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Apologetics is not a battle to be won, but a conversation to be had with empathy and wisdom.

Today, we have a thought-provoking conversation with Stuart McAllister, a seasoned apologist who believes that effective apologetics starts with genuine care for individuals.

Stuart shares practical insights on communicating the Gospel, emphasizing the importance of addressing both the heart and the mind. Drawing inspiration from C.S. Lewis's approach of "translation”, he discusses how to make complex theological concepts accessible and meaningful to people's everyday lives.

Want to explore more content from Stuart McAllister? You can learn more about him by reading his writings on the C.S. Lewis Institute website.

Episode Transcription

Note: This transcription may vary from the words used in the original episode for better readability.

Marlin Detweiler:
Hello again and welcome to another episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education. Today we have with us Stuart McAllister, who has made a name for himself in the kingdom as an apologist. And so we'll be talking a little bit about his background and his approach to being an apologist for the Christian faith. Sir, welcome.

Stuart McAllister:
Thank you. Good to be with you.

Marlin Detweiler:
It is so good to have you here. Give us a little bit of personal information, your background, your family, your education, and maybe most notably, your conversion experience, which I think our people will enjoy.

Stuart McAllister:
Well, I was born in Scotland, Glasgow in Scotland. And my father was a result really of the Second World War in one sense. He had been in the Royal Air Force, met my mum, who had been raised in a Christian home, but dad was the ticket to my mother out of Christianity. She was a Nazarene background. It was a holiness type of thing or whatever. She hated it. Or at least hated the restraints, not Christianity, but the restraints, this kind of legalism. And so that was her way out. So I was born into a home that was, at the time in Britain, that kind of a prevailing idea was what we'd call Fabian socialism. This was a thing. You know, the war had ended, the sort of sense of privilege that had taken us into two world wars. They thought labor would come along, and they'd kind of democratize and make a better life for everybody.

So Christianity didn't play much of a role. But in our home growing up, for some reason, I was the kid that always got my dad's ire going. You know, I just made him angry, and I made a joke that sometimes I was 15 before I found out my name wasn't “shut up.” You know, and also, you know, in Scottish homes, Irish homes, violence played a lot. I mean, it tended to be discipline was a slap in the face and this kind of stuff. Alcohol also played a part because my parents both, you know, the weekends would be, they didn't have much money. But when they did, they would just want to drink. And then when they drank and got two things going on, one, my mother would get very sentimental, which I hated, and my dad could either be friendly or go angry and violent. So anyway, by the time I was 13, like a lot of Scottish boys, I started drinking.

And then one day, I came home, and I was 15, I'd been drinking, and my dad smelled it. And by this time, it was all the kind of Alice Coopers out there. And, you know, I had long hair, and I was trying to be the cool kid. But I was also running with a tough crowd. Or at least I thought they were just boys. But he hit me, and I just lost it. So I ended up fighting with him. And of course, he wasn't expecting that. That ended up leading to me leaving home. They didn’t kick me out, but I was so mad, and I left. So I was on my own at 15 years of age. So imagine that, 15 years of age.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah.

Stuart McAllister:
Yeah, I found out. Got an apartment. I don't even know the details anymore how that happened. I managed to rent a room. I had a basic job, not understanding that renting a room would take up almost all the money that you were earning. And you still had to wash clothes and eat.

Anyhow, in that setting, I went off. For a number of years, I had a roommate. It was party time. And I think it was just survivalship. But one day I was working in this place and a guy walked in and said to me, you know, would you be interested in working in a dance hall? And I asked, what does that mean?

He said, well, you know, we'd want you to be a bouncer, and you have to patrol, look for gang fights or whatever, and be willing to throw them out. And, of course, probably quite a bit of fighting. And I said, “And you get paid for that?!” So anyhow, I joined this dance hall, and that was a new world to me.

So I entered into this, and it was big. I mean, this would be a club at the weekend where maybe 1,500 to 2,000 kids came, and the fights broke out, and they could get pretty serious. So there were about 15 bouncers, and we patrolled, and you'd get the guys and throw them out.

That opened up a world for me, and I got involved in the Glasgow underworld, not the heavy part to begin with, but just the kind of wise guys. Then I started working with this man who was running a car business, and he was looking for young guys, people he could trust who were untrustworthy.

