The limitations of apologetics
A Briefing reader has kindly pointed me to a very interesting article in The Washington Post which perhaps explains the uphill battle Christian apologists have to fight.
The article is an exploration of the implications for public policy of new research which shows how difficult it is to overcome public perception which is based on factual errors (i.e. how to dispel unhelpful myths):
The psychological insights yielded by the research, which has been confirmed in a number of peer-reviewed laboratory experiments, have broad implications for public policy. The conventional response to myths and urban legends is to counter bad information with accurate information. But the new psychological studies show that denials and clarifications, for all their intuitive appeal, can paradoxically contribute to the resiliency of popular myths.
and:
The research is painting a broad new understanding of how the mind works. Contrary to the conventional notion that people absorb information in a deliberate manner, the studies show that the brain uses subconscious “rules of thumb” that can bias it into thinking that false information is true.
The experiments do not show that denials are completely useless; if that were true, everyone would believe the myths. But the mind's bias does affect many people, especially those who want to believe the myth for their own reasons, or those who are only peripherally interested and are less likely to invest the time and effort needed to firmly grasp the facts.
The research also highlights the disturbing reality that once an idea has been implanted in people's minds, it can be difficult to dislodge. Denials inherently require repeating the bad information, which may be one reason they can paradoxically reinforce it.
Indeed, repetition seems to be a key culprit. Things that are repeated often become more accessible in memory, and one of the brain's subconscious rules of thumb is that easily recalled things are true.
So where does that leave the role of Christian apologetics? Is it possible that the more we publicly defend, for example, the reliability of the Scriptures as historically accurate, the more entrenched many people become in their skepticism of the Bible? Or the more we publicly counter the likes of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, the more damage we do to the Christian cause? The human wisdom seems to suggest this is a strong possibility.
But then again, silence is also not advisable:
Another recent study found that when accusations or assertions are met with silence, they are more likely to feel true, said Peter Kim, an organizational psychologist at the University of Southern California. He published his study in the Journal of Applied Psychology ... Myth-busters, in other words, have the odds against them.
Perhaps the article ultimately points the way forward. It suggests that “rather than deny a false claim, it is better to make a completely new assertion that makes no reference to the original myth”. Maybe the new assertion we need to keep making is that ‘Jesus is Lord’. By all means, let's help individuals to find answers to their genuine questions, but perhaps we ought to just get on with proclaiming Christ publicly, and see what happens.