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Polemics

Douglas Groothuis’ Christian Apologetics Manifesto

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If there’s one thing I like about being a Christian, it’s being surrounded by individuals who are intelligent and serious about taking Jesus’ character and priorities seriously in their own decision making. One of the things that Jesus values is when we, his followers, take the time to study certain disciplines so that we can defend his identity, character and significance when they are called into question.

Now with that in mind, take a look at Doug Groothuis’ apologetics manifesto. (H/T Mary)

Introduction:

This is a manifesto to ignite the holy fire of apologetic passion and action. As did Jeremiah, we should have “fire in our bones” to communicate and commend Christian truth today (Jeremiah 20:9). This manifesto is not a sustained argument or a detailed development of themes. Rather, as a manifesto, it proclaims a short series of interrelated propositions crying out for both immediate and protracted reflection, prayer, and action. These challenges issue from convictions formed through my nearly thirty years of apologetic teaching, preaching, debating, writing, and Christian witness.

Because of (1) the waning influence of the Christian worldview in public and private life in America today, (2) the pandemic of anti-intellectualism in the contemporary church, and (3) the very command of God himself to declare, explain, and defend divine truth, I strongly advise that the following statements be wrestled with and responded to by all followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It has 19 points, and here’s a sample: (emphasis mine)

2. Any intellectual discipline, church practice, or teaching that minimizes or denigrates the importance of apologetics is unbiblical and must be repented of (Matthew 4:17; Acts 17:16-34; 2 Corinthians 10:3-5; 1 Peter 3:15; Jude 3). The degradation of apologetics can only lead to the further vitiation of the life of the church. “My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6).

3. The fundamental issue for apologetics is not how many apologists one has read, or what apologetic method one embraces (although that must be worked out carefully). Rather, the essential issue is whether or not one has a passion for God’s transforming truth—reasonably pursued and courageously communicated—and a passion for the lost because of the love of God resident and active in one’s life (Romans 9:1-3; 10:1). Like the Apostle Paul at Athens, we should both be “greatly disturbed” because of the rampant unbelief in our day. We, like that great apologist, should also be intellectually equipped and spiritually prepared to enter the marketplace of ideas for the cause of Christ (Acts 17:16-34).

4. The apologist must be convinced of the truth, rationality, pertinence, and knowability of the Christian worldview, which is derived from Holy Scripture as it is logically systematized and rightly harmonized with general revelation (truth knowable outside of Scripture). This is an intellectual goal for a lifetime as the disciple of Christ seeks to love God with one’s mind and take more and more thoughts captive to obey Christ (Matthew 22:37-40; 2 Corinthians 10:3-5). The apologist should never rest content with an ad hoc or piecemeal worldview, as is so typical of those afflicted with postmodernist pastiche sensibilities.

6. Any theology, apologetics, ethics, evangelism or church practice that minimizes or denigrates the concept of objective, absolute, universal and knowable truth is both irrational and unbiblical. As such it must be rejected and repented of. Thus, the postmodernist view of truth as socially constructed, contingent, and relative must be rejected by Christian apologists. Anything that might be true in postmodernism can be found elsewhere in better philosophical systems. What is false in postmodernism (the vast majority of it) is fatal to Christian witness. Without a strong, biblical view of truth apologetics is impossible.

12. Since all Christians are called and commanded to have a reason for the hope within them (1 Peter 3:15), Christian teachers, pastors, mentors and educators of all kinds are remiss if they avoid, denigrate, or minimize the importance of apologetics to biblical living and Christian witness. The commonly heard canard, “No one comes to Christ through arguments” is patently false. Many people, such as the apologists C.S. Lewis and John Warwick Montgomery, were drawn to the gospel through apologetic arguments. By God’s grace, I have been able to help unbelievers see the truth and rationality of Christianity through apologetic arguments. Well-respected Christian philosophers and apologists, William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland concur. Not all Christian teachers are equally gifted in apologetics, and some will emphasize this discipline more than others; but none should minimize the necessity of apologetics or preach around it when the biblical text requires otherwise.

13. Those outside of the leadership positions mentioned in (12) should humbly but boldly request that apologetics be made a constitutive part of these institutions if this is not already the case and pray to that end. We must stimulate each other to love and good deed in his area (Hebrews 10:24).