You know, I mean, this is that whole world. So anyway, I came in and started working with this guy Monte Chavez. His name was. He had a car, and I was driving cars. And over time, he took a shine to me. So I was a kind of young lieutenant on the rise. Keep your eyes open, your mouth shut. Do what you're told. And you know, this is where I was. And all this time, of course, I'm beginning to make money. Then I took up with this married woman who I rescued from a policeman at someone else's request. We'll go into that story. But anyway, so we were living together, and I just thought, “This is it. I'm cool.” I'm in my 20s, just turned 21, you know, driving E-Type, Jaguar, Mercedes and whatever comes from the garage. Nice girl. Money. And then one day, she walked in and asked me a question: What did I think of Jesus? And I remember, who. What? Because I thought Jesus was past the sell by date. You know, I honestly, I didn't who believed in Jesus in the 20th century - and it was the 20th century at that point.

Anyway, so it led to a fight and then we separated. So for two weeks I was just really mad. That was really, you know, she talked about God in the gospel, whatever that was. Then after two weeks, she called me and these Christians wanted to meet me. And I thought, okay, well, I'll go and meet these Christians.

I was kind of planning to reeducate them. So I go along and the only way I can describe this was, first of all, I walked into their house and had never been in anything like it. I walked in and there was an atmosphere. I remember that to this day. It was just different. There was something I can't even explain now.

No television. And I thought weirdos, who doesn't have a television? You know, what's wrong with these people? And then they came in and they were being very polite. I'm all bulked up because I'm powerlifting at the time. I'm wearing a leather jacket. I'm a kid, but I think I'm a big tough guy up here.

They start talking, and Joyce was there, and they started sharing. All I can say is that I walked into that house pretty convinced there was no God, and it was a lot of nonsense. They began to talk to me. I think the wife was probably an evangelist by gifting. She was very nice, and the guy was soft and gentle. Again, not my cup of tea.

Something began to happen, and I became aware that over time, this was real. Then I had a kind of whoops feeling going on inside because if there was a God, and it seems that there probably is, then where am I? I'm in trouble here because I'd been in stuff, seen stuff, done stuff. This in that aspect wasn't an issue. That was absolutely clear. But the idea that there was a God that loved you, that forgiveness was a possibility, He was there and He needed to be known.

So I actually went that night, went up after, I don't know how many hours we'd been talking. I went up and went to their bathroom, and I ended up kneeling by their toilet, which I think is appropriate. I said, "God, if you're there, I need to know you." Really, that's where it began. That was an ignition point, which, when I tell the story, I can only say it was an encounter.

It wasn't radical, but I knew something had happened. Came down the stairs, and I'd been gone for a while. They said “Are you okay?”, and I said, "Yeah, I just prayed. I said, “God, whatever it is you do, save me." Well, then they all came over, and they started hugging me. I was like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa." That was new stuff. So really, that was it.

Marlin Detweiler:
They invaded the personal space that you're used to?

Stuart McAllister:
Exactly. You know, touching. But that's not the kind of touching I was used to. It was like, what’s this? So yeah, that was the beginning. That really began a journey that has now gone on for over 40 odd years and is still continuing.

Marlin Detweiler:
Well, I know that C.S. Lewis has played a significant role in your life. I assume it was since that moment. But tell us how his writings and his life have shaped your thinking.

Stuart McAllister:
About ten years into the Christian life, the young days, I started off as a typical, I mean, I was hungry for God and the Bible. So I was reading the word, scripture, and Christian books, usually within very narrow confine because that's what people were feeding me. I thought that's all there was.

When I discovered Lewis, I went through a period, and it wasn't just Lewis. It was Lewis and Schaefer would be another one. Really, about ten years in, I think it was like a second conversion where I had an awakening to the Christian worldview, to understand that God spoke to all of life. The things that I really loved, like literature, art, history, and so forth, I didn't just need to read a Christian book. I could read a historical book and see it through biblical lenses.

When I was introduced to Lewis, I saw this incredibly rigorous, logical mind, yet he could take these concepts and clarify them, bringing together Scripture and real life. That's what I was looking for. I think the word Lewis used of himself when accused by churchmen of breaking boundaries was that he wasn't a theologian. He said, "My mission is translation." That's what I think.

Marlin Detweiler:
I love that.

Stuart McAllister:
Lewis, early on, translated into an idiom where I saw him publicly speaking to Britain and then beyond. Even now, 40, 50 years on, his books are still speaking with power. Even though the language is dated, the concepts are eternal and wonderful.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, I love that word. I had never heard it put that way, but it really does capture the work of Lewis to think in terms of translation. That's really good. Some of the work that you've done in recent years has to do with evangelism of our own children and raising faithful kids. You've written on it. Talk to us about what you were trying to do in your writing and what are the key elements in success that way.

