Why follow Jesus Christ? Why trust in Him? From the beginning of his ministry, people demanded signs in order to believe (cf. John 4:48). The questions have not changed, even if the cultural context has. Today, as Christianity engages both unreached cultures and once-Christian societies that have grown distant from the faith, apologetics becomes an essential tool for living faithfully, loving our neighbor, and bearing witness to the gospel. Historically, the Christian tradition has embraced a variety of apologetic methods—each offering different kinds of arguments or appeals to commending the faith. In the 20th century, figures like C.S. Lewis stand as exemplary apologists who brought deep theological insight into conversation with modern questions. Yet we find ourselves in a new and complex cultural situation, one in which many traditional arguments, while logically sound, often fail to persuade. We need a cultural apologetics that is persuasive.
The Classical Arguments
Apologists have long employed well-established arguments. Cosmological arguments, such as the kalam, appeal to the existence of the world and the necessity of a cause. Teleological arguments infer a divine designer from the order and fine-tuning of nature. Moral arguments point to objective moral obligations as evidence for a divine lawgiver.
I am convinced of the validity of these arguments. They are rigorous, biblically consistent, and philosophically defensible. Yet for all their rational strength, I find that many of them lack rhetorical traction with contemporary audiences—especially cosmological and teleological arguments. Why?
Rational but Not Persuasive?
The problem lies not in the logic of these arguments, but in the intellectual posture of those who hear them. The premises often appear remote from everyday experience. The concepts are metaphysical, abstract, and difficult to connect to ordinary moral or existential concerns. In one sense, this is understandable—after all, arguments about the origin of the cosmos are grand and metaphysically deep. But in another sense, it is deeply unfortunate, because truth without rhetorical force fails to convince.
Apologetics that is true but unconvincing is ineffective. Rationality without rhetorical resonance comes across as cold, detached, or irrelevant. Conversely, rhetorical force without rational structure risks degenerating into sophistry. What we need today is a form of apologetics that is both reasonable and resonant, that speaks truth in a way that meets people where they already live—in their experience. We need a better cultural apologetics.
Disenchantment and the Modern Mind
Part of the problem is cultural, not intellectual. In the West, we live in what Charles Taylor has called a secular age—but this doesn’t simply mean that fewer people believe in God. It means that belief itself is no longer a given. For both the believer and the skeptic, the possibility of being wrong is a live option. In other words, belief in God is no longer assumed by our culture. It has become one option among many, and often, not the most plausible one.
This loss of a shared moral and cosmic order has led to what many have called disenchantment—a condition in which the world no longer feels imbued with meaning, depth, or sacred presence. The cultural imagination is flat. We no longer see ourselves as living within a created moral order. Instead, we experience ourselves as self-making individuals in a world of neutral matter.
Disenchantment has tangible consequences. Consider a few examples:
- FOMO (Fear of Missing Out): Especially among younger generations, the anxiety to optimize life experiences reflects the crushing burden of meaning-making in a disenchanted world. If there’s no given purpose, then every decision must justify itself with maximum personal payoff.
- Work and Identity: On one hand, many view work as a way to express personal values and make a difference. On the other, others reduce it to a mere means of income. In both cases, work is stripped of inherent meaning—its worth is derived externally, either from private ideals or economic output.
- Suffering: In a disenchanted world, suffering lacks narrative coherence. Unlike previous eras who situated suffering within a cosmic story—e.g., the redemptive suffering of Christ and God’s good providence over all things including suffering—our culture sees suffering as pointless. Despite technological advancement, anxiety and depression persist, even increase, because we no longer know how to suffer because we don’t see any possible point to it.
The point is this: traditional apologetics often fails not because the arguments are weak, but because the hearer’s framework is unfit to absorb them. The modern mind, shaped by secular disenchantment, lacks the background frameworks that once made these arguments compelling. This context demands a better cultural apologetics.
The Need for a Cultural Apologetics
So where does that leave us?
If we’re going to speak meaningfully to the disenchanted modern person, we need an apologetic that begins not with metaphysical deductions, but with the moral experience we all share—experience that suggests we live in a world already ordered toward the good. This is why meaning in life, as I have discussed previously, is such a pressing modern question.
This is where the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor becomes a profound resource. In his work, Taylor identifies the deep moral structure of modern identity and argues that we cannot help but live in relation to what he calls “strong goods”—goods that call us, shape us, and orient our lives, even when we deny them. These goods are not derived from our desires; they command them. And as I’ll argue in future posts, theism makes the most sense out of this world of strong goods. This is a cultural apologetics that takes seriously the context that is the modern world.
In the next post, I’ll explore this idea further—what Taylor calls hypergoods, how they operate in our lives, and why they may offer a powerful apologetic starting point for re-enchanting the moral imagination in a secular age.