How to ‘debate’ an atheist mega brain and talk about Jesus winsomely

My Lawrence Krauss v William Lane Craig post went a little viral with WLC’s fans – and even on Reddit’s r/atheism. I had no idea I was tilting at two sacred cows. Especially when it comes to the Christians – I can’t figure out how it is wrong or controversial to suggest that Christianity should be, primarily, about Christ.

Anyway. After that event, WLC and LK toured the country, with a couple more debates. Then WLC flew home, and Krauss didn’t. He stayed to have a final debate in Perth. Perth’s City Bible Forum brought out a local – a pastor – Rory Shiner. A real ‘David’ – if William Lane Craig can’t legitimately be described as such. Krauss’ fame as an intellectual far outweighs Shiner’s. If you read those links above, the David v Goliath analogy didn’t really work for either WLC fanboys or Krauss fanboys. Apparently Christianity is too big and powerful to be David, while WLC is too smart to be considered a David relative to Krauss…

Anyway.

Rory tried something a little different in his debate. He subverted the debate format. He appears to be prepared to take a few blows in order to be winsome and keep the conversation coming back to Jesus.

The best advert for his methodology is the description from an atheist who was there as a:

“magnanimous and cheerful crucifixion”

(source – that came from Rory on Twitter when I asked him how it went).

This, I think, is how you “debate” – it’s certainly how you be Christlike in this sort of situation.

Krauss is clearly a little enamoured with this conversation, and with Rory – he even says they have become friends in 24 hours (in video 2).

part 1 of CBF Perth dialogue on Is it reasonable to believe in a god, with the delightful Rory Shiner is now online. http://t.co/iXPuAVU0DX

— Lawrence Krauss (@LKrauss1) September 3, 2013

He can’t help but be nice. It’s in stark contrast to his approach to William Lane Craig.

Check them out. Discuss them. What lines are you going to steal? I love the Shakespeare stuff (video 1, from 27 minutes).

I like that he channels Paul at the Areopagus. I also likes that he writes off ‘generic’ forms of knowing God (sort of – “they wave their arms in a godward direction”), in favour of knowing God from revelation.

The Shakespeare analogy is so good that I’ve typed it out here to come back to in the future.

“When Christians speak of God they speak of a character not in our world. He’s not part of the drama. If the world is Hamlet, then God is Shakespeare. Shakespeare is nowhere present in Hamlet, and yet by Shakespeare everything that happens in Hamlet lives and moves and has its being…”

And then…

“If God is to our universe as Shakespeare is to Hamlet, then revelation is necessary. Could Ophelia conclude anything about the nature and character of Shakespeare from her position in Hamlet? No Hamlet, like our universe, makes a good deal of sense on its own. And just as the literary critic does not need to keep invoking the Shakespeare hypothesis to make sense of the drama, the scientist does not need to keep invoking the God hypothesis to make sense of her discoveries, and for Christians, this is not a bug. It’s a feature. We have a universe that is gloriously open to empirical investigation, and any Christian here should wait with bated breath for Doctor Krauss’ next book as we discover good and gorgeous things about our world. But for Ophelia to know Shakespeare – to stretch our analogy to breaking point – is for Shakespeare to write himself into the play. And that’s the specific Christian claim. Christians claim that the transcendent God of creation has for reasons of love written himself into the unfinished drama of human experience. The act of revelation centres on the man Jesus of Nazareth. Born in Palestine at the time of Herod the Great, crucified under Pontius Pilate, and who Christians believe was raised to new life in the wee small hours of a Sunday morning in a grave yard on the edge of Jerusalem. At the point of the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, Christianity puts its head on the chopping block of history.”

Is this not a better way than blustering ahead without listening to what your interlocutor is throwing at you?