When You've Been Stomped on by an Elephant

If you have only read the title of this post, then I suspect that you may have a question: How do elephants relate to apologetics?  Is this a late April Fool’s joke?

Alas, dear reader, it is not. While they are magnificent creatures showing the handiwork of the Creator, this post has very little to do with actual pachyderms. Rather, we will be diving into how to appeal to an emotionally driven audience and how to respond to dissension in a Christlike way.

So, elephants? What’s the deal with that? The Rider and Elephant metaphor, developed by psychologist Jonathan Haidt, explains that most people are wired with two driving forces: the rider, which represents logic and facts, and the elephant, which is intuition, emotion, and morals. While the rider may appear to be in control, the elephant is the major driving force in the equation. In this model, the rider primarily serves to rationalize the decision that has already been made (Haidt, 2012).

The metaphor illustrates that the rider represents rational thought and decision-making, while the elephant symbolizes emotions and instincts.

The elephant in the room here is the elephant in Haidt’s metaphor. In today’s culture, the world operates on feelings rather than facts. Truth is made out to be subjective, as though it were a matter of opinion rather than objective reality. This can make discourses tricky business. One wrong move, and you’re Flat Stanley. How can truth effectively be shared and received in a way that does not compromise yet does not close off the mind of the other person?

Paul’s Approach to Engaging Different Audiences

Let’s look at one of the most eloquent and impactful rhetoricians of the early church. The Apostle Paul was a skilled orator who successfully evangelized across what would have been a large portion of the known world during his time. Two key instances where he convinced his audience of the truth of the gospel are found in Acts 17 and 19.

• In Acts 17:16-34, Paul debates a group of Athenian philosophers at the Areopagus, a hub for philosophical discourse and legal disputes. His goal was to challenge the idolatry happening among this group and introduce them to the one true God. The strategy he used involved quoting Greek philosophers and poets (Acts 17:28) in order to build ethos and present his case in a culturally relevant way to the intellectually focused Athenians.

• In Acts 19:1-7, Paul encounters a group of Ephesian disciples who had received John’s baptism of repentance but had not yet been baptized in Jesus’ name or in the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He goes on to explain to them that John was a messenger to prepare the way for Jesus, the Messiah.

In these stories, there are two types of audiences that mirror today: those who are actively choosing to follow a path apart from truth and those who would be receptive yet simply do not know what they are missing. A common thread of both is how Paul approached his audience. He takes a place of humility while letting the truth do the talking. There’s no attack on the listeners but rather a walkthrough and invitation to the abundance found in Christ. Instead of “You’re wrong and all going to hell, so repent now, you heathen sinners,” the angle is taking what is good and refining it to be better. Sin is condemned, but the people are not being trashed.

Balancing Logic and Emotion in Conversations

Back in the here and now, there can be a temptation to swing to the two extremes: purely logos or purely pathos. The problem with just logic is that it cuts and kills the bad without healing, whereas a feeling-based approach gives too much without ridding the fallacy. A common example is church attendance. On the two extremes, religiously liberal say, “Come as you are,” while religious conservatives expect conformity to “church culture” norms immediately upon conversion. Instead of treating the illness of sin, one is condoning the sickness while the other shuns the sick person. As the world lies dying in the sickbed, the two parties with the cure are bickering back and forth, neglecting to deal with the problem at hand.

A moderate approach then says, “Come as you are, and leave changed.” The goal is to bring the healing and reconciliatory work of Christ into the lives of the lost out of a heart of love rather than to prove a point or be “right.” It’s hard to die to your flesh when you’re so concerned with crucifying others on the cross of correction. The motive of a Christian in discourse should be to be made low so that the glory of God may be made evident rather than to be exalted. We are not judges in the courtroom of heaven, but we are witnesses who have seen the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6) and testify of Him. It’s not simply the facts that change people but a real relationship with a real, living, and loving God.

In short, if you want to avoid the circus of being stomped on by elephants, always be ready to give a defense for the hope you have, but do it with gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3:15).

References:

• Haidt, Jonathan. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. Pantheon Books, 2012.

• Johnson, Garrett. "Riding the Moral Elephant: A Review of Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind." Biola University Center for Christian Thought, April 29, 2013. Link

• The Holy Bible, English Standard Version.