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Apologetics Resources for Kids

Here.

Looking for an apologetic resource for youth but don’t know where to start?  Below is a fantastic list of great apologetic resources including curriculums, books, programs, DVDs, and more for kids ranging from elementary school to high school.  Whether you are a parent, teacher, youth pastor, or kid yourself, we hope this list proves useful for you in finding the apologetic resource you’re looking for.

Apologetics for Kids

John Cleese

This is a funny piece of work.  I think Cleese was really on to something here.  Why would he not be angry, sitting thru sermons by the guy dressed in the purple clown suit.  What an appalling face (farce?) many of the the UK churches have presented.

The Theology Program

From Reclaiming the Mind Ministries here.

The Theology Program

What People are Saying About The Theology Program:

I cannot overstate how thrilled I am with the training in The Theology Program…[it] is the best thing I have seen to date.

J.P. Moreland
Distinguished Professor of Philosophy
Talbot School of Theology
Biola University

If it is your desire to know what you believe and why you believe it, The Theology Program is for you.

Chuck Swindoll
Senior Pastor
Stonebriar Community Church
Author, Speaker, Radio Host

If this kind of program could be multiplied in churches throughout America and the world, there would be hope for the evangelical church.

Daniel B. Wallace
Professor of New Testament Studies
Dallas Theological Seminary
Senior New Testament Editor
The NET Bible

These are very difficult issues, and you’ve treated them thoroughly, fairly, and with considerable balance…The teaching method is superb.

John M. Frame
Professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy
Reformed Theological Seminary

Podcasts are here.

Great interview with Prof. John Lennox

“There is no need at all to be ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, of the Good News, because it fits with science and there are answers”

Justin Brierley meets Oxford maths professor and Christian apologist John Lennox

The Times newspaper recently labelled John Lennox as “Christianity’s new poster boy”. It’s a description Lennox greets with his infectious Irish chuckle, readily admitting he doesn’t exactly have the physique of a male pin-up.

How then, did the Oxford mathematician and philosopher of science earn the label? Because he fought Dawkins and won (according to many, at least). John Lennox isn’t just a good academic; he’s also an excellent communicator. Affable, fluent and with a smile in his eyes, he draws the listener in, an evangelist for both science and Christianity.

Read more here.

William Lane Craig’s Brazil tour

William Lane Craig, a man well endowed with reasoning and debating skills, has just returned from the land of amazing ball skills (photos here).

Craig attended two conferences and had university-level engagements with large audiences (no surprise there). In addition, five of his books are now available for Brazilian readers by way of publisher Vida Nova.

More info about the tour can be found here.

Great book, great price

$2.99 USD on Kindle.  I have read about 50% of True Reason: Christian Responses to the Challenge of Atheism (Amazon) so far and it is excellent.  It’s not too big, not too heavy, and has an excellent tone that confronts the new atheism in a respectful but intellectually rigorous manner.

True Reason book Gilson Weitnauer

The book has an accompanying website here.

Each additional year of education, odds of attending religious services increased by 15%

From here (H/T to here).

Hardly a Christian friendly article, but interesting nevertheless.

‘PROTESTANT ETHIC’ 2.0: THE NEW WAYS RELIGION IS DRIVING ECONOMIC OUTPERFORMANCE

A few snippets:

Organized religion in particular may be losing its appeal, particularly among the young. According to recent surveys, religious affiliation in the United States appears to be declining somewhat and secularism is on the rise; over the past 40 years the percentage professing no religious affiliation has grown over 140 percent while the percentage of the deeply faithful dropped 15%. The share of the population who claim “no religion” has risen to 15% overall and 22% of those between 18 and 29, notes a 2009 study by researchers at Trinity College. If these trends continue, the non-affiliated could represent a larger part of our population than the largest denomination, the Catholic Church.

No surprises here. The USA is trending in the same direction as its forerunners, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

Many in the pundit class identify religion as something of a regressive tendency, embraced by the less enlightened, the less skilled, intelligent and educated. Yet some scholars, such as Charles Murray, point out that religious affiliation is weakening most not among the middle and upper classes but among the poorer and less educated who traditionally looked to churches for succor and moral instruction. Secularism may have not hurt the uber-rich or the academic overclass so far, but it appears to have helped expand our lumpenproleteriat.

Some might be surprised to learn that religious affiliation grows with education levels. A new University of Nebraska study finds that with each additional year of education, the odds of attending religious services increased by 15%. The educated, the study found, may not be eschewing religion, as social science has long maintained, even if their spiritual views tend to be less narrow, and less overtly tied to politics, than among the less schooled.

I guess this will be a surprise to the ‘Brights’ like Dawkins and his other ‘Religion for Dummies’ mates. No surprise in my circles however.

Religious people also tend to live longer and suffer less disabilities with old age, as author Murray notes. Researchers at Harvard, looking at dozens of countries over the past 40 years, demonstrated that religion reinforces the patterns of personal virtue, social trust and willingness to defer gratification long associated with business success.

But perhaps the most important difference over time may be the impact of religion on family formation, with weighty fiscal implications. In virtually every part of the world, religious people tend to have more children than those who are unaffiliated. In Europe, this often means Islamic families as opposed to increasingly post-Christian natives. Decline in religious affiliation — not just Christian but also Buddhist and Confucian — seems to correlate with the perilously low birthrates in both Europe and many East Asian countries.

How does the New Atheism fit into this?  From the above observations, I think we can understand at least two facets of the current New Atheist secularist shrill.

First is possible underpopulation of New Atheists as the new world order shakes out. A reasonable fear for the New Atheists secularists is that their highly evolved selves are not passing on their genes in competitive numbers.   Thus instead of genes, they attempt to force their memes onto the rest of us by preaching, and by making converts and disciples through the university, media, and book publishing arenas.

The second is overpopulation of religious people. As populations continue to grow toward the theoretical 9 billion asymptote, religious people are not going away. What better way to halt religious growth than to decrease religious breeding using the guise of Earth overpopulation. FWIW, I’m partly with the secularists on the second point given the Biblical mandate to look after the planet; I just don’t share their panic of overpopulation or their global warming hysteria, I mean climate change hysteria, scare tactics.   Given the intellectual bankruptcy of the New Atheists, there may not be too many Brights left in years to come anyway.

Interestingly, Africa is not mentioned at all in the article.

Totally great quote from Professor Dan Wallace

Here.

Dan Wallace quote

Dan Wallace is a New Testament scholar and has debated ex-Evangelical scholar and best selling author Bart Ehrman.

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: