Tag Archives: Apologetics

Podcasts

Two great podcasts from J. Warner Wallace of Please Convince Me

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J Warner Wallace and Please Convince Me
J Warner Wallace and Please Convince Me

Please Convince Me is my absolute favorite podcast. The host, J. Warner Wallace, is a cold case homicide detective. He has a real job! And he talks about Christian things like you might expect a detective to talk – everything is logic, case-making and evidence. Very cool.

Why Being Respected Is Better Than Being Liked

The MP3 file is here.

The most interesting segment starts at 8 minutes and ends at 21 minutes in.

Topics

  • humans have an innate desire to be liked and to fit in with their peers
  • there are times when our desire to do what is right will conflict with the desire to be liked and to fit in
  • 1 Peter talks about how Christian living in the world will often have these conflicts
  • Christians have a different standard and that creates conflicts with the surrounding culture
  • at times like this, it is important for us to be RESPECTED rather than LIKED
  • being a Christian conflicts with the goal of being popular
  • two ways for us to proceed: 1) agree with others, 2) be who you are and let others agree with you
  • James also says that there is a conflict between being friends with the world and friends with God
  • you cannot have both friendship with the world and friendship with God
  • even non-believers understand that there is a conflict between morality and the hedonistic culture\
  • courage is needed in order to resist the pressure to embrace the beliefs of others in order to be liked
  • courage is needed in order to point others to the truth so that they change to match what is true
  • politicians often change their positions in order to appeal to the culture
  • politicians seem to shy away from trying to argue through why others should accept their positions
  • we should seek to influence others by explaining why others should accept what we believe
  • we should have the courage to make the case for what we believe
  • even if people do not accept our beliefs, they will still respect the way we can make the case
  • they will respect our courage in being willing to prepare a case and make the case in public
  • they will respect that we have not formed our beliefs based on feelings
  • we need to get better at knowing more stuff and communicating that knowledge better
  • wanting to be popular is too easy
  • we should take the harder path and desire to be respected instead of liked

Other topics from listeners:

  • the interpretation of “thou shalt not kill” in the Bible
  • can a person still be a Christian if they are not doing works, like tithing or serving in the church?
  • theistic evolution and the presumption of naturalism in science

And here’s another good podcast – it’s on the same topic as the PCM post I linked before.

Stop Teaching Young Christians About Their Faith

The MP3 is here.

Topics:

  • our nation is becoming more and more secular
  • secularism makes it harder for us to defend our faith and values in public and influence the culture
  • why is secularism happening? it’s because young people are walking away from the faith
  • young Christians are leaving the faith in high school and college
  • this is where the real battleground is – and that’s where apologists need to focus
  • we need to be focused especially on junior high school and high school, and to a lesser degree college
  • it’s good that we have lots scholars working physics, philosophy and biology
  • but what we really need is ordinary Christians to get serious about apologetics and work on young people
  • some people believe that there is no great youth exodus problem: are they right to doubt the statistics
  • it’s undeniable that young people are inarticulate about their faith – that much is certain
  • what young people in church actually believ is not Christianity, but moralistic therapeutic deism
  • young people: life is about feeling good, being liked, and nice people of all religions are saved
  • young people think that there is so little substance to Christianity that it can’t even be discussed
  • the focus among young people today is not on true beliefs, but on being kinds to others
  • even in churches, there is higher respect for helping others than on having knowledge and evidence
  • instead of focusing on the worldview that grounds good works, the focus is on good works
  • young people have learned to minimize discussions about specifics of theology
  • teachers and college professors are hostile to public expressions of evangelical Christianity
  • television is also hostile and much less Christian than it used to be
  • even if young people come back to the church, they come back for the wrong reasons
  • the adults come back for tradition and comfort but they don’t really believe Christianity is true
  • they want to pick and choose what they believe based on what they like, like going to a buffet
  • they return to church when they have kids so that their kids will absorb values – but not truth
  • that’s what we have sitting in the pews: people who think Christianity is false, but “useful”
  • and that’s why so many christians are so liberal on social values (abortion, same-sex marriage)
  • they don’t really accept the Bible as authoritative, they pick and choose what they like and don’t like
  • if Christianity is taught as “useful” then they will dump it when they find something more “useful”
  • people who leave the church are exposed to Christianity, but it doesn’t stick
  • young people lose their faith before college, and then when they escape the nest, they act it out
  • the disconnecting from the faith occurs in high school, but it only becomes public after they leave home
  • young people are becoming more focused on redefining “the good life” with consumption and materialism
  • the typical experience of young adults involves alcohol use, drug use, and recreational sex
  • young people actually want more than niceness – they want real answers to serious questions
  • young people have doubts and questions, but no one in the church or home is equipped to answer them
  • adults have to be involved in the education of young people
  • parents who are engaged in teaching their children Christian truths see much better retention rates
  • we need to stop teaching people (one-way preaching) and start training them (two-way interactive)
  • when you give a young person a definite goal – a fight with a date certain – then they will be engaged
  • when people know that they will fail unless they can perform, then they will be more engaged in learning
  • church needs to be in the business of scheduling battles, and then training young people for the battles
  • there is no sense of urgency, risk and purpose in young people, so the teaching is not effective

