The Straw Man
A couple years ago, Pastor Keahbone and I had gotten to know several of the University of Oklahoma softball players through speaking engagements at the university. These young ladies encouraged us to attend a game, and we agreed that we would soon. One afternoon, Grace Lyons, the Gold Glove Award winning shortstop invited us to use her family tickets and come to the game.
We walked up to the family entrance, and we shuffled our way into a packed stadium. There was not a seat available down either baseline. Just about the time we were about to give up hope and head to the grandstands in the outfield, the girls spotted us. They ran up behind home plate waving and yelling, “Mike, Brandon!” We turned around and waved back at our friends.
It felt like the whole stadium was staring at us, wondering who we were. For a moment, we were celebrities. We leaned into our newfound fame and, with all the confidence of two men who did not belong there, walked down to the press seats right behind home plate. We quietly exchanged thoughts on the odds of us being kicked out of the seats and decided the risk was worth it.
A few innings into the game, a young lady who looked like she worked for the university came and sat next to Pastor Keahbone. We were fairly confident we were about to be removed from the best seats in the house at this moment, but the lady just struck up a conversation with Mike like she knew him. Mike played along, trying to figure who the lady was.
Eventually, Mike leaned over to me and said, “I think this lady thinks I am Joselyn Alo’s dad.” If you don’t follow softball closely, Joselyn is widely known as the greatest softball hitter of all time. I quickly Googled her Dad and to my surprise, he looks a lot like Pastor Keahbone. I tried to hold back the laughter and decided I was going to make the situation even stickier. I started calling my friend, Mike, by Joselyn’s Dad’s name, Levi. Mike was not as amused as I was.
When the lady revealed herself as Joselyn’s agent and that she needed to talk through an upcoming contract with him, Pastor Mike explained he wasn’t who she thought he was. We all laughed and she realized Mike had been her camp pastor one summer and that was why he looked so familiar to her. Later, Joselyn’s real Dad came down and took a selfie with Mike to commemorate the moment.
This funny case of a mistaken identity is a great picture of something that often happens in conversations about faith: the straw man fallacy.
This fallacy occurs when someone thinks they understand what they are talking about, but they have actually misidentified it. The fallacy creates a situation where someone is responding to an imitation they have created in their own minds instead of the real thing. That is exactly what happened that fateful night in Norman. The agent thought she knew exactly who she was speaking to, but she didn’t. Her assumption about who Pastor Mike was shaped the whole conversation.
People do this all the time when discussing matters of faith. Instead of dealing with what Christians really believe, they attack a version of Christianity they have created in their own mind. I have heard people say things like; “Christians don’t believe in science.” “Faith is just believing and doesn’t require evidence.” “All religions teach the exact same thing.”
These statements aren’t addressing what most Christians actually believe. Those claims are aimed at attacking a straw man. Apologist Greg Koukl describes this danger perfectly in his book, Tactics. He states, “The second reason you want to be clear on someone else's view is that if you don’t understand that person's point, you may misrepresent it. This is a serious misstep, even when done by accident. Instead of fighting the real issue, you set up a lifeless imitation that you then easily knock down.”[1]
If you are fighting a straw man then reaching a conclusion is nearly impossible. So how we combat that at school, in the workplace, or at a family gathering? The simple answer is to ask good questions. Questions like, “What do you think I really believe?” A few good questions tear down straw men and get to the real problems.
At our softball game, once the agent realized who she was talking to the whole conversation changed. The whole interaction she thought was strange suddenly made sense to her. When we help folks find the real Jesus instead of some imitation of him, the lights often come on for them. Who knows, you may even end up getting to take a selfie with them in the end.
[1] Greg Koukl, Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions, 10th Anniversary ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2019), 68.
