Interesting. At least he recognizes that apologetics, like all propaganda (no pejorative implied by the word) only works on those who already inclined to believe it. I was disappointed that he referred to that dreadful “Evidence That Demands a Verdict” because I remember back in college when an evangelical friend gave it to me to read in the vain hope of converting me, I returned it to him saying that I was glad the author was not my lawyer because I’m sure that all his clients were either convicted or lost their case.
But then I found “Mere Christianity” unutterably hilarious, if only because I was not part of the culture that those talks were directed to, the British middle class in World War 2.

How does the back cover of Lewis’s book put it … “for the half-convinced” or “for those who want to believe but find their intellect getting in the way.”
You’ve put your finger on it exactly, Charles. As usual.
My husband’s hearty chuckle over Lewis’s book made me think twice before passing along the weaker apologist, McDowell.

He wasn’t endorsing McDowell, he was saying that he used his evidential style.

The evidential style is what was so bad. It doesn’t work unless the person is willing to take that evidence seriously.
Now, in fairness to the apologists, one of their biggest arguments was the “witness of the martyrs,” that the fact that a goodly number of people were willing to get killed for what would seem on its face to be a pretty silly idea. But that argument died at Jonestown and was buried at Waco and is rarely used now from what I can gather. That pretty much knocked the wind out of the evidentiary concept because, let us be honest, unless one is willing to believe in the Shroud of Turin, there is damned little physical evidence left and the witnesses quoted would not be considered exactly reliable.
That pretty much leaves faith alone. One cannot argue effectively against a strong faith held by another and it is probably impolite to do so but it is not always a good method of persuasion in and of itself.
The problem with Lewis book is that it is totally bound up with the culture of its intended audience. The opening argument about the universal appeal of fairness sounds pretty funny to people who firmly disbelieve in it as a value at all (“Life is not fair.” John Kennedy, August 1961) and when he talks about how we would feel about someone who avoided getting shot at in a war, most of us I would dare venture, would say that he was showing great good sense and that is why we voted for Bill Clinton in such large numbers (and also why the National Guard business never made a dent in George Bush). His arguments fail because his examples just don’t work any more. Now, to be fair to Lewis, he could conceive of a situation where his words would fall flat but he died before he could see that situation extended to an entire, and much larger, culture. To put it simply, Americans in 2008 are not British in 1943, looking out at the ruins and finding comfort in the fact that the tea service survived the blitz.

finding comfort in the fact that the tea service survived the blitz.
That’s overstating it, but the world has changed and plenty of people don’t give a damn anymore about playing fair. When I read it twenty years ago, I could at least remember back to a time when things were different – I’m a fan of Capra movies, for instance – so Lewis’s appeal worked on me.
unless one is willing to believe in the Shroud of Turin
Funny you say: the deacon at my previous church believed, after examining the “scientific evidence,” on account of the Shroud. It takes all kinds.
I picked up Keller’s book last night (not via the beloved WTS bookstore. Sorry, michele, but I kept putting it off and then just said ok).
To blame academic institutions for our secularizing trends, let’s be specific: it’s the dropping of philosophy … and probably the general abandonment of liberal education that has hurt faith/belief. Just a case in point: Avery Dulles, who recently retired from Fordham, wrote in his autobiography that studying philosophy at Harvard inspired his conversion to the church.

It is interesting that Keller spoke about implausibility factors being different from culture to culture. For me the fact that different cultures have different religions and religious views is itself one of the implausibility factors.
To illustrate my point. Math is universally recognized and agreed upon by all cultures. While what is considered good music does vary. So math does not appear to be opinion, while good music is one culture’s opinion. This tends to create a lowest common denominator approach to what is the truth as cultures get co-mingled.

“If you’re trying to start a Presbyterian church and you’re trying to evangelize, thirty or forty years ago, if you talked to any non-Presbyterian, if you talked to a Catholic, if you talked to Episc … I mean, if you talk to people who are so entrenched in their faith, so that they wouldn’t even give you the time of day. I actually like the fact that the consumer mentality has meant everybody seems untethered to their traditional religion so that I … they’ll at least listen to my presentation of the gospel.”
Um, yeah.
I read the Intro last night then flipped through, based on interesting items in the index and noted that he quotes Flannery O’Connor quite a bit. That’s encouraging.