Category Archives: Apologetics

Apologetics, Debate, Historical Jesus Debate, Islam, Promotionals

An Open Debate Challenge from David Wood and James White

David Wood says:

Arabic Christian Perspective has just started a site for future debates. The first article is a challenge directed to Shabir Ally, Jamal Badawi, and Zakir Naik. The challenge just went up, and ACP will be sending the link to our Muslim friends. Here’s the text:

An Open Debate Challenge to Shabir Ally, Jamal Badawi, and Zakir Naik

Arabic Christian Perspective has hosted a number of debates between Christians and Muslims. However, Muslims have often criticized ACP for not arranging debates with Islam’s top debaters: Shabir Ally, Jamal Badawi, and Zakir Naik. Though we at ACP have attempted to set up debates with some of Islam’s strongest proponents, we’ve found that they are extremely reluctant to debate topics that will place Islam under scrutiny. Hence, it is now time to make our challenge public.

Arabic Christian Perspective hereby challenges Shabir Ally, Jamal Badawi, and Zakir Naik to a series of ten debates to take place next September against Christian debaters James White, David Wood, and Sam Shamoun. The topics (subject to modification pending input from our Muslim guests) will include:

(1) “Did Jesus Die by Crucifixion?”

(2) “Was Muhammad a Prophet of God?”

(3) “Has the Qur’an Been Perfectly Preserved?”

(4) “Did Christians Corrupt the Gospel?”

(5) “Can We Trust Paul?”

(6) “Does Science Show that Islam Is True?”

(7) “Does the Bible Teach that Jesus Is God?”

(8) “Does the Bible Tell Us about Muhammad?”

(9) “Is Islam a Religion of Peace?”

(10) “Is Christianity a Religion of Peace?”

We issue this challenge nearly a year in advance, so that there is plenty of time to schedule and coordinate the events. We invite Muslims to encourage Shabir Ally, Jamal Badawi, and Zakir Naik to join us for a series that will shed light on the major issues of both faiths, and help the world to see where the evidence points. Since James White, David Wood, and Sam Shamoun have already agreed to the series, we await the response of Islam’s top debaters.

James White has added some commentary here.

Apologetics, Promotionals

A Case for Apologetics

One of my friends, Brian, has posted a good article on the case for apologetics. I encourage you all to read it and let me know what you think. Here is a noteworthy portion of the article:

Three Basic Functions of Apologetics

First, apologetics is used in a proactive way to prove the truth of Christianity and to persuade unbelievers to believe. This may involve arguments from history, philosophy, science, culture, logic, and testimony, among others. The purpose is simply to build a reasonable case to persuade the unbeliever. Removing intellectual stumbling blocks is a key element. “Apologetic argument may not create belief, but it creates the atmosphere in which belief can come to life.”3

Second, apologetics is used defensively when criticism or attack comes against the Gospel. Inevitably, Christianity will be attacked. However, apologetics defends the faith by providing a rational and reasonable basis for belief and contending for the truth. Defensive apologetics can guard the Church from false doctrine by refuting error and exposing false teaching. The Church has the opportunity to gain a more robust faith when the Gospel is strongly defended against opposition. Martin Luther noted that when the Gospel is attacked, it has an opportunity to gain strength:

If the devil were wise enough and would stand by in silence and let the gospel be preached, he would suffer less harm. For when there is no battle for the gospel it rusts and it finds no cause and no occasion to show its vigor and power. Therefore, nothing better can befall the gospel than that the world should fight it with force and cunning.4

Third, apologetics strengthens the faith of believers. Just as there are attacks upon the Gospel itself, there are times when the faith of individual believers is tested and tried. This may come from voices of doubt, worldly influences, personal crises, or any number of other sources. However, apologetics can play a key role in anchoring the faith of a Christian when faced with times of doubt. This anchoring also allows for the Christian to be a bolder witness to the world, as he is prepared for all kinds of common objections he may face from unbelievers.

Apologetics, Eschatology, History, New Testament Theology, Reforming, Systematic Theology, Theology

How could God command Genocide in the Old Testament?

Justin Taylor of Between Two Worlds has written a powerful and authoritative article for New Attitudes on the the justice of God and the genocide of the Canaanites in the Old Testament. I could not agree more with his seven points. In particular, I think everyone needs to grasp this point, number seven:

7. The destruction of the Canaanites is a picture of the final judgment.

At the end of the age, Christ will come to judge the living and the dead (Acts 10:42; 2 Tim. 4:1; 1 Pet. 4:5), expelling them from the land (the whole earth). That judgment will be just, and it will be complete. That is the day “the Lord Jesus [will be] revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might (2 Thess. 1:8–9). Amazingly enough, Paul asks the Corinthians something they seem to have forgotten, if they once knew it: “Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? (1 Cor. 6:2).

How does this work? What will it look like? I really don’t know. But God’s Word tells us that God’s people will be part of God’s judgment against God’s enemies. In that way, God’s command of the Israelites to carry out his moral judgment against the Canaanites becomes a foreshadowing—a preview, if you will—of the final judgment.

Read in this light, the terrible destruction recorded on the pages of Joshua in God’s Holy Word become not a “problem to solve,” but a wake-up call to all of us—to remain “pure and undefiled before God” (James 1:27), seeking him and his ways, and to faithfully share the gospel with our unbelieving neighbors and the unreached nations. Like Job, we must ultimately refrain from calling God’s goodness and justice into question, putting a hand over our mouth (Job 40:4) and marveling instead at the richness and the mystery of God’s great inscrutable mercy (Eph. 2:4). At the end of the day we will join Moses and the Lamb in singing this song of praise:

“Great and amazing are your deeds,
O Lord God the Almighty!
Just and true are your ways,
O King of the nations!
Who will not fear, O Lord,
and glorify your name?
For you alone are holy.
All nations will come
and worship you,
for your righteous acts have been revealed.” (Rev. 15:3-4)

Apologetics, Lectures, Mp3s, Promotionals, Reforming, Seminary, Systematic Theology, Theology

Worldwide Classroom at Covenant Theological Seminary

Justin Taylor reports:

A new website for Covenant’s Worldwide Classroom:

Learn from wherever you are in the world. The free courseware available on this site includes every class you need to help you in life, ministry, discipling and equipping others, and taking your faith deeper and mind to greater degrees of Biblical understanding. Our hope and prayer is that no matter where God has stationed you in his Kingdom or how he has gifted you to serve, you will find that these resources encourage and strengthen your ministry. You may download, use, and share this courseware at no charge for non-commercial purposes.

The seminary itself also has a new website, and also “a new Living Christ360 website, which is the media ministry of the Seminary with daily broadcasts and devotionals from Bryan Chapell.”

Apologetics, Atheism, Current Events, False Religion, Funny, Humanism, Interviews, Politics, Videos

Bobby Maddex on Bill Maher

From Bobby Maddex:

What a fun game, Bill. Let me give it a try:

So there are all these chemicals just kind of floating around in space. Somehow, the chemicals begin reacting against each other; they form our universe and then our planet; and then create this miraculous bowl of soup. Then get this: Out of the (non-living) soup comes a (living) cell that then turns into a fish. The fish grows some legs and eventually becomes an opossum. That opossum turns itself into a whole mess of other animals, including monkeys. These monkeys learn to stop flinging poop at each other long enough to begin walking upright, at which point they become human. The humans then have a bunch of babies who have other babies until a baby named Charles is born who argues that he knows how the world came to have babies in the first place. Some of the humans decide that they like Charles’s story better than the other stories circulating throughout society (mostly because the other stories require them to behave like humans instead of monkeys), so they dismiss the other stories. Eventually, it becomes fashionable among some humans to ridicule stories that aren’t Charles’s, whereupon a human named Bill makes a movie about how “religulous” non-Charles stories are.

Wow, that was fun and easy.

[HT: James M. Kushiner]

Apologetics, Atheism, Debate, Evangelism, Evolution, False Religion, Mp3s, Promotionals, Reforming, Theology, Trinity

Free Apologetic MP3 Downloads from Doug Wilson

1 Comment

If you’ve never heard Doug Wilson debate, now is your chance and best of all… it’s FREE! Pastor Wilson is a very important figure in the ongoing debate with the “New Atheism” that has so loudly proclaimed itself as the truth in recent years. Thankfully, Canon Press is now offering several mp3s and a new book where Pastor Wilson has debated these atheists. See the information below for what they are offering. But first, I would like to draw your attention to the free mp3 they are offering on why Doug Wilson would even attempt to debate an atheist. You can download that mp3 from my web site here or listen to it from the player in this post. Enjoy!

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Here is the info about the free mp3s:

Apologetics, the Why and the How

“But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you…” (1 Peter 3:15, ESV)

For most Christians, Peter’s words present a daunting challenge. Unless you’re a pastor, or an evangelist, or someone else similarly gifted and accustomed to preaching the Gospel, giving a defense of your faith tends to be a messy enterprise. Answers rarely come easy. Objections, on the other hand, come like a mighty river, and they’re often difficult to refute and turn aside. And often, Christian apologetics seems to be a futile exercise—we can’t argue anyone into the truth, and sometimes it looks like our efforts only make unbelievers more stubborn in their resistance to the Gospel.

Over the past year-and-a-half, Pastor Wilson has written several books attacking the “New Atheism” movement, but debating atheists is not a newfound hobby for him. Wilson has debated atheists Eddie Tabash and Dan Barker—each of them twice, no less—in the past fifteen years. And in this CRF Lecture, Why Debate an Atheist, he explains what good can come of such debates and why he has taken the time to participate in them. For those who question debates’ worth, or who would simply like to know what they can learn from them, this lecture provides answers.

To celebrate the release of Is Christianity Good for the World?, we’re offering this talk as a free MP3 download. Please visit the item page to download the talk, and please share it with your friends: it is a wonderful introduction to and defense of Christian apologetics, particularly since we face the ongoing attacks of New Atheism.

And speaking of Is Christianity Good for the World?, we have been very pleased with the reception it has received thus far. Not only has it sold well on Amazon and other online retailers, but it is also being featured on front tables in Barnes & Noble stores across the country. (Please feel free to point your friends or your blog links to ischristianitygoodfortheworld.com: not only can they see a good-sized picture of the book, but they can choose where they would like to purchase a copy.)