Continuing our apologetics series, we are joined by Dr. Justin Bailey, who is Assistant Professor of Theology at Dordt University and the author of Reimagining Apologetics: The Beauty of Faith in a Secular Age (IVP Academic). In our conversation, Dr. Bailey offers his constructive proposal for what apologetics could look like that gets beyond a mere focus on the intellect. Further, he wants to distance his approach to apologetics from what he calls “capital A apologetics,” or magisterial apologetics, which promotes a “sage of the stage” who offers a kind of top-down approach full of defeater arguments. Dr. Bailey is clear that his proposal is not an attempt to get rid of the classical arguments for God’s existence, but rather he wants to open up the realm of what fits into the apologetic enterprise. This expanse needs to include the role of the imagination, which is not infantile or make believe, but rather is oriented towards reality, and specifically what possibilities stand before us, thus helping people see what possibilities are available in the life of faith to those who stand outside of it. And the other key expansive bit is the role of empathy, our ability to entertain the perspectives of others and to recognize what a person needs in that moment of encounter, which might not be a defeater argument. Team members of the episode from The Two Cities includes: Dr. Amber Bowen and Dr. John Anthony Dunne.
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