The apostle exhorts Christians to "be ready always to give an answer to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you" (1 Pet. 3:15). The word translated "answer" here is the Greek apologia, "defense," and from it comes the name of the theological discipline concerned with defending Christian truth-claims: apologetics. […]
You finally have that opportunity to explain the gospel to that co-worker who has been asking a few questions of late. She tells you that one of the things that keeps her from taking religion seriously is that each one claims absolute, final truth. Obviously, they can't all be right, since they contradict each other […]
Most textbooks on the philosophy of religion have a section on the existence of God. (For an example, see Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology, 3rd ed., edited by Louis P. Pojman, Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1998.) Usually, some kind of introductory statement is made about how thinkers have debated whether God's existence can be demonstrated […]
How should Christians make arguments about moral and political issues in the public square? How can believers persuade unbelievers about matters of abortion, homosexual marriage, cloning, or war? Christians in democratic societies, along with their fellow citizens, enjoy remarkable opportunities to participate in the political process, but many find this a frustrating experience. Freedom to […]
Intelligent design begins with a seemingly innocuous question: Can objects, even if nothing is known about how they arose, exhibit features that reliably signal the action of an intelligent cause? To see what's at stake, consider Mount Rushmore. The evidence for Mount Rushmore's design is direct-eyewitnesses saw the sculptor Gutzon Borglum spend the better part […]
How can I know that God exists? Cwirla-We know things in a variety of ways. We know things empirically, the way we know a scientific fact. For instance, we know that water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen because we can analyze water and literally take it apart. Since God can't be measured […]
MR: Our objective in this conversation is to consider apologetics, which is essentially a defense of the faith as a courtroom attorney would present it. Scripture exhorts us to be ready to give an answer for the hope that we have to those who ask. Traditionally there have been three basic positions within mainstream Evangelicalism-especially […]
This installment of 1 Peter within the Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (BECNT) series is, on the whole, simply outstanding. Biblical commentator and associate professor of New Testament at Westmont College, Karen Jobes exhibits considerable skill and learning in this valuable and well-written resource for pastors, seminarians, and learned laypersons. High standards were […]
Eangelical Christians lack no zeal in their love for Scripture, but they often lack a strategy for reading it with understanding. Believers frequently ignore the broad outlines of narrative and plot, focusing instead on "what this text means to me." Interpretation is a suspect, and liberalizing, tendency that silences the Bible's "literal" meaning. Tremper Longman's […]
In this brilliant and enlightening book, James M. Ault, Jr., initiates his readers into the world of a fundamentalist church. Ault, an independent Harvard-trained sociologist living in Northampton, Massachusetts, spent three years immersed as a participant-observant with the Shawmut River Baptist Church (he changed the name to protect identities) in Massachusetts in an effort to […]
What is an evangelical? The label has been subjected to intense scrutiny over the last few decades-with the word becoming more and more elastic. Those who have argued for a tight, theological definition (primarily those evangelicals with Reformed sympathies) have found themselves in the minority. Oxford theologian Alister McGrath, although sympathetic with these concerns, admits […]
What does a writer do after her husband of forty years collapses of a massive coronary event while she is mixing the salad at the dinner table? She writes. If that writer is Joan Didion, she writes an intelligent, searching memoir of her first year of life without. Without her husband and co-writer, John Gregory […]
