Os Guinness - Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion

RECOVERING THE ART OF
CHRISTIAN PERSUASION

OS GUINNESS

www.IVPress.com/books

DOM,

And to Peter L. Berger,

scholar, mentor, friend, Grand Master of Comedy

and so much more besides.

In addition to being a wise man, the Preacher also taught the
people knowledge; and he pondered and searched out and arranged
many proverbs. The Preacher sought to find delightful words and to
write words of truth correctly. The words of wise men are like goads
and masters of these collections are like well-driven nails.

E CCLESIASTES

When one is wise, its wisest to seem foolish.

A ESCHYLUS, P ROMETHEUS B OUND

Do you know how you can act or speak
about rhetoric so as to please God best?

S OCRATES IN P LATOS P HAEDRUS

There is nothing so pliant, nothing so flexible,
nothing which will so easily follow whithersoever
you incline to lead it, as language.

M ARCUS T ULLIUS C ICERO, D E O RATORE

In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God.

S T. J OHN, G OSPEL OF J OHN

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void. For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.

Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

S T. P AUL, L ETTER TO C ORINTH

God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers
in the prophets in many portions and many ways,
in these last days has spoken to us in his Son.

L ETTER TO THE H EBREWS

Joking often cuts through great obstacles better
and more forcefully than being serious would.

H ORACE, S ATIRES

Reason, even when supported by the senses, has short wings.

D ANTE, P ARADISO

What else is the whole life of mortals but a sort of comedy, in which the
various actors, disguised by various costumes and masks, walk on
and play each one his part, until the manager
waves them off the stage.

E RASMUS, T HE P RAISE OF F OLLY

The world is full of rage, hate and wars.
What will be the end if we employ only bulls and the stake?...
It is no great feat to burn a little man. It is a great
achievement to persuade him.

E RASMUS, L ETTER

Jesters do oft prove prophets.

W ILLIAM S HAKESPEARE, K ING L EAR

The usefulness of comedy is that it corrects the vices of men.

M OLIRE, P REFACE TO T ARTUFFE

Nothing produces laughter more than a surprising disproportion
between that which one expects and that which ones sees.

B LAISE P ASCAL, P ENSES

Who are a little wise the best fools be.

J OHN D ONNE, T HE T RIPLE F OOL

Out of the crooked timber of our humanity
no straight thing can be made.

I MMANUEL K ANT, I DEA FOR A G ENERAL H ISTORY

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps;
for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference
between what things are, and what they ought to be.

W ILLIAM H AZLITT

One should not always so exhaust a subject that one leaves the reader with
nothing to do. The point is not to make men read, but to make them think.

M ONTESQUIEU, T HE S PIRIT OF THE L AW

Longing! Longing! To die longing and through longing not to die!

F RIEDRICH N IETZSCHE, T HE B IRTH OF T RAGEDY

The opposition which Christianity has to encounter is no longer confined to special doctrines or to points of supposed conflict with the natural sciences,... but extends to the whole manner of conceiving the world, and of mans place in it, the manner of conceiving the entire system of things, natural and moral, of which we form a part. It is no longer an opposition of detail, but of principle. This circumstance necessitates an equal extension of the line of defense. It is the Christian view of things in general which is attacked, and it is by an exposition and vindication of the Christian view of things as a whole that the attack can most successfully be met.

J AMES O RR, T HE C HRISTIAN V IEW OF G OD AND OF THE W ORLD

Alone among the animals, he [the human being] is shaken with the
beautiful madness called laughter; as if he had caught sight of some
secret in the very shape of the universe hidden from the universe itself.

G. K. C HESTERTON, T HE E VERLASTING M AN

Every joke is a tiny revolution.

G EORGE O RWELL, F UNNY BUT N OT V ULGAR

The intimate relation between humor and faith is derived from the fact that both deal with the incongruities of our existence. Humor is concerned with the immediate incongruities of life and faith with the ultimate ones. Both humor and faith are expressions of the freedom of the human spirit, of its capacity to stand outside of life, and itself, and view the whole scene.... Laughter is our reaction to immediate incongruities and those which do not affect us essentially. Faith is the only possible response to the ultimate incongruities of existence which threaten the very meaning of our life.... Faith is the final triumph over incongruity, the final assertion of the meaningfulness of existence.

R EINHOLD N IEBUHR, H UMOR AND F AITH

Laughter has a deep philosophical meaning;... the world
is seen anew, no less (and perhaps more) profoundly than when
seen from the serious standpoint.... Certain essential aspects
of the word are accessible only to laughter.

M IKHAIL B AKHTIN, R ABELAIS AND H IS W ORLD

Sometimes we must laugh in order to perceive....
Comedy is more profound than tragedy.

P ETER L. B ERGER, R EDEEMING L AUGHTER

I pray earnestly that God will raise up today a new generation
of Christian apologists or Christian communicators, who will combine
an absolute loyalty to the biblical gospel and an unwavering confidence
in the power of the Spirit with a deep and sensitive understanding
of the contemporary alternatives to the gospel.

J OHN R. W. S TOTT, Y OUR M IND M ATTERS

CONTENTS

Introduction

RECOVERING THE LOST ART

W e are all apologists now, and we stand at the dawn of the grand age of human apologetics, or so some are saying because our wired world and our global era are a time when expressing, presenting, sharing, defending and selling ourselves have become a staple of everyday life for countless millions of people around the world, both Christians and others. The age of the Internet, it is said, is the age of the self and the selfie. The world is full of people full of themselves. In such an age, I post, therefore I am.