March/April Plain Truth
The Bible Answer Man... Off the Air
AN INTERVIEW WITH HANK HANEGRAAFF
by Joe Constantino
Hank Hanegraaff is the host of the Bible Answer Man radio broadcast, sponsored by the Christian Research Institute (CRI). He can be heard live across the United States and parts of Canada weekdays at 6 p.m. EST.
Hanegraaff and CRI patrol the boundaries of orthodox Christianity, alerting listeners to challenges to historic Christian belief. Bible Answer Man listeners are urged to "contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints" (Jude 3). The vision of CRI is mainstreaming apologetics. That is, helping the average Christian acquire the ability to wisely answer questions about his or her faith and to use those answers as an opportunity to share the gospel.
Hanegraaff was interviewed at CRI headquarters in Southern California.
Plain Truth: What is apologetics?
Hank Hanegraaff: Apologetics is the defense of faith. So often apologetics is understood to be simply preevangelism.
But apologetics is much more than that. It is also postevangelism. It is a way for people to be solidified in their faith. If they can go back to the pillars of their faith, to the fact that God created the universe, that Jesus Christ is God, and he demonstrated that he was God through the immutable fact of the resurrection--if they go back to the fact that the Bible is divine, rather than human in origin, then they can recognize that their faith is founded on fact.
Q. Why is it important for Christians to understand apologetics? Can we just leave it to experts?
A. No, absolutely not. Today is not the day of the priest. Today is the day of the priesthood of all believers. When someone comes to your door in post-Christian America and begins to try to proselytize you, you need to be equipped yourself. You can't hope that a hired gun is going to appear, some well-known apologist who can do the work for you.
Today, in post-Christian America (a lot of people chafe when I say post-Christian America, but I think you've been asleep longer than Rip Van Winkle if you don't think we live in post-Christian America), every believer needs to be able to give reasons for faith, because it's no longer good enough to be able to communicate John 3:16.
Today, you need to be able to communicate not only what you believe or the gospel, but you need to be able to communicate why you believe what you believe. You need to be able to demonstrate that Christianity is the only tenable possibility in a culture in which many worldviews are vying for attention. So it is incumbent upon the church to equip God's people for works of service so the body of Christ is built up and strengthened.
Q. Are you seeing churches becoming more interested in apologetics, in equipping their members to answer questions and explain their beliefs?
A. Well, I think churches are beginning to recognize the need to give reasons for faith. I think one reason the Bible Answer Man broadcast has been so enormously popular is because in many cases the church is not doing the job. And so the people are looking for answers elsewhere, and they hear that they can call and have their questions answered on the Bible Answer Man broadcast.
They see apologetics modeled. Apologetics is not using your well-designed answers to pound someone so far into the ground that he disappears, but rather using opportunities to share the good news of the gospel.
Q. Has interest in apologetics grown and waned over the years?
A. Yes it has. There were times, going back to the '50s and '60s, when apologetics was not as prominent as it is becoming again today. Thirty to 40 years ago we lived in a particularly Christian culture, and so a lot of the things I'm talking about were assumed.
Today, people come in and you say, "The Bible says..." and their response is, "Who says what the Bible says is accurate in the first place?" That leaves you with the necessity of demonstrating the reality of the Bible being divine rather than human in origin.
Or you say to someone, "What would you say if you were standing before God and he asked you why should I let you into my heaven?" And the person you're talking to says, "Wait a minute, I don't believe in God, and I don't believe in heaven." You can't reply, "Let's hold that in abeyance while I present the gospel to you." You have to deal with that issue. You have to demonstrate that heaven is a reality. You have to demonstrate that there is a God before you can go to the next step. And that's where apologetics comes in. You use your answer to the question as an opportunity for sharing the gospel. But you can't simply skip over that process at this point in our civilization. We are no longer a Christian culture. We have been secularized and paganized.
