Book Review Alister McGrath. "Mere Apologetics: How To Help Seekers And Skeptics Find Faith" (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2012) -- By: Craig A. Parton

Journal: Global Journal of Classical Theology
Volume: GJCT 10:3 (Feb 2013)
Article: Book Review Alister McGrath. "Mere Apologetics: How To Help Seekers And Skeptics Find Faith" (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2012)
Author: Craig A. Parton


Book Review
Alister McGrath. Mere Apologetics: How To Help Seekers And Skeptics Find Faith (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2012)

Craig Parton

British evangelical Alister McGrath is well known for his work on the history of the doctrine of justification, which he at one point modestly characterized as “the definitive work on the subject” (see “Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification.”). One trenchant reviewer of that book, however, pointed out that McGrath’s method of relativizing each succeeding generation’s interpretation of St. Paul’s teaching on justification had actually resulted in a “refusal to assert that Scripture has any objective, absolute meaning: its teachings, even those as central as justification, are defined only in the continuing history of its interpretation.” (see review by John Warwick Montgomery in Modern Reformation, Vol. 9, No. 2, March/April 2000).

In his latest book on apologetics (“Mere Apologetics”), McGrath apparently believes (with all modesty, to be sure) that he is an inheritor of the legacy of C.S. Lewis. Were it but the case. Instead, McGrath (utterly contrary to Lewis) insists that the “character of the apologist” is at least as important as the content of the apologist (in the vein of John Stackhouse’s Humble Apologetics, a source that McGrath recommends be read along with the sanctified living fare served up by mega-church pastor Rick Warren). Thus we now have McGrath asserting (alas trying to persuade, an activity he repeatedly claims is actually pointless in the postmodern context) that the idea of the truth of Christian evidences is a “rationalistic Enlightenment” concept that has little cache anymore in a postmodern culture that values “images, stories and narratives” (pgs. 27–28, 141, 154). McGrath further argues (contra his entire thesis that arguments are largely useless in a culture that no longer is interested in objective truth, but does like to talk about “beauty and goodness” and “images and narratives”—pgs. 35, 47) that since Christianity cannot be “absolutely proven” it really reduces to a faith decision, that apologetics and evangelism are essentially exclusive categories that do not overlap (p. 23, 123), that apologetics converts no one and “is not evangelism” (pgs. 23, 44), that there is little value in trying to persuade people of the truth of Christianity anymore because the key to the gospel is its “interpretation” and only the gospel itself gives that interpretation (pgs. 61–62), and (drum roll please, dramatic finish coming)…well, here it is best to hear McGrath’s story directly from McGrath:

“Let me offer some personal reflections. When I was younger, I use to believe that the best way to help other people discover the t...

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