Apologetics for the Masses - Issue #77

This week is a little lighter than most weeks. I received a question from one of the subscribers and thought I would answer it in the newsletter. I guess I would categorize this as “general strategy” issues.

I first put his email to me in its entirety, and then I repeat it with my comments interspersed.

Challenge/Response/Strategy

I wanted to send a note thanking you for your apostalate. I too cringe at your tone sometimes, but you are defending the faith. How does it go, all evil needs is for good men to do nothing.

I just started e-mail apologetics, earlier I attempted the message board route at Catholic Answers and CARM, but they are too fast paced for me. Once you get involved in a thread you need to monitor closely and if you can’t for a couple of days it may be gone and you didn’t reply to an important point.

Anyway, I have someone on the line right now and I am having trouble getting him to even realize that he has an interpretation of the Bible. He seems to believe that his opinion is actually what the Bible says. Wow. Probably not new for you to hear.

Part of the reason, is I am too nice. I am starting to get firmer with him. On the message boards, I used to be a smiley face user. Thanks to you I have completely eradicated that from my repertoire.

Anyway, this guy has a master’s in Biblical studies and 20 years experience (sure proud of the resume), I on the other hand am a “dumb Catholic” with no college degree who listened to “some guy from Alabama” a couple of years ago who said that the Bible is a Catholic book written by and for Catholics and there is nothing to fear in there. THANK YOU. I truthfully was afraid of the Bible because these Protestants always seemed to know more about it and weren’t Catholic so I used to avoid it out of fear of what I would find. Anyway, it doesn’t really seem fair, he doesn’t stand a chance ;) (Had to do at least one)

The only problem I have now (other than I need keep studying) is it takes me hours to formulate a response to these. If I am going to be effective, I think I have to get more efficient in my responses. With everything you do you still manage to come up with these long well reasoned responses in what must be much less time then I put together a short one. I usually end up writing the thing 2 or 3 times. Any advice? Is it just as simple just hitting send sooner? Did you ever go through this and it just gets easier?

I don’t need a personal response, I am not going to quit, but perhaps a topic for a newsletter?

Again thank you, and God Bless, you are in my prayers,

Doug B.

-————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Doug B.

I wanted to send a note thanking you for your apostolate. I, too, cringe at your tone sometimes, but you are defending the faith. How does it go, all evil needs [to prosper] is for good men to do nothing.

I just started e-mail apologetics, earlier I attempted the message board route at Catholic Answers and CARM, but they are too fast paced for me. Once you get involved in a thread you need to monitor closely and if you can’t for a couple of days it may be gone and you didn’t reply to an important point.

COMMENTS

I really don’t like those discussion forums, either. You do have to constantly keep up with them and it’s almost impossible to stay on a particular line of argumentation. I tried once or twice, way back when, to discuss something with non-Catholics on some forum, and every time I would ask a setup question (hoping to follow-up with another question after the first one was answered), before the other guy could respond there would be 8-10 folks chiming in with questions that went off in different directions or they would try to answer my questions for him or some such thing and I could never set up my line of argumentation. It just didn’t work for me.

Doug B.

Anyway, I have someone on the line right now and I am having trouble getting him to even realize that he has an interpretation of the Bible. He seems to believe that his opinion is actually what the Bible says. Wow. Probably not new for you to hear.

COMMENTS

Someone who has a problem with Catholic teaching and they seem to think their opinion is what the Scripture actually says…nope, never run into that before.

One question that I like to ask folks is: “Are you an authentic interpreter of the Bible.” Issue #38 of the newsletter has 42 questions that I asked Pastor Matt Johnson (and which, by the way, he never answered). The last 4 questions (#39-#42) are in this particular line of questioning – about being an authentic interpreter of the Bible. Check them out and the other questions as well. Most of these 42 questions can be used on anyone. And, they put folks in a little bit of a bind as to how to answer because it is very obvious that answering either “yes” or “no” to these questions leads to some problems for the person providing the answers.

For example: If someone says they are an “authentic interpreter” of the Bible, then that leads to the question of infallibility. If they are an authentic interpreter of the Bible, then they must be infallible. Yet, most Protestants (with the exception of Rich) will never claim to be infallible. So, that puts them in a predicament. Plus, if they claim to be an authentic interpreter of the Bible, then the logical question is: Who appointed you to be an authentic interpreter of the Bible? If they say the Bible did, then you ask them for chapter and verse as to where their name appears so that you might believe them. If they say anyone else, then you ask by what authority that person or persons appointed them authentic interpreters of the Bible.