Q. Do you feel there is hope for the church to wake up and be able to face the post-Christian culture we're living in?
A. I do. People have a real hunger to be able to answer the questions their neighbors, family members, friends and the larger society are asking them. So they're searching, "Where can I find this answer?" And so often they go to their churches and ask their pastor, or they ask another "mature" Chris-tian. They don't get a satisfactory answer. Sometimes that is unnerving to them.
Think of the child who grows up in the church and has always gone to Sunday school. He has prayed with his family. Then he goes off to a secular university, and suddenly he is challenged by other ideologies.
The professor who says: "You believe in creation?... Why, evolution has long ago explained away that myth. Evolution is fact. Creation is merely a fantasy."
Those same children end up strangers to their parents. They go home and say: "You poor parent, you obviously are not very educated. You do not understand that evolution is a fact of science, and therefore the whole story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden is mythology."
So yes, parents, church members, pastors, Christians everywhere, are looking for reasons for faith.
Q. What are the most common objections that nonbelievers have to Christianity?
A. One of the primary objections to the Christian faith is the caricature of Christianity that people see in Christian television. They see the bouffant hairdos. They hear the nonsensical chatter. And their conclusion is that Christianity is irrelevant. It is for people who left their brains somewhere in the vestibule of the church. They don't see that Christianity is based on fact. It is evidential. It is historic. They get a complete misconception of what the historic Christian faith is all about.
I have had many opportunities to do interviews for secular news broadcasts. One thing I notice over and over is the amazement of the newscasters and production crews that there are good reasons for faith, and that there are answers to the questions. I've been asked questions like: "What about the poor person who has never heard of Jesus Christ? Is God going to condemn him to hell for not believing in a Jesus Christ he has never heard of?" Once people hear good answers to their questions, they are often open to listening to the claims of Christ on their lives.
Q. That brings to mind the observation that Christianity seems to have become associated with lack of education in our society.
A. Easily led people, uneducatedexactly. That is one of the problems. And, unfortunately, this is one of the major defects in the church. Now we've pointed to the culture and say it is their fault for laughing at Christianity. But we need to look at ourselves.
The fact is that we as Christians are easily blown here and there by winds and waves of doctrine, of the cunning and craftiness of men and their deceitful scheming.
Why? Simply because we have never mastered the basics. We cannot communicate what we believe and why we believe what we believe. So when we are asked questions and can't give answers, why should we wonder that the secular world or even those who are anti-Christian would use that to characterize Christianity as being the religion of the ignorant?
People see Christian television, and so often that becomes the only exposure they have to Christianity. And because of that, they discount Christianity. When I go out and share the gospel with others, they often say: "Oh, you mean like Jim and Tammy Bakker, or do you mean like Paul and Jan Crouch? Do you mean like Benny Hinn?" In other words, that is their conception of Christianity.
Q. What should Christians do about this dilemma?
A. This is precisely the mission of our ministry and ought to be the mission of the church. It is to equip God's people, to prepare them to be ready to give an answer, to prepare them to earnestly contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.
We ought also to be able to take the deviations of cults and world religions and use them as springboards for sharing the good news of the gospel. Because the end, of course, is leading someone to faith in Christ.
In reality, the only way we will really change America is to change the hearts of people. When we change the hearts of people, then their behavior will change as well.
Q. So, a better-equipped believer would not be as susceptible to the things we unfortunately see in Christian television. And if those things were not supported by large groups of people, they might disappear. Is that the answer to the unfortunate examples many interpret as authentic Christianity?
A. You are hitting the nail on the head. If we have equipped Christians, they are not going to fall for the counterfeit. Christians need to be so familiar with the truth that when a counterfeit looms on the horizon, they know it right away. They can see it. They can feel it. They can sense it because they are fortified with the truth.
Q. What is the most effective way we as individuals can help take the message of the Bible to the unchurched?
A. Equip people to be able to communicate what they believe, why they believe, where cults and world religions deviate from the historic Christian faith, and how they can use those deviations as springboards for sharing the good news of the gospel.
