Discussion 1 – The three most important reasons for including apologetics as a part of my ministry are…

1. A post-modern scientific method trained person needs the logic

I began my career as a teacher. I have taught at all levels of education from elementary to college. I have spent much time talking to students and have found that no matter the sophistication level of their education they had one thing in common: a brain structured around the cause and effect structure of the scientific method of learning. People today are taught to question everything with a post-modern mindset that says that if there is not an empirical proof of something then it doesn’t exist and often the existence is questioned because truth if any kind is considered personal.

Ironically this mindset of questioning grew out of the great minds of the Renaissance, most of who were practicing Christians, using their belief in God as the foundation that there was structure in the universe and because there is structure we could look and examine it. The Renaissance thinkers created the process that began to explain the physical laws of the universe because they felt that the spiritual laws were settled in Christianity.

Today this has lead people to not have ‘Truth’ in their lives because everything is open to question. By using logic and ‘if-then-else’ processes we are able to meet people at the mental training level they have received in school.

2. We need to equip people to provide answers to challenges presented to them

Because of the mindset talked about above, Christians need to be able to provide well reasoned presentations about how God influences life. We must have counter-arguments ready for “it works for you but not for me”. I was listening to a news story this week that said we are loosing our children to the world in middle school now specifically because the kids have no way to respond to the constant attacks they are under.

For most of my life I was taught that ‘getting saved’ was an emotional decision. I now believe that this is a false statement. I believe that it is a miracle to be saved. Yes, emotion plays a part as does logic. But if Salvation is left to them what do we have when logic and emotion fail? A parallel is love for a spouse – there will be times when we really don’t like them (perhaps even hate them) but God shows that love is so much more than the emotion – it is the commitment. Jesus did not go to the Cross for and emotion he went because he was committed to His Father’s will.

3. To reply and prevent false-teachings

Today we live in a multi-cultural world just as the early Apostles did. America and the world has become a place where religion is often the thought of the moment. We have parishioners who hang on every word that Oprah speaks and follow her as they would a prophet. The Apostles faced the same thing with the multi-culturalism of the Romans and Greeks . The Romans never met a religion they didn’t like. As was shown in the Bible Pilate executed Jesus as a political move not for any disagreement religiously.

False teaching come to our parishioners from the major world religions and from within Christianity itself. I have heard many Christians quote “Buddha says…”. Politically we are told that all religions are equal and are peaceful. Within Christianity we have false teaching coming in the forms of ‘prosperity’ and cults such as David Koresh. Finally there are false teaching from pseudo-Christian religions such as Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witnesses that try to speak and act as Christianity.