I’m absolutely sure you will love these podcasts. Give them a listen! I’m pretty sure that he will put me in jail if you don’t listen to them. So, um… please do!

Commentary

How apologetics relies on a sound understanding of the gospel

1 Comment

Eric posted an article linking theology and apologetics at the Ratio Christi Ohio State University blog.

Excerpt:

Many of us in the apologetic endeavor have lamented over the fact that there is still a lot of apathy among churches about the need to defend the faith in the public square.  I am convinced that one of the problems is that we are preaching a very weak Gospel. And if anything, it is a pragmatic Gospel. In other words, the Gospel is more about what Jesus can do for me. This can lead to a very self-centered Christian life rather than a mission centered Christian life. Don’t get me wrong: I know churches send their people on short- term mission trips. This is done to try to get people to  break Christians out of their narcissistic attitudes.

[…]To make Jesus as Lord of one’s life is a lifelong process. It is a call to daily surrender. It certainly means we are under NEW MANAGEMENT. We are called to yield our time, bodies, goals and gifts to His Lordship. Is it easy? No, not at all. I struggle with this quite a bit. But we do have a Helper to give us the grace to do it (hint: study the ministry of the Holy Spirit). So in other words, we say ‘”Lord Jesus, have your way with me. I am relying on the work of the Holy Spirit to yield myself to you on a daily basis.”

There is no doubt that in a world that wants instant results, self- sacrifice is tough sell.  As I said, part of the problem is that churches preach a Gospel that promises that Jesus will fix all our problems. And when things get tough, many people bail out. A long-term commitment to our Lord which involves self-denial (Luke 9:23) is hard to swallow for those that have been told The American Dream is the way of happiness.

I remember when I was growing up in youth group, my interest in apologetics was always looked at with suspicion by the other Christians and the church leaders. They all assumed nasty motives for me, like “pride” and having doubts about my faith. I think that churches need to get their act together and realize that apologetics is simply what Christians do when they 1) understand the gospel, and the importance of self-sacrifice and self-denial, and 2) understand that in today’s world, people have intellectual objections to faith that require careful reasoning and objective evidence. Apologetics is not second-class Christianity, it’s first-class Christianity. A person who does apologetics has clearly understood the what it means to take up his cross and follow Jesus.

Commentary

J. Warner Wallace’s surprising advice to stop apostasy among young Christians

6 Comments

J. Warner Wallace has posted his recommended plan to halt the exodus of young Christians from Christianity during college. It’s all up at Please Convince Me.

Excerpt:

In my last post, I summarized the studies and publications that describe the flight of young people from the Church. A compelling cumulative circumstantial case can be made to support the fact that young college aged Christians are walking away from Christianity in record numbers. What can we do about it? What can be done? Whenever people ask me this question, I always say the same thing. STOP TEACHING YOUNG CHRISTIANS. Just stop it. Whatever Christendom is doing in its effort to teach it’s young, the effort appears to largely be a failure. In fact, Ken Ham (in his book, Already Gone:Why Your Kids Will Quit Church and What You Can Do To Stop It) found that young Christians who faithfully attended Bible classes were actually more likely to question the authority of Scripture, more likely to defend the legality of abortion, same-sex marriage, and premarital sex, and more likely to leave the church! What’s going on here? I think I know. It’s time to stop teaching our young people; it’s time to start training them.