If they don’t claim to be an “authentic interpreter” of the Bible, then that means their interpretation of the Bible must necessarily be fallible – in other words, they have to admit their interpretation could be wrong. And, if they could be wrong, then why should you, or anyone else, risk the salvation of your soul on what this person is saying?

Also, if they claim to be an authentic interpreter of the Bible, then why can’t you claim to be an authentic interpreter of the Bible? How can they say that you aren’t an authentic interpreter? In other words, this line of questioning leads folks into some very difficult positions.

Now, in regards to showing someone that what they are saying is indeed an intepretation, simply take the words that they write, put them in quotation marks, and ask them where these words within the quotation marks appear in the Bible. Quote the Bible verse they were commenting on and say, “These words are in the Bible.” Then, again, quote their words and say, “These words are not in the Bible.” In other words, their words are coming from them, not from the Bible, and that means they are interpreting the Bible. We all interpret the Bible every time we read it – some of us realize that and acknowledge it, some of us don’t.

Doug B.

Part of the reason, is I am too nice. I am starting to get firmer with him. On the message boards, I used to be a smiley face user. Thanks to you I have completely eradicated that from my repertoire.

COMMENTS

I’ve brought him over to the “dark side.”

Doug B.

Anyway, this guy has a master’s in Biblical studies and 20 years experience (sure proud of the resume), I on the other hand am a “dumb Catholic” with no college degree who listened to “some guy from Alabama” a couple of years ago who said that the Bible is a Catholic book written by and for Catholics and there is nothing to fear in there. THANK YOU. I truthfully was afraid of the Bible because these Protestants always seemed to know more about it and weren’t Catholic so I used to avoid it out of fear of what I would find. Anyway, it doesn’t really seem fair, he doesn’t stand a chance ;) (Had to do at least one)

COMMENTS

He’s been taken off the “easy pickin’s” list.

Doug B.

The only problem I have now (other than I need keep studying) is it takes me hours to formulate a response to these. If I am going to be effective, I think I have to get more efficient in my responses. With everything you do you still manage to come up with these long well reasoned responses in what must be much less time then I put together a short one. I usually end up writing the thing 2 or 3 times. Any advice? Is it just as simple just hitting send sooner? Did you ever go through this and it just gets easier?

COMMENTS

Sometimes it takes me a few hours to come up with my responses as well. I can easily spend 3-4 hours writing one of the responses that you see in my newsletters. And, I quite often read over them several times, making minor adjustments here and there, before ever sending them off.

What I would suggest, if you wish to cut down on your response time, is to steal stuff from other folks. Steal things from my newsletters. Go to Catholic.com (Catholic Answers website) and use their search engine to look for articles on whatever topic you’re discussing. Don’t hesitate to lift verbiage from an article here and an article there. If you want to cite your source fine, but if you want to leave that out – I don’t see any problem, as long as you’re doing it in private correspondence.

I’m not talking about borrowing verbiage from folks and then publishing your own book or something, but just using what other people have written in a private conversation where the intent is to save someone’s soul. If you are constantly saying, “John Martignoni said…” or “Scott Hahn said…” or “Tim Staples said…” it could distract from the main point of the conversation. However, if you quote from someone without reference, and then give the person a link to the article or newsletter you quote from so that they can “read more” on that particular subject – well, that’s works fine by me.

I don’t know of any Catholic apologist who would mind if you quote them without citation – not for the purpose of self-aggrandizement or for profit – but for the purpose of saving a soul. After all, I don’t know of any Catholic apologists who are coming up with original stuff. These arguments have been out there for hundreds of years. I always tell people that if there is anything original in any of my stuff, it’s quite by accident.

By doing that, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel each time. Another thing to keep in mind, is that you should be asking more questions than you answer. Asking a question takes a lot less time than writing an explanation. Don’t feel like you have to answer every single argument the other guy makes all at the same time. Narrow your discussion down to just one or two and deal with those before moving on to one or two others. If they ask a question that you don’t answer, and they ask it a second or third time, then just tell them you’ll get to that question once they answer this or that question that you asked which has gone unanswered by them.

Doug B.

I don’t need a personal response, I am not going to quit, but perhaps a topic for a newsletter?

COMMENTS

There you go…

In Conclusion

Writing this in a hurry – I’ve got to head to the airport – so I hope it makes sense. I hope all of you have a great weekend!

How to be added to, or removed from, the list

If this newsletter was forwarded to you by a friend, and you would like to be added to our distribution list, all you have to do is go to www.biblechristiansociety.com and click on the “Newsletter” page to sign up. It will take you about 10 seconds.

$RemovalHTML$

Share this newsletter on: