Jul 07 2008
A New Day for Apologetics
Despite all the recent attacks on faith or, perhaps, because of themthese are definitely the best of times for Christian apologists such as Lee Strobel, William Lane Craig, Ben Witherington III, Darrell Bock, and J. P. Moreland. They are making documentaries, writing books, giving media interviews, attending debates and conferences, and presenting the public with what they say is a growing mountain of scientific and archaeological evidence documenting the truth of Christianity.
“There has been a resurgence in Christian apologetics as a direct result of the challenges Christianity has faced in the form of militant atheism in college classrooms, on the Internet, and in TV documentaries and best-selling books,” says Strobel, former legal editor of the Chicago Tribune and most recently the author ofThe Case for the Real Jesus: A Journalist Investigates Current Attacks on the Identity of Christ.
Read more here.
[From me]
I think this is good. The problem I find among many believers is they don’t even know what or why they believe what they say they believe. We need to be teaching more doctrine and warning our people about other religious beliefs and non-beliefs.
What do you think?
11 responses so far
Amen to that…..outside of studying His word, I think its essential to study apologetics, especially for the benefit of witnessing.
Although they left out some good ones: McDowell, Zacharias and Matt Slick.
I agree K. One of the problems we face is many are not “thinking Christ-followers.” We have, for too long, simply accepted whatever someone has said as being “gospel” without investigating it for ourselves. We fail to teach doctrine for fear of offending someone. Then we wonder why we have people who leave Christianity for one of the cults like Mormonism or JW’s or even neo-atheism. Hooray for the apologists! Their time has indeed come.
Bill(cycleguy)’s last blog post..A Blessed Leader
I wonder Kevin, what responsibility we, as leaders, have in causing this? Have we allowed or caused the “dumbing” down of our membership? I know that we would never intentionally encourage people not to know, but what leadership roles have we taken to ensure learning, study, discipleship?
Unfortunately, I think at times, we’ve projected an attitude of “Just trust me! I’m telling you the truth!”
M. Steve Heartsill’s last blog post..Go to Church, Or the Devil Will Get You
Of course, there’s the conspiracy theory that the apologetics writers are actually bankrolling the atheists so that the Christians need to buy apologetics resources.
I’d like to add to Steve’s comment. I think many pastors have taken the Catholic idea of “I speak ex cathedra.” Most pastors would never say that out loud but I am afraid we do that in practice. “Don’t challenge me! I speak for God!” We foster that “dumbing down” process just by our attitude.
Bill(cycleguy)’s last blog post..A Blessed Leader
Regardless of whether people use scientific principals to defend religion, I think this shows a larger trend of scientific thought becoming more prominent in our society. That in turn means that, even though there will always be those who dismiss evidence that challenges their beliefs, more and more people will begin adjusting their beliefs based on actual evidence. Personally,I think it’s a great trend.
Bret,
Those are some good ones too.
Steve and Bill (CG),
I couldn’t agree more. I was/am never offended if someone challenges me. I would rather find out I’m wrong now so I can adjust my thinking than later.
A3,
I think it is a great trend too!
Kevin Bussey’s last blog post..A New Day for Apologetics
I’m afraid in too many of our churches that we tend to hold the pastor with too much respect! Yes, too much. While a healthy dose of respect is good, I would encourage believers to search the Scriptures for themself, not depending on someone/anyone else to give it meaning. Seek God’s leadership and not man’s.
In the church I attend now, we’ve stopped projecting the Scripture that the preacher will be using onto a screen. We found that too many people had stopped bringing their Bibles to worship and just “depended” upon what was projected on the screen. Our pastor really wants people to search the Scripture as he reads and to follow along with other passages that are mentioned in the service. I like what he is doing. It really does sound great to hear all of those pages turning again!
M. Steve Heartsill’s last blog post..Go to Church, Or the Devil Will Get You
Steve - When we STARTED projecting the Scripture, the pastor made a severely threatening announcement that NOBODY was allowed to stop bringing their Bible, that the projection was for the benefit of those who didn’t have Bibles. I think projection has a good place; my son spends a lot more time “reading” the words on the wall (he’s 6) than he would spend with a Bible, since he doesn’t know how to find the references and his attention span isn’t perfect yet. I think it’s a very beneficial thing, but it can easily be abused.
Christians desperately need to “get all theological” and get to really know God, not just listen for an hour or so every Sunday.
MSteve: I couldn’t agree with you more. In fact I believe a church is successful when the laypeople know, and look to the Bible as well as the theologians, ministers do. This is true of our church, and why I appreciate it so much. We learn how to study for ourselves and given the tools to do it. I have found out what I thought the Bible said doesn’t and am still amazed at what it does say, even after fifteen years of hard study.
Kevin: I too appreciate these men you mentioned in your post. All have and are contending for Christianity in ways that you and I cannot. We each have our particular function in the Kingdom.
Debbie Kaufman’s last blog post..Battles Among Christians Part 2
cycleguy is right about the ex cathedra part. Seems a lot more common than it used to be.