There’s a difference between teaching and training. Training is teaching in preparation for a battle. Boxers train for upcoming fights. In fact, boxers are sometimes known to get fat and lazy until the next fight is scheduled. Once the date has been signed, fighters begin to train in earnest. Why? Because they know that they are going to eventually get in the ring and face an aggressive opponent. We train when we know we are about to encounter a battle. Imagine for a moment that you are enrolled in an algebra class. If the teacher assured you that you would never, ever be required to take a test, and that you would pass the class regardless of your level of understanding, how hard do you think you would study? How deeply do you think you would come to understand the material? How committed do you think you would be to the material?

[…]Years ago, as a youth pastor, I started taking annual trips to Salt Lake City and Berkeley. Why? I was scheduling theological and philosophical battles to help prepare my young Christians for the larger looming battle they would someday face on their own. If you want to teach your young people theology, there is no better method than to put them in direct contact with people who believe in a very sophisticated heresy. Mormons use the same terminology as Christians but deny the basic tenants of our faith. In order to dialogue with Mormons effectively, we first have to understand what we believe. When we train young people in preparation for an evangelism trip to Salt Lake City, we give meaning and purpose to the content of our teaching. In a similar way, our evangelistic trips to Berkeley (where we contact notable atheist speakers and atheist groups on campus) require us to prepare ourselves to answer the myriad of atheistic objections we will inevitably encounter. Once again, the content of our teaching in preparation for this trip takes on purpose and meaning when we know the level of our understanding will eventually be tested.

Read the whole thing. Mr. Wallace has experience working with young people, and lecturing on apologetics here at home and abroad. He understands young people because he has had to deal with them. Even if you don’t agree with them, it’s an interesting view. Would the church really turn away from being inward-focused and rooted in blind faith and emotional singing, and re-invent their approach so that it takes the other side seriously?

By the way, this is something I like to use in my mentoring of young people and in courting women as well. If I am trying to choose someone to work on, my first questions are always about what they do for a living, what they’ve studied, who in their lives is a non-Christian. I am always looking for people who have some opposition to Christianity in their lives, because it’s those people who have a motivation to learn. I am always surprised how naive pastors and worship leaders and youth pastors are about the opposition to Christianity in the world. They seem to be in their own little happy bubbles, never coming out to deal with people who disagree with them. I think the problem is that they often think that Christianity is not about truth but about feelings, and so no work needs to be done to defend any truth claims.

I was having a conversation last night with a friend who is curious about Christianity and he told me about his encounter with a “Christian” girl from the Deep South who told him about her eating disorder and how God saved her from it. He asked her if she knew who William Lane Craig was and she said no. He asked her if she knew how to defend the existence of God or the resurrection, and she said no. She had been taught but not trained. Her education was in dancing and the performing arts, as well. All of the the fields that are of interest to Christians who want to make truth claims – physics, philosophy, biochemistry, history, etc. – were foreign to her. So you are left with the odd situation of people being raised in a Christian culture who have “experiences” with God making them happy. Their faith is all about them and nothing to do with anything in the real world out there.

I think that this woman is a very good example of what the church produces, by focusing on teaching, preaching, singing and never, ever taking seriously doubts and questions. What the church approach produces is faith as a personal preference – faith for the benefit of my feelings. But Christianity isn’t a subjective experience, it’s a set of objective claims that its adherents believe and have reasons and evidence to support that belief. And with that knowledge of those truth claims, we then proceed to have experiences in the world informed by a relationship with God. It is very confusing to jump right into having experiences, many of which are just subjective experiences, and having nothing to say to an honest questioner who wants to see the evidence. But I would suspect that most pastors and church leaders are like the eating-disorder girl, and they just aren’t trained.