The mistaken enterprise of apologetics

There is a long tradition of Christian theology that goes under the name 'apologetics' and that seeks to respond to this question [How can we know that the gospel is true?] and to demonstrate the reasonableness of Christianity. The assumption often underlying titles of this kind is that the gospel can be made acceptable by showing that it does not contravene the requirements of reason as we understand them within the contemporary plausibility structure [=world view]. The heart of my argument is that this is a mistaken policy. The story the church is commissioned to tell, if it is true, is bound to call into question any plausibility structure which is founded on other assumptions. The affirmation that the one by whom and through whom and for whom all creation exists is to be identified with a man who was crucified and rose bodily from the dead cannot possibly be accommodated within any plausibility structure except one of which it is the cornerstone. In any other place in the structure it can only be a stone of stumbling. . . . To look outside of the gospel for a starting point for the demonstration of the reasonableness of the gospel is itself a contradiction of the gospel, for it implies that we look for the logos elsewhere than in Jesus. (Weston, Paul. ed. "Lesslie Newbigin: Missionary Theologian." Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. 2006 p236)

Newbigin has expressed better than I could, what I have long felt. What we announce and embody is foolishness to every world view except the one of which it is the cornerstone.