Category Archives: Relational Apologetics

Relational apologetics is the art of cultivating friendships with people who are different from you, where you can have many conversations about a controversial topic about abortion. This can often be more effective than single conversations on a college campus because you can build rapport and trust with the person, and have more time to discuss the hurdles that are blocking someone from changing their mind about an issue like abortion.

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My Challenge to Students: Love People Who Are Different From You

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I had the opportunity to speak to the 7th-8th graders at St. Joachim School yesterday. It’s about a 40-minute trip, so during my drive I pondered what I wanted to talk about. I knew I would include a lot of my standard material on being a good ambassador for Christ and making a persuasive case for life. I also wanted to talk about relational evangelism.

You see, I have several pro-choice friends. I believe that many people need more than one conversation to change their mind about an important issue like abortion. Some people need relationship.

I told them about my friend Deanna, who emailed me eight months ago after watching some of my YouTube videos. I could tell from her first email that she was both fiercely intelligent and open-minded. But if you compared our lives on paper, you would probably be surprised to learn that we are good friends.

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Why the Pro-Life Movement Should Embrace Relational Apologetics

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I’m really happy with this unusual episode of Life Report. One of our scheduled guests became unavailable on our shooting day, so Gabi Vehrs and I sat down and had a candid conversation about the state of the pro-life movement and what we need to do to set ourselves up in a good trajectory towards victory. It was a great chance to talk about relational apologetics and some of the things I’ve been pondering lately.

I hope you enjoy it, and I would love to hear your thoughts.

Download Audio MP3 (28 minutes)

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Penn Jillette on Loving the People He Disagrees With

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Penn Jillette

Source: David R. Tribble

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes.

I really like Penn Jillette.

If you haven’t heard of him, he’s most famous for being a magician and runner-up of Donald Trump’s recent Celebrity Apprentice All-Stars, but only slightly less famous for being an outspoken atheist. Penn is really intelligent and kind. He’s also genuinely intellectually honest, and I have a.hard time NOT liking people who are intellectually honest. I’m pretty sure he’s somewhat pro-choice, although he made a video a long time ago that I can’t find anymore where he talked about how abortion is a really tough issue for him and that his mind could be changed about it.

The point is, Penn is one of my favorite atheists. He’s the kind of guy I would love to be friends with. You listen to him talk about anything and you want to hang out with this guy and talk religion and politics.

If you haven’t seen it before, you should absolutely watch the video below about how Christians would have to hate the people they don’t try to convert. It’s one of the most clear and pointed arguments FOR evangelism I’ve ever heard, and it came from an atheist. The relevant quote is below the video in case you prefer reading only, although I think you lose something when you don’t hear these words said from the man himself.

Jonalyn Fincher Posts 5 Tips for Relational Evangelism

Ruby Slippers blog
July 24, 2013

I’m not even going to write the list here because I want you to go read the full post. I love all of them, but I especially love what Jonalyn writes about being an image-bearer detective and not giving advice as soon as the other person shares a burden. (I struggle with doing this in my marriage sometimes!)

I’m looking forward to checking out the other resources on relational evangelism that are linked in this post.

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What if Everybody Did This?

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This is what I posted to my Facebook page earlier today:

I’m going to go spend four hours with one of the smartest philosophers I know, after three hours with him yesterday. I may never change his mind. But we both like each other and we’re both challenging each other. His friendship is a worthy enough end, even if he never meets my savior.

Am I saying this to brag or to get a pat on the back? Nope. I’m saying this because I want you to be convinced to have relationships with people, whether or not you believe they will think more like you because of it.

I’m not going to get into the details of what happened today. My friend and I had a private debate and I’m sure both of us allowed ourselves to speculate on ideas that we haven’t fully worked out yet, and it wouldn’t be appropriate for public comment.

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It looked kind of like this.
But for four hours.

What I can say is that as terrifying as it was to even privately debate a friend who is as smart as he is, who is probably in the top philosophy course in the country right now, it was so worth it. We definitely challenged each other more than I expected, in both directions. But what a joy to just spend four hours doing non-stop debate with somebody who thinks carefully and doesn’t bring in purely emotional arguments. We just vigorously attacked each other’s arguments using thought experiment after thought experiment, but in the way he says professional philosophers do that: charitably, in an informal dialogue, seriously looking for the flaws in each others views and our own views. I’m genuinely looking forward to my next opportunity with him.

In a sense, he’s my philosophical nemesis.

And he is my friend.