Plenty of Christians encounter intellectual challenges to their faith and feel like deer in the headlights as they seek to elucidate their faith in Jesus and clarify misunderstandings about the faith they’ve embraced. In Tactics, philosopher and apologist Greg Koukl seeks to provide some tools that allow Christians to engage criticisms more thoughtfully and winsomely.

Apologetics has a mixed reputation among Christians and non-Christians alike. By definition, apologetics is a defense: a defense of faith and the reasons that support that faith. The language of “defense” leads us to wartime metaphors and can elicit a militaristic posture when conversing with skeptics.

But these metaphors aren’t the only challenge to helpful dialogue about the Christian faith. Another is that non-Christians are free to walk away from evidence and reason whenever they like. Still others stand and fight, raising a litany of objections that can pull our intellectual feet out from under us if we aren’t prepared.

Whenever we talk about apologetics, diplomacy is a better metaphor than warfare. Instead of thinking of ourselves as soldiers at the frontline battling for truth, we should think of ourselves as ambassadors, negotiating and arguing with graceful poise.

That being said, an ambassador needs a plan for action, just like a soldier. These are “tactics” for engaging in discussions that are meaningful and that plant seeds in the soil of people’s hearts, little intellectual rocks in their shoes. These tactics are not designed to help you get the last word, or to smugly trap people in their words and embarrass them. The goal is to expose false beliefs and propose alternatives better aligned with reality.

Tactics should also be distinguished from strategy. Strategy refers to content: the facts and evidence for the Christian faith. Tactics deal more with form—the ways that evidence is presented. Strategy is overarching and shows the whole picture, whereas tactics look at the particulars. They are on the ground and in the moment.

Some Christians have reservations about apologetics, but many of the reasons people shy away from apologetics are based on misunderstandings about what it means to defend the faith.

For example, some people conflate arguing and fighting. When done well, arguing is a fine and even virtuous activity. It encourages more incisive thinking. Arguments need not devolve into acrimony, and when they do, you have lost even if you “win.”

Other Christians dismiss apologetics and argumentation in the name of avoiding divisiveness and promoting unity. But sometimes this is merely a cloak to cover an unhealthy fear of conflict. Skirting robust, loving debate and conflict hurts the church for a number of reasons. For one, it ignores scriptural mandates to pursue and protect the truth. Errors multiply in silence, but discussions allow them to be exposed and for the truth to prevail. Avoiding such discussions also prevents believers from learning how to argue well and lovingly, in a way that edifies and promotes true unity. Often, conflict-averse congregations claim “unity,” but it means little more than status quo and uncomfortable silence. Just because a local church has no arguments doesn’t necessarily mean true oneness of spirit. The peace can be a false one.

Furthermore, Christians cannot ignore the tradition of argumentation and discussion that pervades the pages of scripture: Jesus going toe-to-toe with Pharisees, even inciting discussions when the Pharisees seemed content to murmur disapprovingly from the sidelines. Peter and the disciples defended their actions and their faith before the religious leaders. Paul reasoned in temples and synagogues of Greeks and Jews, a behavior that, according to Luke, was “Paul’s custom” (Acts 17:2).

Columbo is a detective crime series that ran from the 1970s through the early 2000s. The protagonist, Lieutenant Columbo plays a humble, unassuming sleuth who hides his brilliance and attention to detail beneath the façade of an incompetent chump. He cracked case after case simply by asking questions and paying attention. Because he presented himself in a way that was unthreatening, suspects divulged more than they intended to, leading Columbo to some meticulously concealed truths. The classic Columbo exchange would begin with something simple like, “I got a problem. Something about this situation bothers me.” From this would issue an unassuming question that would lead to confident self-disclosure from suspects.

The Columbo Tactic of asking questions puts you in the conversational driver’s seat.  There are several ways in which it helps you:

1. The Columbo Tactic allows you to gather information. Ask people “What do you mean by that?” when they air their beliefs. Adopt a genuine curiosity in what they have to say.  They know their beliefs better than you do. One student asked Koukl what book he should read about Buddhism in order to better engage with his Buddhist friend. Koukl recommended the student ask his Buddhist friend for a suggestion. It would be less academic, more informed by a friend's personal understanding of his religion.

2. The Columbo Tactic allows you to reverse the burden of proof. When people make assertions, they do so with your potential rebuttals in mind. Asking them how they arrived at the beliefs they have takes the immediate pressure off your shoulders and helps you better understand the content of their beliefs. It becomes evident quickly whether they have reasons undergirding their beliefs or if they only have naked assertions.

3. The Columbo Tactic lets you make points with questions rather than statements. This aspect of the Columbo Tactic requires a certain level of knowledge on the topic at hand. If you have that knowledge, you can use questions to lead a skeptic to intellectual grounds they may never have visited. Returning a volley of assertions with a volley of your own can shut down conversations before they begin. Questions allow your challenge to land more softly.

Learning to use the Columbo approach takes time and practice. The goal is the pursuit of truth by using questions to create conversations free of pugnacity or the urge to score intellectual points.

The Columbo Tactic is the art of asking a good question. A thoughtful question frames the topic at hand, allowing you to control a conversation. So what happens when someone asks a question that unfairly or uncharitably frames your position? The best tactic to use when someone tries to “Columbo” you is “The Turnabout.”

