My Journey in Writing and Christian Apologetics

Roughly ten years ago I began to discover my joy of writing. Since then, I have attempted three other blogs before this one. All of them focused on Christian living and thought. None of them made it past five posts before I decided to abandon the project for one reason or another: time constraints, lack of willingness to put in the effort, or a realization that I didn’t have much to say or contribute. This run may or may not be different; however, I do feel more eager about this one.

I have had this domain and blog title for “Reasons for my Reason” for seven years, and I have struggled to get it up and running. It began as a lay-person’s theology and apologetics blog as a means to help me process whatever books I was reading at the time. I managed to get one article up before going on a multi-year hiatus.

Two years ago it transformed into a blog that I intentioned to use while being active in campus ministry. It would focus on a Socratic approach of asking questions relevant to the gospel and theism while giving brief, straight to the point responses. Being aware of the weaknesses and criticisms of Christian apologetics, I wanted to avoid the pitfalls of overstating the strength of an argument and not steel-manning an opposing viewpoint. I wanted to address this by focusing on key questions and giving equal voice to responses by both Christian and non-Christian thinkers and sources. I still see this as a project that I’m interested in pursuing, but that may be much further down the road.

My deeper dive into Christian apologetics while working in campus ministry is really the impetus behind the new direction I am aiming for. I began to wrestle with a sort of nihilistic agnosticism in my capabilities to do the necessary amount of research to attain a confidence level that would satisfy me. It’s not enough to know that Dr. A says X to support his view and Dr. B responds with Y to support hers. I want to know the in-and-outs of historical research, philosophy of religion, and cosmological and biological sciences. As a non-academic I am somewhat dependent on those who have done the work to get their doctorate and make their points and counterpoints. How could I sort through the noise with what limited time and skills I have to devote to a deep-dive study on these issues? I do not think someone needs to be a credentialed expert to sort through it all, nor do I think that all competing ideas compete at the same level simply because someone with a doctorate argues for something. However, I was coming to terms with the realization that my level of confidence obtained from apologetics was not the same as it was before.

My confidence in the power and scope of apologetics waned a decent amount, and I had started to classify myself as an agnostic Christian. I knew I was devotedly Christian, but I didn’t have much confidence in the “why” apart from my familial upbringing and a small handful of personal experiences – which indubitably helped form an interpretive framework through which I would evaluate arguments for and against Christianity. Certainly not a strong position to assert that I confidently believe something to be objectively true.

I will save my journey from being a total fanboy of anything and everything apologetics to a far more moderate and reserved position for another post, but along the way I was getting more curious about how and why I had the biases that I do which would impact how I would be persuaded. What factors of my own cognition and social environment would affect my buy-in for one position or the other?

This finally brings me to my new blogging goals. It will primarily be a more personal, journal-type of a blog focused on self-reflection accompanied with research into epistemology, psychology, and sociology. A lot of this research I am still yet to undertake, but I am currently fascinated with how beliefs are formed, maintained, and changed. How are they strengthened and weakened? What is it about my personal history and psychology that contributes to the unique way in which I categorize and process information? I want to explore the reasons for why I reason the way that I do.