14. In light of (12) and (13), Christian colleges, seminaries, and churches should incorporate apologetics into their institutional/educational life, mission, and vision. Specifically, every Christian high school, college, university, and seminary should require at least one class in apologetics for every degree in their curriculum. Sadly, this is not now the case for most institutions of Christian learning. Moreover, every discipline should be taught from a Christian worldview, since all truth is God’s truth. This has significant apologetic value in and of itself. Duane Litfin, President of Wheaton College, has written very insightfully on this practice with respect to the Christian college.

Christian education within the church, especially the junior high level and above, should become more intellectually serious and thus more apologetically oriented. Classes should be taught by thoughtful teachers who engage students to outthink the world for Christ. These settings should become more like prayerful classrooms and less like chattering religious coffee and donut centers. Along these lines, churches should invest significantly in church library that is well stocked with books on apologetics and other topics.

I really recommend you read the whole thing. It seems as though we often take our relationships with God in Christ as being a one-way street. But relationships are never a one-way street. There is give and take, and looking out for the other person. Getting to know the other person, and taking their needs and values into account when we act. We just have to realize that that there is another person there and we are obligated to know that person and to act, as much as we can, in his best interests. It’s not enough to say the words, we have to perform the actions and have the experiences. Some of those experiences will not be fun and will not make people like us, but that sadness and suffering is all part of the Christian life, and we might as well realize that God’s ambition for us is NOT that we have happy feelings. Jesus did not have happy feelings, but he was obedient. He held up his end of that vertical  relationship.

I do find that Doug’s list is very humbling to me. Not only because of the things I don’t do, but because of the bad things he says I shouldn’t do, but which I do anyway. At times, I do become upset when dealing with certain people (village atheists). That’s when I seem to be aggressive and overpowering to the casual onlooker. Although I think there are times when harshness is needed, I probably go too far. However, at other times when the person is genuinely seeking, I know I am capable of being supportive and fair. Yesterday, for example, I was quite vicious with some village atheists on Facebook. Today, I was very fair and patient with a different atheist, because she wasn’t attacking me personally. I guess we could all be better, and I could certainly be better myself. But this manifesto gives us a set of rules of engagement and I think we can all agree to improve ourselves somehow.

By the way, Doug has written a book on Christian Apologetics, and it is excellent.

Mentoring

William Lane Craig discusses faith and reason with university students

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This is an interview of Dr. William Lane Craig before college students at the University of Central Florida. (95 minutes)

You can get an MP3 of the lecture here. (33 MB)

Questions from the interviewer: (40 minutes)

  • What started you on his journey of studying faith and reason?
  • How would you define the word “faith”?
  • Are faith and reason compatible? How are they related?
  • How can reasonable faith help us to avoid the two extremes of superstition and nihilism?
  • Who makes the best arguments against the Christian faith?
  • Why are angry atheists like Dawkins and Hitchens more well known than better-informed academic atheists?
  • Does the Bible require Christians to give the unbeliever reasons for their faith?
  • How does faith spur Christians to think carefully about the big questions in life?
  • Should the American church prod churchgoers to develop their minds so they can engage the secular culture?
  • When talking about Christianity intellectually, is there a risk of neglecting the experience of being a Christian?
  • Which Christian apologist has shaped your thinking the most?
  • Which Christian philosopher has shaped your thinking the most?
  • Does the confidence that comes from apologetics undermine humility and reverence?
  • If you had to sketch out a 5 minute case for Christianity, what would you present?
  • Can non-Christians use their reason to arrive at truth?
  • Are there cases where atheists must affirm irrational things in order to remain atheists?
  • Can the universe have existed eternal, so that there is no need to explain who created it?
  • Even if you persuade someone that Christianity is true, does that mean they will live it out?

There is also a long period of questions, many of them hostile, from the audience of students (55 minutes).

  • Haven’t you said nasty things about some atheists? Aren’t you a meany?
  • What do you make of the presuppositional approach to apologetics?
  • Can a person stop being a Christian because of the chances that happen to them as they age?
  • Why did God wait so long after humans appeared to reveal himself to people through Jesus?
  • Can a person be saved by faith without have any intellectual assent to truth?
  • How do you find time for regular things like marriage when you have to study and speak so much?
  • How would you respond to Zeitgeist and parallels to Christianity in Greek/Roman mythology?
  • Do Christians have to assume that the Bible is inerrant and inspired in order to evangelize?
  • If the universe has a beginning, then why doesn’t God have a beginning?
  • Can you name some philosophical resources on abstract objects, Platonism and nominalism?
  • How can you know that Christianity more right than other religions?
  • Should we respond to the problem of evil by saying that our moral notions are different from God’s?
  • Define the A and B theories of time. Explain how they relate to the kalam cosmological argument.
  • How can Christians claim that their view is true in the face of so many world religions?
  • What is the role of emotions in Christian belief and thought?
  • Can evolution be reconciled with Christian beliefs and the Bible?
  • When witnessing person-to-person, should you balance apologetics with personal testimony?
  • Is there a good analogy for the trinity that can help people to understand it? [Note: HE HAS ONE!]
  • How can Christians reconcile God’s omniscience, God’s sovereignty and human free will?

