Christian Apologetics Today: Reaching a Post-Christian Generation
It’s no secret that over the past 60 years U.S. Christian apologists have witnessed a dramatic cultural sea change. In the past, we could assume two things: the general belief in reasonable objective truths, and a baseline cultural familiarity with what’s in the Bible. All that shifted with the appearance of Gen Z, which Barna Group has dubbed “the first truly ‘post-Christian’ generation.”
I have been teaching and defending the faith for about 25 years at the high school, college and graduate levels. I also speak, debate, write and run a YouTube channel focused on apologetics and evangelism. Although he is now retired, my father, Josh McDowell, recently celebrated six decades of being an evangelist and apologist with Cru. Together, we have worked to update his classic books Evidence That Demands a Verdict and More Than a Carpenter.
While he and I still hear the timeless questions that have always been posed, we also are hearing new ones that are influenced by social media, societal trends and other current factors. Motivated to reach this new generation, Dad and I have been having conversations about the cultural shifts happening right now that might influence the proclamation and defense of the faith going forward.
Why Apologetics Must Adapt
To effectively reach young people for Christ, we need to understand what is different today than even 15 years ago. As my father and I have talked about the issues we have observed, and as we analyze the culture, five big shifts that have impacted apologetics stand out.
1. Cultural Shift #1: Questions Are Being Asked Earlier. When Dad first began his public ministry, people were largely making life-shaping decisions in college. But in the late 1980s and early ’90s, big questions that were formerly asked in college were being asked by teenagers. As a result, he switched his ministry focus from university students to high school students.
Today, for a range of reasons, students are growing up and forming their worldviews earlier than ever. Dad has told me that if he started in ministry today, he would likely focus his efforts on reaching and equipping preteens.
2. Cultural Shift #2: Competing Voices Are Everywhere. When my father spoke on university campuses, he would regularly fill stadiums with thousands of college students open to hearing about Jesus. In contrast, atheists, skeptics and people from other faiths could rarely generate such audiences. Undoubtedly, secular voices were shaping educational institutions, the media, Hollywood and others through various channels, but wise parents and churches could generally operate as gatekeepers.
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But with the advent of the internet, smartphones, social media and YouTube, this paradigm has entirely changed. Muslims, atheists, progressive Christians and more use these mediums to evangelize our kids away from the historic Christian faith. The playing field of influence has been largely leveled.
3. Cultural Shift #3: From Objective Truth to Personal Truth. When my father began his public ministry, the Vietnam War and Watergate were two of the looming cultural issues. As he sees it, there was a recognition that the problem with the world was external, and that truth was objective, discoverable and important.
But a noticeable change from external to internal has taken place, from objective to subjective. This is partly why we often hear phrases such as “Live your truth,” or “That may be true for you, but not true for me,” as if moral and spiritual truth were relative to the individual.
In a Barna study on Gen Z, nearly 3 in 5 Gen Zers (57%) agree there are facts we can know about scientific questions, but only 1 in 4 (25%) agree for moral and religious questions.
