(Photo: Lee Strobel)
To help Christians better explain and defend their faith, Strobel and ministry associate Mark Mittelberg have launched The Institute at Cherry Hills, an apologetics and evangelism ministry at Cherry Hills Community Church in Highlands Ranch, Colo. The institute is aimed at innovating new approaches to defending and sharing the faith.
Strobel and Mittelberg will kick off a series of national simulcasts to be hosted at churches starting in March with the event "The Questions Christians Hope No One Will Ask," based on Mittelberg's book by the same title.
While an atheist, Strobel began to write a book disproving the existence of Jesus and ended up realizing he could not. Instead, he ended up writing his best-selling book, The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus. He has authored more than 20 books, including a series of other "Case for…" works, such as The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity.
The Christian Post asked Strobel this week to discuss the current state of Christian apologetics via an email interview.
CP: What do you attribute the surge of interest in apologetics to right now?
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Strobel: Christianity in general and the Bible in particular are under widespread and vociferous attack by militant atheists, radical scholars, critical authors, skeptical professors, misguided documentaries, and a proliferation of online spiritual confusion. Books by the so-called New Atheists have received a lot of media attention, which has emboldened cynics to become even more outspoken. The Internet has helped atheists and agnostics coalesce as never before.
Skeptics are becoming more determined to proselytize. In public high schools and colleges, the Secular Student Alliance, an umbrella for atheist organizations, has doubled in size in two years, with 250 chapters in the U.S. Not long ago, the American Humanist Association launched the largest national multi-media campaign ever by an atheist organization, preaching that the Bible advocates "fear, intolerance, hate, and ignorance."
And we're seeing the country drift toward skepticism. Among 18-to-29-year-olds, nearly one in four now claims no religion, which has doubled since 1990. Recent books have said that young people are dropping out of church at five or six times the historic rate, many because of intellectual doubts.
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.
A recent magazine featured this headline: "Apologetics Makes a Comeback Among Youth." As David Kinnaman wrote in his book You Lost Me, which is based on interviews with thousands of young people: "This generation wants and needs truth, not spiritual soft-serve. This is a generation hungry for substantive answers to life's biggest questions."
I agree! We were prodded to produce Student Editions of my books The Case for Christ, The Case for Faith, The Case for a Creator and The Case for the Real Jesus because so many young people were asking for them. There's a genuine desire among young people to understand the rationality behind Christian beliefs – often because their peers are reading atheist writings and raising questions about whether Christianity really does make sense.
Fortunately, I believe we're on the cusp of a golden era of apologetics. We're seeing such scholars as William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, William Dembski, Stephen Meyer, and others making fresh, cutting-edge arguments for Christianity. Academia is taking notice. Terrific websites, like apologetics315.com, are making apologetic material more widely available. Younger leaders like Sean McDowell are taking apologetics to a new generation.
Apologetics conferences are springing up all around the nation. We did one for high school students in Colorado a few years ago and we maxed out our facility with 2,000 enthusiastic kids. We had a waiting list to get in! The National Apologetics Conference has drawn up to 4,300 participants.
So I'm very optimistic about the future of Christian apologetics. Apologists are effectively refuting the recycled objections of the atheists while at the same time presenting a clear and compelling affirmative case for the truth of Christianity.
CP: How is apologetics changing right now?
Strobel: First, we're seeing more and more formal debates between Christians and skeptics on topics like the existence of God, the resurrection of Jesus, science and faith, Islam versus Christianity, and so forth. The foremost Christian debater, William Lane Craig, said that this "allows both sides to be heard on a level playing field and for the audience to make up their own minds about where they think the truth lies."
These debates have shown than Christians have an unfair advantage in the marketplace of ideas: we have truth on our side. When Craig debated Christopher Hitchens, one of the leading evangelists for atheism until his recent death, an atheist website evaluated the results by saying, "Frankly, Craig spanked Hitchens like a foolish child." Again, that was the atheist commentator's opinion!
In fact, the biggest problem for Craig has been that atheists are now afraid to debate him! The president of the British Humanist Association recently backed out of a debate, and top atheist Richard Dawkins has repeatedly refused to debate him, even though one of his fellow British atheists said this is "apt to be interpreted as cowardice on your part."
But there can be downsides to debates. Sometimes, they can push people into opposite corners, cement them into their own positions, and create more animosity than bridge-building. Still, there's definitely a place for them and I believe we'll see even more in the future.
Second, for the average Christian, the watchword in apologetics these days isn't "debate," but "dialogue." The reality is that very few Christians are qualified and skilled to do formal debates. I'm not, but I'm grateful for those who are – people like Bill Craig, Gary Habermas, J. P. Moreland, Michael Licona, Nabeel Qureshi, Dinesh D'Souza, John Lennox, and others.
For the rest of us, the trend is toward dialogue, discussion, and conversations. I call it "relational apologetics." This isn't your grandfather's apologetics, where we line up people against the wall and machine gun them with a barrage of facts. It's where we invite spiritually curious friends and neighbors into a safe environment where we can engage with them, listen, empathize, validate them as people, and help them get answers to the "spiritual sticking points" that are holding up their journey toward Christ.
Third, apologetics is becoming increasingly church-based. Many churches abandoned apologetics years ago, which is why we saw the birth of so many parachurch organizations. I thank God for these, but I do see a positive trend of apologetics coming back under the umbrella of the local church.
For instance, my ministry associate Mark Mittelberg and I have launched The Institute at Cherry Hills, an apologetics and evangelism ministry at Cherry Hills Community Church in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, to innovate new approaches to defending and sharing the faith. We're helping other churches by offering a series of national simulcasts that they can show live to their congregations, such as our upcoming Saturday morning, March 10 event on "The Questions Christians Hope No One Will Ask," based on Mittelberg's excellent book by that title. Churches and small groups can get more information at www.incastevents.com/questions.
Churches around the country are starting seminars and classes on apologetics. For example, Bill Craig teaches a Reasonable Faith class at his church in Georgia, and Jeremiah Johnson has started a Christian Thinker's Society at his church in Kansas, where he brings in scholars and interviews them. More and more churches are preaching Sunday series on tough questions about the faith. I think this is an extremely positive development. Apologetics has an important place in the local church as we seek to influence our communities for Christ in an increasingly skeptical culture.
Kinnaman has found, unfortunately, that one of the top six reasons that young people are leaving the church is because the church feels unfriendly to those who doubt. In other words, it's not a safe place to find answers to their challenging questions. We need to reverse that by creating churches where spiritually confused people are welcomed and where we patiently and lovingly help them in the process of finding answers to the issues that are hindering their faith.
Finally, we're seeing new formats for apologetics. For instance, there are creative websites like www.oneminuteapologist.com, which features pithy answers to common objections. Apologists are experimenting with Twitter, YouTube, and other social media. We're seeing forays into fiction, like my novel The Ambition, a legal thriller in which I present the realistic faith journeys of several people, including a cynical newspaper reporter. We're also seeing the production of creative documentaries. All of these innovations are important as we look for new avenues for apologists to define and defend the faith. Continue »