Evangelism & Apologetics

Hayward is a Christian anthropologist who lectures at Biola University. This is a very helpful presentation explaining how anthropologists view religion and how a Christian anthropologist adds to this. Hayward has some excellent things to say which are relevant to evangelism and ministry across cultures. His wide-sweeping lecture also concerns the relationship between the science [...]

In his book Separate No More Norman Peart points out that in early Colonial society (the 1600s) English law, which then governed Virginia, required any slave, African or white, to be freed upon conversion to Christianity on the rationale that “infidels could be enslaved as a means of communicating the gospel to them.” This disgraceful [...]

I have enjoyed listening, via podcasts, to Frame’s stimulating tri-perspectival approach to epistemology and apologetics. Here is my attempt to summarise what Frame has to say on these critical issues: John Frame Apologetics and the Doctrine of the Knowledge of God

In a Letter to a Christian Nation New Atheist Sam Harris comments: If we ever do transcend our religious bewilderment, we will look back upon this period in human history with horror and amazement. How could it have been possible for people to believe such things in the twenty-first century? How could it be that [...]

In 2008 Bill Maher produced a comedy documentary called Religulous, a play on the word “ridiculous.” He ridicules religious faith, especially his own distorted understanding of what constitutes Christian faith. Maher’s critique lacks integrity. For example, as Chris Sinkinson points out, Maher makes utterly bogus claims about the Egyptian sky god Horus presenting him as [...]

Nicole Starling reflected on the way she and her husband found themselves accommodating their behaviour to that of the next-door neighbours they had round for a meal. Her sane approach to 1 Corinthians 9 provides a healthy counter-balance to the typical over-reading and over-application of this passage: Maybe the array of terms that Paul uses [...]

One might say that Irenaeus employed a “below the belt” tactic in exposing the folly of Gnosticism. The Gnostics taught, among other things, that it was from the tears of Achamoth that “the seas and fountains and rivers, and every liquid substance” flowed. Against this, Irenaeus pointed out that because tears are saline it doesnt [...]

At the recent Lausanne Congress Os Guiness critiqued the following words often dubiously attributed to Francis of Assisi: Preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use words. Guiness rightly observed that this is like saying we should feed the hungry and, if necessary, use food. His point is that it is not enough [...]

In a recent debate with Peter Barnes, accessible on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAgI1aMhZzE) Mustafa Arja claims that the Muslim belief in Jesus is free from rational contradictions but that the Christian view of Jesus as being God is riddled with contradictions. Arja argues that it is much more logical to simply believe, as the Qur’an would have [...]

Peter Bolt rightly finds it humorous how in evangelism we long for a “point of contact”, when it is as plain as day that the gospel already deals with “common ground”: People are human beings; there is a creator. People are sinners; there is a saviour. People are guilty; there is forgiveness. People are dying; [...]