“Defending the Faith” as an opportunity to learn daily

The morning begins as usual: the blackest coffee possible, a rush out the door to get to work or class on time, and a commute frustrated by traffic. The day goes about as usual: four hours of work, 45 minutes to eat a brown paper-bagged lunch, and another four hours of work, this time having a 15 minute break interrupting. The evening ensues as usual: return from work, put together a meal, perhaps exercise, read a chapter or two of whatever lame novel you picked up from the grocery store, and sleep.

(Is this the life of our dreams since childhood?)

What if, instead of that lame novel you picked up at Aldi, you had read The Universe Next Door by James Sire, The Reason for God by Tim Keller, Scaling the Secular City by J.P. Moreland, Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, or Reasonable Faith by William Lane Craig?

These books are only a few hundred pages each. Read a chapter a night and anyone could finish all five in a year, comfortably.

In the past months I’ve come to realize that books (or audio, or any other medium) on “defending the faith” can have a particular effect if I let them: they require me to research continually. Slow consumption makes an important difference. It reminds me of the difference between the drip drip Chinese water torture method and just dumping a bucket of water on somebody wholesale. But in a good way…

When you take it in slowly, the chapters start and finish each day, giving the daily grind of life an apologetic context. Reading the entire book at once on a lazy Saturday afternoon can be good! But slowing down, allowing the ideas to incubate over time and through life experiences has been far more beneficial for me.

I have a class this semester on apologetics, and like usual in college, the course readings are divided into a by-the-class schedule. Just follow along, and the portion-sizing is already done for me. Nutrisystem for the Christian intellectual? Thanks, professor.

This is true of any Christian research; studies in the New Testament, Old Testament, ANE culture, historical theology, and other cousin fields can all benefit from daily nibbling rather than gluttonous bingeing. Much can be learned in one day, but the Christian life is a call to fix our eyes upon Jesus — and then hold that pose for the long term.