Stuart McAllister:
What happened was, of course, I still have a bit of a Scottish accent, but my son Cameron sounds very American. People began to connect and see us as a father and son team. They would suddenly see the name and ask, "Are they related?" So we would be teaching something on apologetics and the Christian life, maybe the problem of evil or Christianity in the modern world.

Then people would start asking questions about father and son, like how we handled movies, music, or other aspects of life. So we started devoting some Q&A time to that. We began to see a pattern, and we also started getting pigeonholed by parents—me as a father, him as a son.

Okay. You grew up in a Christian home. What were the problems? Oftentimes we had a real difficulty with Christian parents bringing this kind of like fix my child thing, you know? That was always awkward, you know, to try and talk through with a parent, present issues for a kid and not to give it, you know, because there's things that had to be talked about. But it's the how not the why part that was the issue. So really what we try to do, Cameron came up with the idea of this book, Faith That Less: A Father and Son in Conversation, was in an InterVarsity press. Really in the process, it was very redemptive for me because part of the things he saw things in my narrative that I had missed and that he could then connect the dots.

But what we were getting in this Christian might. So here was the thing. I was raised in a non-Christian home and I wondered how could I– my fear was always that I would anesthetize or my kids would be inoculated because that's what I saw. Sadly, I saw Christian kids who didn't care a hoot about the gospel, didn't have a passion for mission, didn't love the Lord, didn't love truth.

They were always, you know, what's the latest music? Can we get sex? All these kind of things, which is, you know, that's normal in life. It comes. But why wasn't the love there? So this is what we're trying to tackle. Of course, we had gone through our share with teenagers, with Cameron and my daughter, and had the bumpy years and had the confrontations and had all that.

But we saw a pattern. There were three things that we wanted to address. One was the use of fear as a controlling mechanism, trying to scare your kids into the kingdom almost, or using the fear, the idea that information was what saves, so just dumping endless amounts of facts on them, but not necessarily weaving that truth into their life. The third was outsourcing your kids, outsourcing the family so that, you know, the kids would come home and say, well, what about this? Or they'd have a general question about and Mom and Dad wouldn't know and wouldn't care or think, oh, well, let's wait and postpone it. Sometimes in church they got the same thing.

Rather than apologetics being a specialist ploy, what we were trying to say is that Peter says, always be prepared to give a reason for the hope that you have. Hope has to be present and your ability to give a reason for it has to be present too. That's a cultivating thing and it isn’t always easy.

Marlin Detweiler:
We as parents fall prey to each of those three concerns. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I have to think about that because there, you know, we're at Veritas. We're dealing with parents with their K-12 kids. Of course I have children of my own. Those are very serious concerns, both on a home level and with what we do and encouraging parents and how to do the right thing.

Give us an example or two of how you've been able to be effective as you've worked with people.

Stuart McAllister:
Well. So part of the thing has always been, you know, I'm a big believer in, you know, Stephen Covey's principles and Seven Habits of Highly Effective Leaders. Then it became other morphed into two.

Marlin Detweiler:
I think he's done he did some good work and has some good ideas.

Stuart McAllister:
But his principles seek first to understand then to be understood. Stephen and Rabbi Burns, the Scottish poet, says, oh, to see ourselves as others see us. I think one of the great failures within our modern church is one of the problems we have is that we've been so convinced of answers, so convinced of our own knowledge that at times a danger of arrogance and ignorance has actually framed what we do so that what people hear, they hear a tone and they don't actually get the truth because they hear an assertion given to them and an ignorance of other factors that might be psychology and other factors may be things that play into this history that needs to be looked at. People's own experience, that must be weighed so that more incarnational. That was Lewis's genius.

You see, Lewis, when you look at the Chronicles of Narnia and all of Lewis's books, some of the ones that were written as apologetic, they're there in these other writings, like The Abolition of Man, you can look at the space trilogy and you can see the same story.

Because he understood that the key to the heart was the imagination, you know. He said, you know, reason is the organ of truth. Imagination is the organ of meaning. The one place that he didn't I in that but it was in these writings is that desire is the order of affection. So those three things must come together: reason, imagination, and desire.

The postmodern world, the world we are living in is all about desire. When we were talking, or when I was doing the talk or when I talked, I tried to get into the desire space because there's where people are living and their imagination is already occupied. It's colonized. It's like the Borg from Star Trek. You've been soaked up in your biological and technological distinctive, have been taken over.

