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 (YouTube.com/@SeanMcDowell) 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.
Shifts in the Apologetics Landscape
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.
- Students are asking questions about God at a younger age than before. 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.
- Nonbelievers now have equal access to young people. 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.
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.
- There has been a move from objective to subjective approaches to faith. 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.
Emerging Trends and Issues
While people continue to ask many of the same questions they have always asked, our apologetics task has shifted radically from the past. So, it’s essential that we assess the trends and movements that are emerging and what may be coming. The following issues rise to the top:
* Increased secularism. Although atheists, agnostics and “nones” are still a minority in America, the share of these groups has risen substantially in the past few decades. According to a Pew Research poll, 80% of U.S. adults say that the role of religion is shrinking in American life. Only 8% think it is increasing. According to the first major study on Gen Alpha, 13-year-olds are growing up in a time when religious affiliation and identification has been on a decades-long decline.
Secularism is also creeping into the church. For example, Barna has found that over half of practicing Christians (55%) agree that a person can regularly view pornography and live a sexually healthy life. Clearly, a secular view of sexuality (to give one example) is having a deep impact on large segments of the church—which leads to the next point.
* Continued movement away from God’s design for sex, marriage and reproduction. In his monumental book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Carl Trueman asks how the following phrase became seemingly coherent and meaningful today: “I am a man trapped in a woman’s body.” He rightly notes that the sexual revolution, at its core, is a rethinking of what it means to be human. This shift has been driven by technology, politics, philosophy, media and other factors.
And yet, the transgender revolution is only one of the most recent incarnations of this cultural shift away from a biblical view of human personhood and God’s design for sex, marriage and reproduction. Sologamy, polyamory and new technologies such as in vitro gametogenesis (IVG) are also beginning to emerge.
* Expansion of transhumanism and artificial intelligence (AI). Transhumanism is essentially the idea that humans can (and should) develop beyond their existing mental and biological limitations through science and technology. Trillions of dollars are expected to be spent in upcoming years by firms, investors and governments toward the development of AI and transhumanist technology. Undoubtedly these technologies can help individuals and society. But they also increasingly raise philosophical, ethical and apologetic questions.
* The growth of Islam. According to Pew Research, if current trends continue, Islam will pass Christianity as the largest religion in the world around 2070. And by 2100, there will be roughly 1% more Muslims in the world than Christians. The continued prevalence of Islam will bring unique historical challenges related to the reliability of the New Testament, and unique theological and philosophical challenges to the deity of Jesus and the coherence of the Trinity.
A big picture cultural view is helpful so we can be prepared when these issues arise in our families, churches and schools; yet the most important apologetics issues to address are those in our particular contexts with our neighbors, co-workers, kids and friends.
Apologetics in the Local Church
Understanding what the church faces when it comes to apologetics, how can we train people to know and defend their faith?
- Find the apologists in your church or organization and empower them. Most assuredly some people in your church care about apologetics and evangelism. Minimally, connecting a group like this will bring them encouragement and fellowship.
Don’t feel like you have to be the apologetics expert on staff. While you may have to give them guidelines and some direction, lay apologists in your church likely are eager to engage the community. Here are a few ways they might be able to contribute:
* Teach an apologetics class.
* Host an apologetics conference.
* Do research for sermons.
* Counsel people (particularly students) who have questions about their faith.
* Lead an evangelism team.
* Brainstorm ideas that help the church.
- Weave an apologetics point into each message or lesson. Try to make at least one apologetics point each time you preach or teach. Over time, this repetition helps undermine the idea that faith is merely subjective, and fosters the idea that biblical stories and lessons are rooted in objective, knowable reality. This is something churches can do at every level of ministry.
- Have books on apologetics people can borrow, buy or have. Create a prominent display of these books. This effort communicates that your church invites questions about the faith (many ex-Christians express that the church dismissed their honest questions), and that evangelism and cultural engagement are valued.
- Teach people how to have spiritual conversations. According to a Barna report on Gen Z, nearly 3 in 4 young people somewhat (35%) or strongly agree (36%) that they are comfortable talking with people who believe differently than they do. This is good news. And yet, in reality, few people today truly know how to engage in meaningful, productive, loving conversations with people who believe differently.
We need to teach people how to find common ground, listen well, ask probing questions, disagree lovingly, and boldly share their faith. This starts at the top when church leaders model this for others.
This is just the beginning of the conversation on rethinking apologetics for a new generation. I hope you will join in, and also join me in praying about how to approach apologetics today and in the future. Too much is at stake not to.
Sean McDowell is a professor of apologetics at Talbot School of Theology. He is the author or co-author of over 20 books, an internationally renowned speaker, and a popular YouTuber.
