Bethinking

Considering the Challenges of Apologetics

Download MP3

David Cook addresses the challenges that changes in cuture and thinking present to us as we do apologetics.

Section I

1. THE NEED FOR APOLOGETICS

2. MODEL - PAUL - ACTS 17, COLOSSIANS, GALATIANS

3. CHALLENGES - dynamic, fluid, require critical analysis

4. TRUTH TESTING

  1. coherence
  2. correspondence with reality
  3. pragmatic

5. CHALLENGES TO 19th & 20th CENTURY CHRISTIANITY

  1. Humanism - man is the measure of all things
  2. Existentialism - being and will
  3. Marxism - economic explanation
  4. Secularism - nothing beyond here and now

6. RESPONSES TO CHALLENGES

  1. Fallenness of humanity
  2. Holism of reason, experience and will
  3. Reductionism to nothing buttery
  4. Beyond the here and now

QUESTIONS

  1. Why so little interest in apologetics?
  2. How did the Church fail to meet the challenges?
  3. What can we learn from the failure?
  4. How can we motivate and enable apologists?

Section II

20th & 21st CENTURY CHALLENGES

1. RELATIVISM

  1. what there is - ontology
  2. how we know - epistemology
  3. moral relativism - situational
  4. relativity of truth - subjectivism

2. RESPONSES

  1. status of the view - contradiction
  2. counter evidence
  3. practical responses

3. POST-MODERNITY

  1. no big picture
  2. subjectivity
  3. tolerance

4. RESPONSES

  1. is there really post-modernism?
  2. stories and history
  3. objectivity
  4. limits of tolerance

5. LIBERALISM

  1. collapse of Marxism
  2. freedom from / to and limits
  3. rights - cf. freedoms and responsibilities
  4. subjective / relative

6. RESPONSES

  1. metamorphoses of Marxism
  2. successes and limits of Capitalism
  3. limits of freedom and autonomy
  4. basis of rights
  5. responsibilities and duties
  6. objectivity and universality

7. MYSTICISM

  1. Eastern Religions
  2. Spiritualities
  3. Otherness
  4. Limits of speech and knowledge

8. RESPONSES

  1. truth testing
  2. true and false spiritualities
  3. speaking of what we don’t know and understand
  4. apprehension not comprehension

QUESTIONS

  1. WHAT ARE THE MAIN CHALLENGES TO CHRISTIANITY TODAY?
  2. HOW DO WE TO RESPOND TO THEM?
  3. HOW SHOULD WE RESPOND?

Section III IMPACT OF THE CHALLENGES

1. ON THE CHURCH

  1. loss of confidence
  2. anti intellectualism
  3. emotion
  4. inclusivism
  5. retreat from preaching and apologetics
  6. search for new and old spiritualities
  7. confusion in social involvement
  8. political confusion
  9. social withdrawal
  10. conformed to the world

2. RESPONSES - NEED FOR CONFIDENCE

  1. AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE
  2. BALANCED DOCTRINE OF HUMANITY - DUST AND GLORY
  3. FULL GOSPEL OF CHRIST
  4. SPIRIT IN PERSPECTIVE
  5. DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
  6. SALT AND LIGHT
Challenge

Considering the Challenges of Apologetics

David Cook