This is a nice introductory lecture that is sure to get Christians to become interested in apologetics. As you watch or listen to it, imagine what the world would be like if every Christian could answer the questions of skeptical college students and professors like Dr. Craig. What would non-Christians think about Christianity if every Christian had studied these issues like Dr. Craig? Why aren’t we making an effort to study these things so that we can answer these questions?

It is really fun to see him fielding the questions from the skeptical university students. My favorite question was from the physics student who sounds really foreign, (at 1:19:00), then you realize that he is a Christian. I do think that Dr. Craig went a little far in accommodating evolution, but I put that down to the venue, and not wanting to get into a peripheral issue. I’m also surprised that no one asked him why God allows humans to suffer and commit acts of evil.

If you are looking for a good basic book on apologetics, then I would choose “Is God Just a Human Invention?” by Sean McDowell and Jonathan Morrow. And you can even be part of a reading group that Brian Auten of Apologetics 315 just announced, that I will be participating in. We will all be reading the book together, chapter by chapter, and lots of people will be available to answer your questions.

Who is William Lane Craig?

About William Lane Craig:

William Lane Craig is Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California.

Dr. Craig pursued his undergraduate studies at Wheaton College (B.A. 1971) and graduate studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (M.A. 1974; M.A. 1975), the University of Birmingham (England) (Ph.D. 1977), and the University of Munich (Germany) (D.Theol. 1984). From 1980-86 he taught Philosophy of Religion at Trinity… In 1987 they moved to Brussels, Belgium, where Dr. Craig pursued research at the University of Louvain until assuming his position at Talbot in 1994.

He has authored or edited over thirty books, including The Kalam Cosmological Argument; Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus; Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom; Theism, Atheism and Big Bang Cosmology; and God, Time and Eternity, as well as over a hundred articles in professional journals of philosophy and theology, including The Journal of Philosophy, New Testament Studies, Journal for the Study of the New Testament, American Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophical Studies, Philosophy, and British Journal for Philosophy of Science.

Craig’s CV is here.

Craig’s list of publications is here.

William Lane Craig is, without a doubt, the top living defender of Christianity. He has debated all of the most famous atheists, including Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, etc. as well as academic atheists like Quentin Smith, Peter Millican, etc. if you search this blog, you’ll find many debates posted here, sometimes even with snarky summaries.

News

“Problem families” cost British taxpayers £9 billion per year

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From the UK Telegraph. (H/T Dina)

Excerpt:

The majority of Britain’s “problem families”, some of whom are blamed for last summer’s riots, are fatherless, official research has found.

About 72,000 of the most troubled families, 60 per cent of those being targeted by the Government, are headed by a single mother. The rate is about triple the national average.

An official review into the causes of last summer’s riots is expected to highlight the lack of “male role models” for many of the youths arrested in the wake of the widespread disturbances.

The riot panel, set up to investigate the problem, is thought to have become frustrated that few details of the family backgrounds of problem children have previously been recorded, despite it being such an important influence on their behaviour.

The issue has now quickly risen up the Prime Minister’s agenda and Downing Street aides believe that family breakdown is one of the most urgent problems facing Britain.

Last night, Eric Pickles, the Communities and Local Government Secretary, said: “These troubled families are in total breakdown.

“The absence of a positive father figure is a huge problem and often the fathers who are present have severe drug and alcohol addictions and are not working.

“Clearly we want to work towards a situation where the fathers in these families provide stability, which means getting them back to work, so they can bring in money and be a positive role model to their children.”

It is understood that another “problem” identified among the troubled families is the large number of children. About 20 per cent of the 120,000 families have at least five children, which can lead to a lack of parental attention.

That’s about $15 billion U.S. dollars per year. The cost of family breakdown in the United States is $112 billion per year, and rising as the illegitimacy rate rises.

Reconstructing marriage

We need to stop the destruction of marriage to stop these runaway costs.

