Tony Jones is Doing Apologetics!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Emergent theologian Tony Jones is starting a new blog series called Questions that Haunt Christianity. He's inviting readers to submit their vexing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/2012\/09\/tony-jones-is-doing-apologetics\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tony Jones is Doing Apologetics!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Emergent theologian Tony Jones is starting a new blog series called Questions that Haunt Christianity. He's inviting readers to submit their vexing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/2012\/09\/tony-jones-is-doing-apologetics\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Cultivare\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/unsystematictheology\/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-09-06T13:13:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-09-06T13:23:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/files\/2012\/09\/Questions-that-haunt-261x300.jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kyle Roberts\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kyle Roberts\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/2012\/09\/tony-jones-is-doing-apologetics\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/2012\/09\/tony-jones-is-doing-apologetics\/\",\"name\":\"Tony Jones is Doing Apologetics!\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-09-06T13:13:31+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-09-06T13:23:27+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/#\/schema\/person\/381598fc4c96625e5d1bc4e231480457\"},\"description\":\"Emergent theologian Tony Jones is starting a new blog series called Questions that Haunt Christianity. He's inviting readers to submit their vexing\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/2012\/09\/tony-jones-is-doing-apologetics\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/2012\/09\/tony-jones-is-doing-apologetics\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/2012\/09\/tony-jones-is-doing-apologetics\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Tony Jones is Doing Apologetics!\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/\",\"name\":\"Cultivare\",\"description\":\"Reflections on the True, the Good and the Beautiful\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/#\/schema\/person\/381598fc4c96625e5d1bc4e231480457\",\"name\":\"Kyle Roberts\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/63e213f19e739b70f12a722abb63786d?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/63e213f19e739b70f12a722abb63786d?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Kyle Roberts\"},\"description\":\"(PhD) is Academic Dean and Schilling Professor of Public Theology and Church and Economic Life at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. Roberts has published A Complicated Pregnancy: Whether Mary Was a Virgin and Why it Matters (Fortress Press, 2017); Emerging Prophet: Kierkegaard and the Postmodern People of God (Cascade, 2013); and co-authored Matthew: The Two Horizons Commentary (Eerdmans, 2018).\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.unitedseminary.edu\/\",\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/unsystematictheology\/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/author\/kyleroberts\/\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Tony Jones is Doing Apologetics!","description":"Emergent theologian Tony Jones is starting a new blog series called Questions that Haunt Christianity. He's inviting readers to submit their vexing","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/2012\/09\/tony-jones-is-doing-apologetics\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Tony Jones is Doing Apologetics!","og_description":"Emergent theologian Tony Jones is starting a new blog series called Questions that Haunt Christianity. He's inviting readers to submit their vexing","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/2012\/09\/tony-jones-is-doing-apologetics\/","og_site_name":"Cultivare","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/unsystematictheology\/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel","article_published_time":"2012-09-06T13:13:31+00:00","article_modified_time":"2012-09-06T13:23:27+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/files\/2012\/09\/Questions-that-haunt-261x300.jpeg"}],"author":"Kyle Roberts","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Kyle Roberts","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/2012\/09\/tony-jones-is-doing-apologetics\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/2012\/09\/tony-jones-is-doing-apologetics\/","name":"Tony Jones is Doing Apologetics!","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-09-06T13:13:31+00:00","dateModified":"2012-09-06T13:23:27+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/#\/schema\/person\/381598fc4c96625e5d1bc4e231480457"},"description":"Emergent theologian Tony Jones is starting a new blog series called Questions that Haunt Christianity. He's inviting readers to submit their vexing","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/2012\/09\/tony-jones-is-doing-apologetics\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/2012\/09\/tony-jones-is-doing-apologetics\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/2012\/09\/tony-jones-is-doing-apologetics\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Tony Jones is Doing Apologetics!"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/","name":"Cultivare","description":"Reflections on the True, the Good and the Beautiful","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/#\/schema\/person\/381598fc4c96625e5d1bc4e231480457","name":"Kyle Roberts","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/63e213f19e739b70f12a722abb63786d?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/63e213f19e739b70f12a722abb63786d?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Kyle Roberts"},"description":"(PhD) is Academic Dean and Schilling Professor of Public Theology and Church and Economic Life at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. Roberts has published A Complicated Pregnancy: Whether Mary Was a Virgin and Why it Matters (Fortress Press, 2017); Emerging Prophet: Kierkegaard and the Postmodern People of God (Cascade, 2013); and co-authored Matthew: The Two Horizons Commentary (Eerdmans, 2018).","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.unitedseminary.edu\/","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/unsystematictheology\/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/author\/kyleroberts\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1110\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

{"id":1110,"date":"2012-09-06T09:13:31","date_gmt":"2012-09-06T13:13:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/?p=1110"},"modified":"2012-09-06T09:23:27","modified_gmt":"2012-09-06T13:23:27","slug":"tony-jones-is-doing-apologetics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/2012\/09\/tony-jones-is-doing-apologetics\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Jones is Doing Apologetics!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Emergent theologian Tony Jones is starting a new blog series called Questions that Haunt Christianity<\/a>. He\u2019s inviting readers to submit their vexing questions about the Christian faith on Tuesday of each week, and then he\u2019ll answer them on Friday.<\/p>\n

Jones says, \u201cI\u2019m not afraid of doubt<\/strong>. I, myself, am a doubter. But I consider a large part of\u00a0my vocation as a Christian $\"\"$ <\/a>theologian to proffer intellectually honest answers to the big questions of faith<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

I think we need more of this kind of kind of thing in public Christian discourse: honest, serious engagement with tough questions. Theology blogs naturally attract these sorts of conversations\u2013but it\u2019s also nice to have theologians inviting them in a focused way.<\/p>\n

Recently, on the Her*meneutics blog, guest writer Kara Powell sugggested that \u201cdoubt belongs in your youth group curriculum.\u201d\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0She noted an anecdote in Steve Jobs biography: at age 13, Jobs asked a tough, but classic, question about the problem of evil and suffering to his pastor (to paraphrase, if God has absolute divine foreknowledge, why does he allow global hunger and starvation?). The pastor shrugged off his question. Jobs left the church, never to return.<\/p>\n

That narrative is multiplied countless times over, as the church struggles mightily with retention rates. (And now, thanks to Steve Jobs, every teenager has an IPhone or a Mac with which they surf the net to discover yet more difficult questions that \u201chaunt\u201d Christianity).\u00a0The percentages of young people leaving the church, often due to the inability or unwillingness of church leaders to handle these complex questions, should be deeply troubling to those concerned with the future of Christian faith\u2013and more importantly\u2013with how these kids respond (or not) to Jesus.<\/p>\n

I think what Jones is doing here is a new kind of apologetic approach, one that is not so much focused on winning arguments or somehow rationally \u201cproving\u201d the legitimacy of Christian faith or the existence of God, but simply engaging tough questions head-on, acknowledging the complexity, mystery and \u201cunprovability\u201d where necessary. I\u2019ve written before about Richard Beck\u2019s\u00a0The Authenticity of Faith,\u00a0<\/em>where he argues that a new apologetic will be one that shows that Christian faith can be existentially authentic and compelling, without sealing off or squelching theological doubts.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I think it would be kind of cool if Emergence Christianity, once branded by its critics as a grumbling, skeptical, disenfranchised movement with a penchant for relativism, could have an instrumental role to play in the\u00a0revitalization\u00a0of apologetic discourse\u2013even if it\u2019s a different brand than your father\u2019s and mother\u2019s.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"