Koukl used this approach in a televised debate with New Age celebrity Deepak Chopra when Chopra posed a question as powerful as it is banal: So are you saying that anyone who doesn’t believe in Jesus is hell-bound? This is not an easy question to navigate because it’s both “impolite” to give an unqualified “yes” and it’s hard to explain to the layman. No matter how eloquent the articulation of God’s mercy and Jesus’ sacrifice that make salvation from hell possible, it would be lost if it followed on the heels of a “yes” to Chopra’s challenge.

Answering Chopra’s question as it stood would have been an implicit acceptance of the question’s framing. More significantly, Koukl would have been mentally filed away as another foaming-at-the-mouth fundamentalist who enjoys the thought of people burning in a lake of fire. Chopra would have won the debate by dictating its terms. So Koukl used the Turnabout. He simply replied that this was not the point he’s trying to make. He used the question he’d been given and repurposed it to make his point more clearly and more on his terms.

Sometimes questions are leading. You don’t have to answer them. You can politely ask the person with whom you're interacting to repeat what they’re saying as a statement. In other cases, people ask questions that are so charged with emotion that their inquiries are not genuine. For example, “Who are you to say x?” or “What gives you the right to say y?” are technically questions, but there is little curiosity in them. They are assertions masquerading as questions, and it’s typically unhelpful for you and for them if you engage the questions as such. It’s helpful to slow people down by asking them, “What do you mean?” or “It sounds like you believe I’m mistaken. Can you tell me exactly where my mistake lies?” This is a Columbo reversal that allows them to explain more clearly what their objection is—and it takes you off the hot seat.

One tactic to remember when discussing worldview questions is that there are plenty of ideas that can’t support the weight of their own contradictions. You don’t have to work as hard to dismantle someone’s views because their views do that all on their own. This is the Suicide Tactic. You merely point out that someone’s view is committing logical suicide.

For example, the postmodern who claims that there is no such thing as truth destroys his own argument with his argument. Think about it: He is saying that it is true that there is no such thing as truth. Or the person who argues that we can’t be certain about our beliefs: Presumably, he is certain about his belief that nothing is certain. It’s a violation of the law of non-contradiction: A statement cannot be both true and false. The law of non-contradiction is a basic prerequisite for a valid belief. It’s a low threshold that a surprising number of beliefs fail to pass. Many of the sweeping, seemingly sagacious statements implicitly make themselves the exception to their grand picture of the world. Consider the sentence: “Any sentence five words or longer is false.” If that statement is true, then it is no longer true because it is included in the set it is attempting to describe. It condemns itself because it refers to itself in the process. This is self-referential self-refutation. 

A ridiculous statement about sentence length might seem trivial enough, but often more is at stake: questions of truth, morality, and the existence of God. Thankfully, the Suicide Tactic allows you to use common sense and point out the contradiction that your interlocutors have created for themselves.

Another tactic that helps expose faulty thinking and can bring us closer to truth is the “Taking off the Roof” Tactic. Sometimes an argument is too ambitious in what it is attempting to prove. When an argument overextends itself, the person holding that belief commits himself to some strange, unexpected implications. When we take off the roof, we are testing to see what is possible given someone’s moral and philosophical “house rules.” The implications can be unsettling—or just humorous. This approach is often called reductio ad absurdum: Reduced to its most basic premise, the idea is revealed to be absurd.

For example, in discussions about same-sex marriage, a common justification is that it comes naturally. “If it’s natural, then it’s fine.” But is something’s “naturalness” an adequate justification? By that same logic, couldn’t someone say that bashing gays comes naturally, so he’s going to go for it? But obviously gay bashing is wrong, however naturally it might come to someone. So the argument that a same-sex sexual orientation is good because it is a natural impulse is not a convincing argument. When we take the roof off this house, we find problems pretty quickly.

The “Taking off the Roof” Tactic is a three-step process: distilling an argument down to its logical nuts and bolts, giving the basic idea a test run by trying out some hypothetical situations, and then asking the skeptic if he is willing to accept those odd implications of his belief system—or if he thinks some modifications are necessary.

There’s an array of “mini tactics” at the disposal of any Christian looking to engage skeptics effectively. They are “mini” in the sense that they are simple techniques, but they can be powerful. They will help prevent conversations from going off the rails or into the weeds and increase the likelihood of constructive conversation.

Excise "Churchanese" from your vocabulary. If you can’t discuss your faith without leaning on Christian jargon, skeptics and critics of your faith will have a difficult time taking what you say seriously. It will be inaccessible. The overused Christian clichés do not resonate with those who don’t already know what they mean—and they often lose resonance within the church as well. Find simple, relatable ways to communicate the reasons you believe what you believe.

Defuse ad hominem assaults by asking for clarifying definitions. When people get worked up in conversations, sometimes they resort to name-calling and condescension—attacking the person rather than the idea espoused. The conversational train can pick up speed quickly and go off the rails if you return fire with fire, and the opportunity to have constructive dialogue will go up in flames. Often the terms are so freighted with cultural baggage, it is helpful to ask what they mean by “homophobe,” “bigot,” “xenophobe,” “closed-minded,” or whatever the accusation might be. Requesting a definition slows down the conversation and moves it beyond charged stereotypes that distract and prevent good exchanges.

Don’t forget about Jesus. The person challenging the faith is arguing with you, but she is also arguing with Jesus’ words. Virtually everyone admires and respects Jesus—even if they stop short of calling him God incarnate. But even a wise teacher has a kind of authority. By rearranging the chairs such that Jesus is sitting across from the skeptic, you give him or her the opportunity to engage with Jesus’ own words—words that have endured for millennia.