One of the ways to do that is to encourage men to marry. But the problem is that men without fathers in the home will not be as likely to marry, since they have never seen the way that a man operates in a marriage – as a protector, provider and moral/spiritual leader. Men need to see an example of mature, married love that is different from lust – an example of steady self-sacrificial service. The more we subsidize the destruction of marriage, the fewer younger men will understand what marriage really requires of men at the experiential level.

But there is another problem. Where does this money for social programs come from? It comes from businesses and taxpayers. In particular, a lot of it comes from working men and their employers. When business taxes and income taxes go up to pay for this problem, it is much harder for men to bear the financial costs of marriage.

Young women, take note: if you do not do your part to fight against divorce and unwed motherhood, then you cannot complain that men are not marrying. To get men to marry, society has to have in place a framework of laws, policies and economic incentives that make marriage natural and inviting to men. Taxing employers and incomes is not the right way to encourage men to marry. If we want men to be providers and to take responsibility for families, then we need to encourage them and make it easier for them to do those things.

Christians ought to care

Christians have an extra reason to be opposed to divorce and unwed motherhood – Christianity is “appropriated” by children most when there is a father in the home who is engaged as moral and spiritual leader. That means when the mother lets the father lead on moral and spiritual issues.

Excerpt:

In 1994 the Swiss carried out an extra survey that the researchers for our masters in Europe (I write from England) were happy to record. The question was asked to determine whether a person’s religion carried through to the next generation, and if so, why, or if not, why not. The result is dynamite. There is one critical factor. It is overwhelming, and it is this: It is the religious practice of the father of the family that, above all, determines the future attendance at or absence from church of the children.

If both father and mother attend regularly, 33 percent of their children will end up as regular churchgoers, and 41 percent will end up attending irregularly. Only a quarter of their children will end up not practicing at all. If the father is irregular and mother regular, only 3 percent of the children will subsequently become regulars themselves, while a further 59 percent will become irregulars. Thirty-eight percent will be lost.

If the father is non-practicing and mother regular, only 2 percent of children will become regular worshippers, and 37 percent will attend irregularly. Over 60 percent of their children will be lost completely to the church.

Let us look at the figures the other way round. What happens if the father is regular but the mother irregular or non-practicing? Extraordinarily, the percentage of children becoming regular goesupfrom 33 percent to 38 percent with the irregular mother and to 44 percent with the non-practicing, as if loyalty to father’s commitment grows in proportion to mother’s laxity, indifference, or hostility.

Women who are serious about serving God with their marriages should therefore get very comfortable with the idea with having a man in the home who will lead on moral and spiritual issues. I recommend that women prepare themselves by studying things like Christian apologetics, politics, economics, etc. so that they are able to test men on their knowledge of these things. There is simply no other way to know if a man can lead on moral and spiritual issues. The woman must study these things, and the woman must detect and select men who can lead. She must have enough of a developed, integrated Christian worldview in order to test his worldview. This is especially important if her own father does not have a well-developed worldview, since she will have to do more of the testing herself.

Christian women need to become comfortable with men who are solid on moral issues, especially when they can be persuasive using reason and evidence when articulating their views. Christian women need to become comfortable with men who are solid on exclusive truth claims, especially when they can be persuasive using reason and evidence when articulating their views. And the best way to get comfortable with men being bold and assertive on moral questions and truth questions is for women to study these things themselves.

Just as an example, I know a Christian woman who a year ago who was not using the standard arguments for God’s existence from physics. She sent me some pictures of her bookshelves and they are literally filled with apologetics books. She sent me a snippet of a conversation she is in with an atheist scientist and she is pounding him with peer-reviewed articles from science journals showing how the progress of science supports theism. Women need to be like that so that they are capable of recognizing and preferring men who will lead.

What church leaders don’t seem to get is that a man’s ability to lead on moral and spiritual issues is not strong enough if it is merely based on his “”faith” opinions. Moral and spiritual leadership is stronger when it’s grounded by studying the data and becoming familiar with the evidence pro and con. There is no shortcut to being a moral and spiritual leader through Bible reading, singing and praying. More is required. And more is required of women who expect to be able to be comfortable with such a man. Women need to study these things themselves, like my friend, so that they are able to recognize and prefer men who have those required skills.

To encourage marriage, we have to be practical. We have to think about dollars and cents. We have to think about incentives. We have to put ourselves in the place of men and ask ourselves: what does it take to make you commit? What are your needs? What are your fears? It’s not going to work to just order men around and spout slogans like “man up”. It’s a problem and it needs a rigorous engineering/economics approach to solve. We need leaders who think about problems as engineers and economists, not as charismatic speakers.