Now, I would add one thing. We are called to testify not only by our lips but also by our love and our life. If the church were truly "The Church," the world would be constrained to come in. If people looked at us and saw what they saw in the early church, they would say, "See how they love one another." Quite often, though, we have become a mere reflection of our culture rather than being transforming agents in our culture.
Within the church, when a person is hurting, the other members of the church ought to be there, reaching out to that person. When one person cries, we have to all cry. When one person laughs, we ought to laugh with that person. We ought not to be like marbles bouncing off one another in an empty cathedral. We ought to be knit together in the bonds of love.
Q. Some believe that Christian ministries spend most of their efforts and energies preaching to the choir. Is it true that Christians, the church and Christian ministries have developed a subculture, spending a lot of time talking to and servicing one another and less energy reaching out?
A. I see that as possibly being a false dichotomy. What I mean is the church has three major purposes. Number one, the church is a place where we gather to worship God. Second, the church is a place where we can fellowship with one another, where we express the oneness we will one day share in eternity.
Third, the church is a place where we are equipped to go out and help the lost and searching world. So it is worship, fellowship and then witness. And I don't think you have a really healthy, well-balanced church until you have those three ingredients.
It is true, however, that often we are preaching to the choir. And the reason for that is a principle often referred to as the "principle of lift." You become a member of the body of Christ. You lose contact with the world, and you forget, you get involved in a Christian subculture and you start speaking "Christianese." For example, we say to the nonbeliever, if we ever do become exposed to one by accident, we say, "Uhuh, you know, have you been washed in the blood of the Lamb?" The nonbeliever doesn't know what that is, but is pretty sure he doesn't want it.
We are using a vocabulary that nonbelievers can't identify with. It's precious to us, rightfully so, but we begin to communicate in language the world can't relate to. So that is often a problem. We're preaching to the choir rather than relating to the world.
Now, we should never be of the world. We're only in the world. If we lose our ability to communicate with the world, then we've lost our edge. Look at Paul. Paul was so conversant with the principles and practices of his day that he could use them as opportunities to preach the gospel.
Q. If I'm a Christian in the community and I'm trying to choose a congregation, what should I look for?
A. When looking for a church, you should look first at how God is worshiped. Prayer, praise and proclamation are axiomatic to worshiping God collectively. Second, you look at the fellowship of the saints. Now, you are not looking for a perfect church, because if you look for a perfect church, the moment you joined it, you just ruined it.
So often we are self-absorbed with the idea: I want to find a church that meets my needs and ministers to me.
If you are really wanting an experience with God, you find a church in which your gifts can be used for the edification of the body. And once you turn your life out on other people, you are going to be enriched, your own problems are going to grow strangely dim, and it is going to be an incredible experience. Fellowship where you can use your gifts, minister to people and they can minister to you.
Then third, a healthy, well-balanced church must be equipping God's people to go out and help the world. Ultimately, that is a primary mission of the church. We are called to make disciples of all nations, "baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."
We are called to be ambassadors for Christ. So often we're not ambassadors, we're secret agents, and we never blow our cover before the unregenerate world.
But the real issue here is that Christianity is not a denomination. It is not a doctrine or a set of dos and don'ts. Ultimately, Christianity is a relationship with the living Lord of the universe. When you talk about the gospel and the essentials of the historic Christian faith, you need to realize, number one, that Jesus Christ is God. He demonstrated that he was God through the immutable fact of the resurrection.
That Jesus Christ lived the perfect life in our place, a life which we could never live. He offers us his perfection in place of our imperfection as an absolutely free gift. We can't earn it or deserve it. We can't work for it. It is graciously given to us.
If we recognize that we are sinners in need of a Savior, we will reach out the hand of a beggar to receive the gift of a king. We will be willing to repent of our sin, make a U-turn on the road of life, from being the lord of our own life to realizing that Jesus Christ is the Lord of our life.
If we will do that, then we will embrace the real Jesus, the real gospel. We can be united with people who accept those essential, defining parameters of the faith and realize that what we have so graciously received is something we need to make available to others. We need to be change-agents, God working through us in the process of changing the world.