Happy Memorial of St. Nicholas, who allegedly decked Arius' halls at the Council of Nicaea.

One of the papers I wrote for my closure project was an analysis of City of God as a template for the modern apologist. Augustine didn’t mount a courtroom-style defense of the faith like Justin Martyr, nor did he use the language of statesmen like Tertullian. Instead, he met pagan arguments on their own terms, without appealing to external authority. In fact, the authority he quotes most often is Varro, who tried (and generally seems to have failed) to systematize pagan belief.

The lesson for the modern apologist, I think, is to survey the landscape around us like shipwreck survivors and make use of the things lying around the shore. It’s almost a commonplace these days that the world is slowly careening into the darkness of a post-Christian era. You’re either lost to the zeitgeist or hunkered down as part of a vital remnant. I’m not sure that either of these views is particularly useful. The deep yearning for the transcendent hasn’t gone anywhere, and neither have the urges to worship or at least make use of the forms of worship and ritual (see Charles Taylor). This ought to give us tremendous hope and optimism as evangelists and apologists. An alternative to the immanent frame will have to be proposed from the highways and hedgerows, not the doorways of the narthex (see James Shea).