Click Here to Read my Blog | My ChristianPost Blog Entries

Sign up for Apologetics Newsletter

Anthony's Faith Statement.

Discussion Forum

Anthony in the media

Video Ministry
(And on Youtube...)

A brief Introduction:

While studying to be a pastor in college I abandoned my faith. In fact, I abandoned everything I thought I believed and rebuilt.

To my own surprise at the time, I found that Christianity was much stronger than I had thought. As I rebuilt my belief system, I realized that there needed to be people out there responding to the questions people have. I had them myself. So, while not continuing on to be a pastor, I have focused on educating people about what Christianity is all about and responding to the various charges and accusations made against it.

There are some obvious challenges to being successful in that capacity, but a big part of it consists not in arguing with atheists and skeptics, but rather in providing Christians with accurate information in the first place to prevent them from leaving the faith in the first place.

Questioning is a very normal and natural part of growing up, and I am convinced that it is not wrong to ask questions of God at any age. God doesn't strike people down. On the other hand, if people are going to reject Christianity, it is my aim to at least make sure they reject the real Christianity and not a false view of it. Also, much heartache can be avoided by educating Christians properly to begin with. My experience has helped me... but it was unnecessary.

Paul said that some plant, some water, and others reap the increase. My job is to go out into the land and move rocks- or break them if necessary- till the land, and struggle through knee deep fertilizer... all in the effort to allow those who come later to plant, water, and reap the harvest. I look forward to the prospects of either serving you as someone who needs to haul rocks out of the field, or as someone who can look at the field, detect problems, and help farmers more effectively plant, water, and reap.

Transforming the Culture by Transforming People: Apologetics

Posted by Anthony on November 10, 2008

I have been harping on this for some time, now, but a friend exposed me to Barna’s latest polling about the election which measured how Christians voted.

In brief:

The Republican challenger generally won over a majority of people whose beliefs reflected a conservative Christian faith. For instance, he won 57% of those who strongly believed that the Bible is totally accurate in all the principles it teaches; 61% of adults who strongly affirmed a personal responsibility to share their religious faith with others; 63% of those who believe that Satan is a living, influential force; 64% who contend that a person cannot earn their salvation, that it is a gift from God; 60% of the adults who say that Jesus Christ never sinned; and 54% of the people who have an orthodox, biblical perception of who God is.

Adults who claimed to be “absolutely committed to Christianity” voted overwhelmingly for Sen. McCain (59% to 40%). However, those who were only “moderately committed to Christianity” were overwhelmingly persuaded to back Sen. Obama (64% to 35%). People who called themselves Christians but said they were not committed to the faith also sided heavily with Sen. Obama (79% to 21%).

There is clearly a trend away from McCain depending on one’s positions regarding Christ and the conviction associated those convictions. On the other hand, what did the ’second largest voting block after Christians’ vote? Atheists and agnostics…

Three-fourths of atheists and agnostics (76%) gave their vote to Sen. Obama, while only 23% backed Sen. McCain. That is a step up from the level of support Democrats have previously received from skeptics. In 2004, 64% of atheists and agnostics voted for Democratic challenger John Kerry

There is again a clear correlation between beliefs and the one receiving the vote. I don’t perceive this as particularly insightful: it isn’t brain surgery to deduce that one’s beliefs impact where one puts their vote. However, my proposed solution doesn’t seem as obvious to the Christian church as it does to me: if you want to transform the culture, raise up more educated, informed, passionate Christians.

I made this argument in a well received WorldNetDaily article several months back. For example, I said:

Putting our attention on our apologetics and evangelism efforts [rather than legislation] puts it in a place that treats the root issue: the heart condition of each human soul. A person who sees that God’s plan for the human body was not arbitrary and capricious will not need the force of law to check his sexual ambitions. A person who sees that life is in the hands of the Life Giver does not need legislation to tell her to keep her baby. Moreover, is it not the case that far from simply prohibiting certain behaviors, we are concerned about the individual souls engaged in them? Of course.

I say that this essay was well received- and it was. However, as near as I can tell, the Christian church hasn’t taken any steps to act on these principles. Churches are not adding staff apologists, for example. There isn’t a big move to implement apologetic programs. In fact, if anything the anti-intellectualism of a ‘we have faith in Jesus, we don’t need anything else’ attitude seems to be popping up on my radar even more.

This is not to demean legislative efforts. As I said in the WND article, I think they have their place. To me, however, the mere fact that we need legislative efforts means we’ve already lost. Legislative efforts (in a world without judicial activists) imply having more people voting in favor of your position than the other- Barna’s polling shows the effects of such correlations- so a perfectly plausible approach (to me) would be to focus on changing people’s minds. Change their minds on the big metaphysical issues, and this will trickle down as they grasp the practical implications.

So, providing Obama doesn’t do anything glaringly outrageous, I will likely not speak much more about the election on this blog. That he will sign the “Freedom of Choice Act” is something that is obvious and requires no additional comment. Such an act would be par for the course. Assuming he doesn’t do anything more radical than I already expect him to do, I will return this blog to primarily taking my own advice: persuading people to Christianity.