For Doug to characterize Joe as a heavy metal instrumentalist whose music does not call for active listening is simply not true. We have a case here where the entire context of Joe’s catalog is not being represented by Doug’s comment (proof texting anyone?).

For those that don’t know Joe. here’s just a sample of Joe’s songs in need of intense listening to get all the nuances of the performances (from the iTunes store):

• Tears in the Rain
• Cryin’
• Home
• All Alone (Left Alone)
• and my favorite for the nuances in the pick attack and vocalization of the melody…
• The Crush of Love

John Coltrane described the difficulties of playing with Monk:

“I always had to be alert with Monk, because if you didn’t keep aware all the time of what was going on you’d suddenly feel as if you’d stepped into an empty elevator shaft.”

How many apologists have found a voice that is theirs (given their spiritual gifts), is true to the Bible, and in which one hears the joy and beauty of heaven?

Great question. It’s easy to leave people hearing nothing but a “noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” Leaving them prostrate before the truth and enraptured by the joy and beauty of heaven — in a warm, attractive, and inviting sort of way — is far more difficult.

Doug Groothius just posted a related analogy. He compared listening to a favorite jazz musician in his car to listening in his study with headphones. He missed much of the subtlety and beauty amidst the noise and distraction of the car. This music could only be appreciated when he could hear all of the subtlety and nuance.

Monk doesn’t play that well in the car. One is too distracted by driving, and the music cannot be heard, cannot be appreciated, for its subtleties in that ambiance. Joe Satriani can; Thelonious Monk cannot. (Yes, horrified jazz fans, I do appreciate Joe as a master of his–admittedly lesser–genre: instrumental heavy metal guitar.)

The same is true for the best apologetics (or Christian witness in general): it requires the proper ambiances to be received properly. One needs to carefully listen, to weigh ideas, and to discern connections between thoughts. That is, one must attend critically in the proper environment. Certainly, God is his sovereignty can convince a ruined soul of the truth and attractiveness of the gospel in any setting, but an engaged discussion–with a minimum of distractions–makes the most sense for apologetic interactions.

It may be that much of our defending and commending the gospel–when we attempt it at all–rings hollow because the setting is wrong. We need to bring apologetics into the home, into conviviality and into deep conversations. And apologists need to develop their chops, such that they are worth listening to in the first place.

His point makes me think about the need to precisely define terms and make careful distinctions in how we relate Gods sovereignty to evil, as we saw in the Q&A period after Greg’s talk yesterday.