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Lee Strobel: We’re on Cusp of Golden Era of Apologetics

A must-read for budding and established apologists here:

All of these trends have awakened a sleeping giant – Christian apologetics, or the defense of the faith. We’re seeing apologetics books on the New York Times bestsellers list. Schools like Biola University and its Talbot School of Theology, which are leaders in apologetics, are filled to capacity. Denver Seminary is launching a new degree in Christian Apologetics and Ethics this fall. One organization is seeking to place apologists on 500 college campuses in the next five years.

WILLIAM LANE CRAIG: OUR CHURCHES HAVE DROPPED THE BALL…

Here.

Other students I met with at Princeton were enrolled in a class taught by the New Testament critic Elaine Pagels which they nicknamed the “Faithbusters Class” because of its destructive effect on the faith of many Christian students. They had no way of knowing how far out of mainstream scholarship Prof. Pagels’ views on the Gnostic gospels are. It was a privilege to share with them grounds for the credibility of the New Testament witness to Jesus.

Their experience is not unusual. In high school and college Christian teenagers are intellectually assaulted with every manner of non-Christian worldview coupled with an overwhelming relativism. If parents are not intellectually engaged with their faith and do not have sound arguments for Christian theism and good answers to their children’s questions, then we are in real danger of losing our youth. It’s no longer enough to teach our children simply Bible stories; they need doctrine and apologetics. It’s hard to understand how people today can risk parenthood without having studied apologetics.

Unfortunately, our churches have also largely dropped the ball in this area. It’s insufficient for youth groups and Sunday school classes to focus on entertainment and simpering devotional thoughts. We’ve got to train our kids for war. We dare not send them out to public high school and university armed with rubber swords and plastic armor. The time for playing games is past.

– William Lane Craig

Craig is so right. The games need to stop. The training needs to start.

William Dembski Interview

Get it here: www.thebestschools.org/blog/2012/01/14/william-dembski-interview/

I love Dembski. He is an intellectual genius, and honest to the heart. With the persecution he has faced both inside and outside the church, he is also like a modern Galileo.

Apologetics, Mike Licona, students, 2012, what’s next?

See Mike’s website here: www.risenjesus.com

(See also Mike’s PDF on what to say to Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons when they knock on your door.)

You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church… and Rethinking Faith

Amazon book: You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church…and Rethinking Faith

Website: youlostmebook.com/

Response to Zach Wahls’ appeal for same-sex marriage to the Iowa House of Representatives

Source.

A great Christmas present for all ages

Available here in New Zealand or from Amazon here:

William Lane Craig The Defense Never Rests: Workbook and Teacher’s Handbook

From here.

William Lane Craig The Defense Never Rests: Workbook and Teacher's Handbook

Historian: Fool or coward? For Dawkins, that is not an easy choice

From here.

Further to “Dawkins speaks: Why he won’t debate William Lane Craig … Craig advocates “ genocide”

In “Richard Dawkins is either a fool or a coward for refusing to debate William Lane Craig” (The Telegraph, October 21, 2011), historian Tim Stanley offers,

He likes to pick fights either with dunces (like the deliciously silly and obviously gay Ted Haggard) or with incredibly nice old Christians with no fire in their belly (like Rowan Williams). Dawkins has gotten away with his illiterate, angry schtick for so many years because his opponents have been so woolly. This is a damning indictment not only of him, but of the clerical establishment of Great Britain. But this time, he understood that he was up against a pro. In America, evangelicals have to compete in a vibrant, competitive marketplace of different denominations. That breeds the very guile and theatricality that are so sorely lacking among the Anglican clergy. In Craig, Dawkins met his match. Like Jonah, he was confronted by the truth and he ran away.

Stanley provides critical context for Craig’s treatment of Old Testament slaughters.

Craig’s purpose in writing this piece is to unravel the paradox of a moral Bible that also includes lashings of apparently random violence. Craig stresses that these passages of the Bible are difficult for us to read because we are not of the age in which they are written – they are just as alien to us as Beowulf or the Iliad. That’s because Christian society has been shaped by the rules of life outlined in the New Testament, not in the section of The Bible in which this massacre occurs. Far from using this passage to celebrate the slaughter of heathen, Craig is making the point that the revelation of God’s justice has changed over time.

Which is pretty much the standard view.

It’s hard to figure out why Dawkins, who holds forth regularly on religion, would not know that. Or …

ASK – Because Your Questions Matter

www.rzim.org
Vimeo video page

ASK – Because Your Questions Matter from RZIM on Vimeo.

Christianity Today: Apologetics Makes a Comeback Among Youth

Here.

Relational evangelism may have the key to successful youth ministries in the 1990s, but today apologetics is gaining new traction.

Kids struggle to explain their beliefs today more than they did two decades ago, said Christian Smith, director of the Center for the Study of Youth and Religion at the University of Notre Dame. One of the center’s 2005 reports indicates that 12 percent of 13- to 17-year-olds say they are “unsure” of their religious beliefs, and 41 percent of Protestant teens agree that morals are relative.

“[Their] faith is more about meeting emotional needs than an ideology,” said Smith. This is the product of “an overwhelmingly relativistic and privatized cultural climate,” he said, as well as “youth leaders who have not challenged that climate.”

Challenging the cultural climate is a major component of the new apologetics, said Sean McDowell, head of Worldview Ministries. “The apologetics resurgence has been sparked ultimately by teens who are asking more questions about why people believe the things they do,” he said. “Those who thought that kids in a postmodern world don’t want an ideology were wrong.”

Greg Stier, founder of Dare 2 Share Ministries, agrees. “[Teens] are aware of the latent apologetic conversations in culture—Harry Potter, for example—and want to react,” he said.

McDowell says it’s possible to overstate truth claims. He’s heard too many youth pastors and parents claim that the evidence of the Resurrection is overwhelming. But then students encounter good counter-arguments on the internet or from a professor, “and the youth leaders suddenly lose credibility.”

To prevent this, McDowell does what all good apologists do: share the other side. In fact, he finds that’s what students ask him: “What book or what website would you recommend that runs in opposition to the Christian view?” He says that being honest with them “helps demonstrate, as Paul puts it in Colossians 4, that our conversation is ‘full of grace, seasoned with salt,’ and that we’ve found a balance.”

The apologetics surge doesn’t mean the end of relational youth ministry, said Chap Clark, founder of ParenTeen. Identity development has become more difficult for today’s teens, he says. So it is more important than ever that youth leaders address their emotional needs.

“Help them develop social capital before [you] attempt to establish an ideology,” he said. “Kids aren’t receptive to explicit faith arguments when their emotional needs aren’t met.”

Ginny Olson, a Minneapolis-based youth ministry consultant, said youth leaders are increasingly aware that neither relational evangelism nor apologetics alone are effective vehicles for truth. “Kids need relationships and they need clear gospel presentations—it’s not either/or.”