Summary of “Deconstructing Defeater Beliefs: Leading the Secular to Christ” (by T.Keller)

* I recommend reading the actual article, but the hope is that this summary will help you to better understand the process that we need to enter into in order to reach this generation of college students with the gospel.

Our Reality

In his article, Tim Keller begins by presenting the problem we face as ambassadors of the gospel. When we go out on campus and share the KGP booklet or some other gospel presentation, one of the underlying issues that plagues students on our campus is that they already have beliefs that prevent them from even considering that Christianity could be true. These are called defeater beliefs. Western culture has created a web of defeater beliefs that keeps students from seeing the truth and the beauty of the good news of Jesus Christ (the gospel). For example, a student might believe that there can’t be just one “true” religion (their professor just shared this belief in one of their classes), therefore it is impossible for Christianity to be the only way to God. Sounds extreme, but that is the type of belief that makes it easy for someone on campus to quickly brush us off, even when we lovingly approach him or her with the truth of the gospel.

What do we do then?

It is common in our hypersensitive culture to respond to such an extreme reaction from a fellow student by saying, “I just need to love them, and someday they’ll see their need for Jesus.” Well – yes but no. Love is essential, but we need to be ready to deal with these defeater beliefs by entering into helpful conversations that will bring friends and fellow students closer to understanding the gospel. Here’s how (the sandwich approach):

1.  Brief gospel summary. We need to learn how to give a brief (2-4 minutes) but vivid and attractive presentation of the gospel, so that our listener will say, “It would be wonderful if that were true, but it can’t be!” This most often will be done in story form, but the KGP could work here too, depending on your listener. Until your listener has a picture of what they’d like to be true, they’re not gonna be motivated to talk with you about why they hold certain defeater beliefs.

2.  Explain why Christianity can be true. This is where we deal with those defeater beliefs. After giving an attractive presentation of the gospel, ask, “Do you believe that could be true? What prevents you from believing it is true?” Your goal here is to get your listener to think, “Maybe it’s possible that ______(defeater belief) isn’t true.” Your goal is not to try to convince them that you’re right and they’re not.

3.  Longer explanation of the person and work of Christ. Once you get your listener to begin thinking that what they believe might not be watertight, you get the privilege of talking more about the gospel (creation, fall, redemption, restoration) and sharing stories of why you believe it’s true (your testimony, etc.). Again, this is simply a conversation, not your persuasive speech for SpeechComm 101.

This process assumes that this will most likely happen through a series of conversations. It is possible, but not likely, that you’ll get to hit all three of these areas in one shot. I would shoot to get through #1 and begin #2 in your first conversation. Therefore, it is important that you ask if they would want to continue the conversation and get their contact info so that you can build a relationship with them.

What are some dominant defeater beliefs? How should I respond?

1. Christianity is too exclusive. What about other religions?

Brief Response: This is actually a self-defeating argument. If you argue that there can’t be one true way to God, or that no one should say that their view of God is the best, you are actually expressing your own belief that everyone should believe the way that you do. That is also exclusive.

2. God can’t be both all-powerful and all-loving. Look at all of the evil and suffering in the world.

Brief Response: If God himself suffered, our suffering can’t be senseless. Though we don’t know why he allows it to continue, he can’t be indifferent or uncaring, because the God of the Bible (unlike any other god) chose to enter into the suffering with us. Also, if (as we believe) God is great (all-powerful and all-loving) enough to be mad at for allowing suffering, he is also great (all-knowing) enough to have reasons for allowing it to continue that we can’t know.

3. Christians I know don’t live out the story you just told me, and history shows a pretty bad record for Christians. Some of the best people I know aren’t Christians.

Brief Response: Yes, there are and have been some terrible examples of Christianity in the world. The answer to these moral failures, though, is not to move away from Christianity, but to instead move toward true Christianity. If you read the Bible, those examples you mentioned are not the Christianity that Jesus talked about. Simple moralism (trying to be a “good” person) isn’t the answer either – Jesus condemned the religious leaders of his time for trying to be good moralists.

4. The Bible is not a reliable source of truth.

Brief Response: (specifically address the gospels) The Biblical gospels are not legends but historically reliable accounts of Jesus’ life because: 1) It is well-documented that the gospels were written within 30-60 years of Jesus’ life, and Paul’s letters (which support their reliability) were written just 20-30 years after Jesus’ life; 2) The gospels themselves have many elements in them that don’t help their credibility (ie. Jesus crying out that God had abandoned him, all the resurrection witnesses were women).