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Concordia Seminary - Saint Louis Scholarly Resources from Concordia Seminary Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation Concordia Seminary Scholarship 2-1-2017 Vocational Apologetics An Argument For Using The Lutheran Understanding Of Vocation As A Form Of Enfleshed Apologetics For The Church To Engage A Cultural Setting Influenced By The Criticism Of The New Atheists Kirk Clayton Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.csl.edu/phd Part of the Practical Theology Commons Recommended Citation Clayton, Kirk, "Vocational Apologetics An Argument For Using The Lutheran Understanding Of Vocation As A Form Of Enfleshed Apologetics orF The Church To Engage A Cultural Setting Influenced By The Criticism Of The New Atheists" (2017). Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation. 37. https://scholar.csl.edu/phd/37 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Concordia Seminary Scholarship at Scholarly Resources from Concordia Seminary. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation by an authorized administrator of Scholarly Resources from Concordia Seminary. For more information, please contact [email protected]. VOCATIONAL APOLOGETICS AN ARGUMENT FOR USING THE LUTHERAN UNDERSTANDING OF VOCATION AS A FORM OF ENFLESHED APOLOGETICS FOR THE CHURCH TO ENGAGE A CULTURAL SETTING INFLUENCED BY THE CRITICISM OF THE NEW ATHEISTS A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Department of Practical Theology in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Kirk Meyer Clayton February, 2017 Approved by Dr. David Schmitt Advisor Dr. Glenn Nielsen Reader Dr. Joel Biermann Reader © 2017 by Kirk Meyer Clayton. All rights reserved. ii Dedicated to my very patient family: my wife Lori; and our six wonderful children; Johnathan, Matthew, Nathaniel, Abigail, Isaiah, and Samuel, who have seen much less of their husband and father than they should have during the writing of this dissertation. iii Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Matthew 5:16 (ESV) Preach the gospel at all times. Use words if necessary. Attributed to St. Francis of Assisi If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the Word of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing him. Attributed to Martin Luther iv CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................................... vi ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................ viii CHAPTER ONE ............................................................................................................................ 1 INTRODUCTION: APOLOGETICS IN THE MIDST OF CHANGING CONTEXTS ..... 1 CHAPTER TWO ......................................................................................................................... 45 NEW ATHEISM AS A POPULAR CULTURAL CHALLENGE TO CHRISTIANITY . 45 CHAPTER THREE ................................................................................................................... 107 THE DEVELOPMENT AND SHAPE OF ENFLESHED APOLOGETICS .................. 107 CHAPTER FOUR ...................................................................................................................... 155 VOCATIONAL APOLOGETICS .................................................................................... 155 CHAPTER FIVE ....................................................................................................................... 233 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................. 233 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................................... 253 Article I. VITA ........................................................................................................................ 273 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge and thank a few of the many people who helped to bring this project to completion. First, I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Dr. David Schmitt for his thorough and tireless guidance as my doctoral advisor. Dr. Schmitt has devoted countless hours to questioning, challenging, and improving the arguments presented here. We have spent many afternoons sitting in his office discussing this project throughout all its various stages, and he has spent even more time reading through the many drafts of this paper and providing his meticulous and perceptive comments. I have grown tremendously as a thinker and a scholar under his patient and persistent guidance. Dr. Schmitt, thank you. Next, I would like to thank Dr. Glenn Nielsen and Dr. Joel Biermann, the readers on this project. Each in his own specialty area has added significantly and helpfully to this dissertation. They have given timely and insightful guidance to bring added dimensions of thought and clarity to the project. Whatever value this work can contribute to the task of apologetics in particular, and to the church in general, should largely be attributed to the wisdom and guidance of these three faithful scholars: Dr. Schmitt, Dr. Nielsen, and Dr. Biermann. (Errors and omissions, of course, remain the sole responsibility of the author!) Throughout the PhD process, I have had the joyful vocation of serving as pastor of Zion Lutheran Church in Mascoutah, IL. I would like to thank the wonderful saints of God at Zion for allowing me to pursue this academic undertaking while also serving among you full-time as your called pastor. I hope that as I have grown intellectually, theologically, and spiritually through this course of study, you as members of the congregation have been able to grow through the growth of your pastor. vi Finally, I need to give a most heartfelt thanks to my longsuffering family. My wife, Lori, has shouldered added family duties and responsibilities throughout this process, which has by this time taken up over half of our married life. Three of our six children have been born while I have been working on this project, and our three older children were young enough when I entered the PhD program that they probably have no remembrance of a time when I was not working on this project. As I have been writing on the topic of vocation, and stressing the importance of focusing on the central vocation of family, I have often been painfully aware that my vocation as a student has hindered my ability to fulfill the far more important vocation of husband and father as I should. My family has started the habit of making an “A.D. List,” that is, an “After Dissertation List.” I apologize for all the things that should not have needed to be placed on that list in the first place, and I look forward to enjoying the things that you have looked forward to doing together with me. Lori, Johnathan, Matthew, Nathaniel, Abigail, Isaiah, and Samuel, thank you more than words can express. I look forward to spending a bit more time with you as I so love to do now that this project is completed. vii ABSTRACT Clayton, Kirk M. “Vocational Apologetics: An Argument for Using the Lutheran Understanding of Vocation as a Form of Enfleshed Apologetics for the Church to Engage a Cultural Setting Influenced by the Criticisms of the New Atheists.” Ph.D. diss., Concordia Seminary, 2017. 252 pp. This dissertation examines criticisms against Christianity from the New Atheists (Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens, and Stenger), considers problems with how the church has formulated its apologetic response, and concludes that Martin Luther’s understanding of vocation applied to the Christian life offers a significant contribution to shaping an apologetic response to the New Atheism. Apologetics is best understood as a defense, and must be a responsive discipline. For the last several centuries apologetics has largely consisted of rational or evidential responses to challenges arising from the Enlightenment. However, the strength of the New Atheists’ arguments lies not with their rational arguments, which are intellectually unserious, but with their moral arguments that Christianity is evil. These moral accusations, made with strong ethical and emotional appeals, have gained a hearing in a receptive culture. When the challenges presented to the Christian faith are of a moral nature, as with the accusations of the New Atheists, the apologetic response needs to demonstrate not only the truth of Christianity, but also the goodness of Christianity. While the apologetic response to the New Atheists has been prolific, it has been focused primarily on traditional apologetic methods such as Presuppositional Apologetics or Evidential Apologetics, providing intellectually correct answers to what really are moral challenges. Thus the apologetic response to the New Atheists so far has largely missed the main force of the attacks. This dissertation uses Aristotle’s rational, ethical, and emotional appeals to apply a rhetorical analysis to the New Atheists’ writings in order to understand better the challenge they pose to Christianity. The dissertation then explores the developing field of Enfleshed Apologetics (also called Incarnational Apologetics and Lifestyle Apologetics) and argues that
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