But the gospel, I think, has penetrating power. This is where the spirit and truth works, that God can penetrate that. They've got to kind of feel it. They've got to get that sort of awakening. There's got to be that soul stirring, which I think, and that's what God the Spirit does. I think as the Holy Spirit intervenes, then they begin to see the glimmer of the light of the truth and, you know, and so forth.

Our need is for patience, not to rush the process. So talk to people. I did that with our kids. We had this as parents through the holidays with movies and songs. At first, I mean, in my early days I would be in a withdrawal, watched nothing, built up the fortress, stayed inside the bubble, you know, lived, protected, made sure you know, bomb proof shelters and realized that's a sin. It's more so today because even the poorest cities of our time have phones and everything else.

Marlin Detweiler:
Unity is not playing defense.

Stuart McAllister:
No, it's right. We must believe, greater is He who is in me, than he that is in the world. All of our armor in the Bible is forward. There's nothing for our back. So why are we running? That means then we must have a role. Greater is he. How do we form the mind and the conscience and the heart?

Marlin Detweiler:
Wow. Yeah. The world of apologetics sometimes has what I might call prickly aspects between being evidential and presuppositional. How do you find that discussion?

Stuart McAllister:
Well, here's what I find. You have people unfortunately, like so many other things, we have turned apologetics into the apologetics industry. It's the “Apologetics Inc.” and therefore you have all these specialists. You have these guys who go off and do a PhD in this and a PhD in that and get multiple. And they think it's all about the head in arguments and winning fights.

And of course, I don't think that's I mean, I think apologetics is not should not be a thing unto itself. It was a tool added to witnessing. So I think the whole idea of am I a classical apologist or my evidentialist or my presuppositionalist and my answer is yes, I am, because it depends on the context. I mean, so if I'm talking to a Muslim or a Hindu and they start raising things about say, Krishna or Vishnu or all this one Atman is Brahman, Brahman is Atman, or you know, Allah is one and the doctrine of thought. He'd and Jesus couldn't possibly be God. Then we're going to be talking about presuppositions. I'm going to be looking, but what am I going to be implying?

I'm looking at evidence. I'm going to be challenging the evidence that they present, and I'm going to present evidence and try to make arguments too. And in that sense, it's more classical, you know, argument. It's an abductive argument. It's not inductive or deductive. It has all of those. But we're looking to the bigger picture because that's what Christianity does.

It gives coherence. So I think to lock into a school and have these internecine fights between each other, who's the right better mirror in the world? Who is the most pure apologist of them all? It just becomes silly. We distract time and energy rather than saying measure yourself against how effective are you actually communicating with people? Are you talking to them? Are you showing love? Is anyone listening?

Marlin Detweiler:
Do you care?

Stuart McAllister:
Yeah! I’m not being pragmatic but pragmatic. But I'm talking about just being compassionate, being genuinely and whatever apologetic. Like Paul said, I became all things to all men then by all means. So that's what I think. And this takes you right back to where the question about Lewis Lewis saw himself again as a translator. So the translator was the translator. He is very concerned with communication but getting meaning across.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah.

Stuart McAllister:
So I hear– I'm seeing words. They're coming back. We're missing the meaning. We're dancing all over the place. What would Lewis do? Well, Lewis would come up with a story or a picture or a character or a little fun with feet, you know, and then things or a witch or something like he would come up with Turkish delight that, you know, once you taste it. Oh, you get mad and you want more. You're crazy. Well, you're seeing the theology of sin just and deception and lies just, you know, but you get it in here.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, but your point, I think, that can be real, simply emphasized is caring for the person you're dealing with, you're talking to. It's about caring for them. It's about loving them.

Stuart McAllister:
That's exactly right. So that so to me, love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, your strength, and your neighbor as yourself. The heart of all love is communication, isn't it?

Marlin Detweiler:
Yes.

Stuart McAllister:
For God so loved the world he gave, he communicated, he came to us, and he did in a way that we can understand. We have put communication and particularly America today. We're so polarized that I will only talk to you if I get the words right, and if we get the meaning right, and if you start waving some flag and it's red or it's blue or whatever, woo, you know, it's multicolored, you know, then I'm not going to talk to you. You're an enemy. You're darkness. And so I'm on the defensive. And fear does not allow us to communicate.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, that is really good. One of the things that you've had too and then I've seen, as I read a bit about you in preparation for this, was what you think in terms of effective approaches to apologetics because we've been covering some of that already. You've used the phrase in anxious Times.

And I tend to think of that maybe as a post Covid area. But you're talking about a much more significant definition of anxious times or a much more extensive. Tell us what you mean by that. When you use the term anxious times.

