Dr. Montgomery taught me the Christian faith is both a true story and a delightful story—in fact, it is the greatest story ever told.
What kind of author could pull off quoting Sherlock Holmes, Shakespeare, and Socrates in the same book without leading a reader down a rabbit trail? Who uses stories from A.A. Milne, the author of Winnie the Pooh, alongside Antony Flew and St. Augustine when writing and speaking to defend the Christian faith? What Christian apologist could deftly weave his way through a lecture from Kant, to Kierkegaard, to G.K. Chesterton on their way to proclaiming the cross, all while making it understandable and speaking with a smile and laughter along the way?
Not many people would fit this description, but Dr. John Warwick Montgomery certainly does. Whether Dr. Montgomery was in the classroom before attentive college students or at a local congregation, training parishioners in "Sensible Christianity," his defense never rested. He was a walking, talking, living, breathing apologist. Declaring and defending the Christian faith was Dr. Montgomery's native language as a baptized saint.
Dr. Montgomery was my teacher's teacher. I first learned of Dr. Montgomery through my good friend and professor, Rod Rosenbladt. He reminded me of a mixture of Albus Dumbledore, Gandalf, and Narnia's Professor Kirke all rolled into one. Like many other students who sat in Rod's classes at Concordia University Irvine, I was trained in Dr. Montgomery's evidence and historically-based apologetics and devoured it all like the rich food and fine wine Dr. Montgomery was personally such a fan of.
Dr. Montgomery's mind worked like one of those top-of-the-line Swiss Army knives: he could do it all. History, jurisprudence, theology, philosophy, scientific methodology, mathematics - you name the topic, and not only did he know something about it, but he could also use it to find a way to point you to Christ. One moment, you might find yourself trapped in the Hegalian woods, and the next, you would be on your way to discovering joy and holiness in Jesus. One moment, you might be walking through the halls of history with Herodotus and Cicero only to have your discussion arrive in the days when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, while Caesar Augustus called for a census, and in Jerusalem, where Christ was crucified under Pontius Pilate.
Dr. Montgomery taught that the Christian faith was not some fictitious fairy tale. Rather, the Christian faith was founded on fact. And neither did the Christian faith require you to check your brain at the door. The faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3) was reasonable, sensible, defendable, verifiable, and historical.
Montgomery brought us from the world of myth to the myth that became fact as flesh and blood that dwelt among us.
No doubt, this is what he was most known for. But it was not all he was known for. The more I read Dr. Montgomery, the more I learned that Christianity is voracious, trustworthy, and full of meaning, imagination, and beauty. This remains one of my favorite aspects of Christian apologetics, which Montgomery called apologetics for the tender-minded. Rigorous, academic, and logical arguments were certainly good and needed to defend the faith. But so were God's gifts of music, art, literature, creativity, and imagination. Christianity was a true and beautiful story of good news in Jesus. The Christian faith was intellectual and imaginative, rational and beautiful, truthful and meaningful. Declaring and defending the Christian faith in apologetics was a task for both the head and the heart.
Dr. Montgomery taught me the Christian faith is both a true story and a delightful story—in fact, it is the greatest story ever told.
As Tolkien says,
I would venture to say that approaching the Christian Story from this direction, it has long been my feeling (a joyous feeling) that God redeemed the corrupt making-creatures, men, in a way fitting to this aspect, as to others, of their strange nature. The Gospels contain a fairy story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels—peculiarly artistic, beautiful, and moving: "mythical" in their perfect, self-contained significance; and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe. But this story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation. The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man's history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy. It has pre-eminently the "inner consistency of reality." There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many skeptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. (Tolkien, On Fairy Stories)
This was one of the great skills Dr. Montgomery possessed and passed along to his hearers, readers, and students. Like Robin Hood, he had an endless quiver of apologetic arrows and knew exactly how and when to string and loose them with accuracy. He moved us from medical reports on the physical death and resurrection of Jesus to the eucatastrophe within the gospel story. He took you from the courtroom to the cross. He brought us from the world of myth to the myth that became fact as flesh and blood that dwelt among us (John 1). Whether he was telling you one of his anecdotes, stories, or the true story of the gospel, Dr. Montgomery was an apologist of the eucatastrophe, declaring and defending the joyous turn from death to life in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Like St. Paul, this was the key to life and faith for Dr. Montgomery. Here was the center of his apologetic and theologica universe. Here was the destination of every lecture he gave and every book he wrote. Because here is where our hope, faith, love, and life was anchored: in Jesus Christ crucified and risen.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed (1 Cor. 15:3-11).
Dr. Montgomery taught and lectured on many things over his decades of declaring and defending the gospel. He taught us how to combine the disciplines of history, law, and Christianity to make a reasoned defense for the hope that is within us (1 Peter 3:15) by demonstrating the reasonability, rationality, and reliability of the historicity of Christ's dying and rising from the dead. He taught us to see Christ at the center of a good story, one that would often point you outside of its pages to the true story of Jesus' death and resurrection to rescue sinners. Most of all, Dr. Montgomery taught us to see Christ crucified at the center of the story of the Scriptures, the Christian faith, and our lives in Christ.
Christ crucified was the center and circumference of Dr. Montgomery's life and work. Until we meet him and all the faithful departed in the great eucatastrophe of the resurrection of the dead, we rest in the greatest news of the greatest story of all: the eucatastrophe of Jesus' dying and rising.
Well done, thou good and faithful apologist of the eucatastrophe. Rest in the peace of Jesus. We will see you at the feast of the Lamb.
"Honor and thanks to God
Who wrought this world's creation,
To taste of heavenly joy
In death and tribulation.
Him we praise while we love,
And on his will attend,
Until we there arrive
Where song shall have no end." - J.S. Bach
