally, Chapter 5 challenges the assumed stance of contemporary apologists as pugilists in the ring. Chatraw and Allen demonstrate that Augustine, while not afraid to offer scathing critiques, aimed primarily “not to bury the dead but to heal the sick” (p. 172). The primary (not only) pastoral tool is not a hammer or an executioner’s axe but a surgeon’s scalpel, designed to wound that it may heal.
This constructive work is wide-ranging. It interacts with important literature related to Augustine, contemporary apologetics, sociology, and psychology to argue for a better way forward in the realm of apologetics. These interactions serve to deepen their application of Augustine’s approach and show how learning from him will help the church better navigate contemporary challenges, especially as the West becomes increasingly post Christian. For those interested in a less academic argument for the same, Chatraw and Allen refer in the conclusion to Chatraw’s more popular level Telling a Better Story: How to Talk About God in a Skeptical Age (Zondervan Reflective: 2020).
Two more strong points are their commitment to the local church and their inclusion of exemplars. First, they make the case throughout that the natural home for apologetics is the local church, not the university debate club. They both challenge the church not to relinquish its apologetic role and show that opportunities abound to demonstrate to hopeless and tired people the meaning of true healing and joy. Second, they include examples of pastors and academics who have modeled this approach in their ministries. This gives readers further points of contact to learn from as they seek to persuade.
Finally, two overall weaknesses. First, one is left with the overall impression that contemporary approaches to apologetics are at odds with Augustine’s model of persuasion. The authors could have been more clear throughout that many elements of those approaches are useful. One of the important roles that classical/evidentialist approaches to apologetics serves is to simply show that the Christian faith is not illogical.
Second, the emphasis on wholistic persuasion can gently mute an important fact: we are at war. Though we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, the rulers, authorities, cosmic powers, and spiritual forces of evil are operative in the philosophies and worldviews we argue against. We must learn to recognize what requires a scalpel and what requires a battle axe.
Pastor Theologians are apologists. Though some may not own the label, they necessarily play the role. Chatraw and Allen have offered a model for how to pursue that role well: not by going to earn a certificate or degree in apologetic methods and arguments, but by holding forth Christ week by week, showing how Scripture’s drama reaches its climax in his work on the cross and inviting people to find hope and wholeness in him alone.
Seth Porch (ThM, Bethlehem College & Seminary) is the Publications Coordinator for the Center for Pastor Theologians.