Stuart McAllister:
Well, there's a there's a range of books. James Davidson Hunter's new one on solidarity and communication. I talking about the meltdown in the United States. But people like Anne Applebaum has been talking about the rise of oligarchs. We've had Zacarias's book. Look at the age of revolutions, and there's a whole bunch and Neil Ferguson and many others.

I think what people are recognizing that globally, we're in an epochal shift. We came from the post-World War Two settlement. We but at the end of the war, we had the rise of the nuclear age, and you had the balance of powers of the bipolar world, which ostensibly came to an end theoretically in 1989. And then 1991 with the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of Russia.

But then we had the revenge of history. So we came back now to all the underlying stuff in all parts of the world. And meanwhile, some of the decisions we had made in the West had fueled, obviously, the rise of China as a significant entity, India at 1.4 billion people and with a 7.5% or something GDP. Now, all of these countries growing, the Muslim world being who wanted to modernize but not westernized.

And this is the problem. We thought modernization and Westernization were the same thing. So we had this idea of globalization as a uniform culture in which democracy, the free markets and liberalism would all basically somehow rule the world. And now we're back in the world of oligarchs and power and threats, as you said, Covid and these things, which were, I think, symptomatic, maybe be God's a whisper from God, the rational made human order will not hold on.

It takes a little virus to puncture your little security there. So what we're seeing is when I say the word you. If we had the modern to the postmodern, which was in the age of modernism, everything was about rationality and reason. Scientific man, the vision of science, reason, the end of religion and progress. So postmodernism comes now and attacks Christianity but to no great extent.

All those things so were not really scientific. We don't trust reason. Progress is up for question. So now we question everything. The only thing we're left with is radical doubt. And when you doubt everything, like Francis Schaeffer said, we're standing with our feet firmly in mid-air. So we have no place to stand. So where does anxiety come in?

Because every child and every adult has to define everything about everything all the time. And it could change tomorrow. Yeah. You can't live that. We need coordinates. We need to know we need stability. We need strength as a family. We need roots. We need direction. Is there such a thing if truth is totally subjective? So here's Philip Reeves said this is the age of psychological man.

Religious man was born to be saved. Psychological man is born to be pleased. So the shift, the greatest shift in our time is that psychology, not philosophy, is really in charge. It's all about feeling, so looking good and feeling good replace being good and doing good and we do not know the difference anymore. Not often in the church either.

Marlin Detweiler:
How does that affect what you do this afternoon?

Stuart McAllister:
Well, what I mean, I have a mission statement that I felt was, you know, something I've been called to. So I do what I do, I just take divine appointments. If it's with an individual like that, your invitation that came timely, I'll do this. And I'm actually going to do a podcast with my son and his friend just after this.

I'll do those kind of things. I'll meet with individuals, I'll preach in our church, we'll do a Sunday school class. I've got a group, so I work wherever I can to do like Matthew 13 as the leaven of the kingdom. I will sow the seeds, but I'm not going to be anxious. The earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world and those who dwell in it.

So I live coram Deo, as our dear friend used to always exhort people in God's presence under his authority for his glory. So it's not my job to fix the world. I can't change the world. But even as we are gathering here, 5,000 plus people are an inch on. And that’s huge and they are thinking of a mission.

They're praying God is working. And I know from that there's going to be huge things come out of that. Not that it's all perfect or all right, but God is moving. And so I think stop looking at the darkness and look at the promises. Let's be a people of hope. Let's be a people of expectation. Use the Lewis thing.

Lewis wrote some of his best books during the Second World War. One of his greatest sermons was written in the night. It’s The Weight of Glory, you know. And it's with Britain is, you know, they're right in the midst of the second war was not clear understanding there would be one. Yeah. So, you know, it doesn't take circumstances out there. It's the Word and his promises and our getting our coordinates clear. You know.

Marlin Detweiler:
That's wonderful. Well, we have really enjoyed having you. Thank you so much. I love the idea of just doing where God leads in a way that has knowledge and wisdom attached to it, but it's not so institutionally bound that it has made it hard to work in God's kingdom for God's glory.

Stuart McAllister:
I think John Stark famously said, the incarnation is the model for mission. The word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. So the word becomes flesh through us and God still moves us. We are his agents.

Marlin Detweiler:
That's wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Stuart McAllister:
My pleasure.

Marlin Detweiler:
Folks. Thank you for joining us. We look forward to seeing you next time, here on Veritas Vox, the voice in classical Christian education.