Cold Case Christianity: The Challenges Facing Young Christians

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

The Challenges Facing Young Christians

Posted: 05 Jul 2017 01:13 AM PDT

 Every other week, from May to August, I have the honor of speaking with students at Summit Worldview Academy. I typically teach on the nature of truth, the reliability of the gospels, and the evidence for God’s existence.

Do you allow the kids to see how your evidence holds up while being cross examined by an informed bible critic in a live debate?  Or do you know what all professional marketing firms know (i.e., the less you respond to direct real-time criticism, the more you can increase sales)?

 The students are eager to learn and have many good questions during the breaks, during our lunch and dinner time together, and at an evening session specifically set aside for questions.  The students usually share a number of stories related to the ways they were already being challenged as young Christians. Many have experienced a season of doubt and are grateful for the training they receive at Summit. Dr. Jeff Myers, the president of Summit Ministries, has assembled an incredible collection of thinkers, teachers and trainers to help prepare students to face challenges and “analyze the various ideas that are currently competing for their hearts and minds.” These young people are eager to prepare themselves for these encounters. Christian students are surrounded by competing worldviews from a very young age. As I speak with the young men and women at Summit, I think about the many ways our kids are challenged from childhood through their college years:

 The bible does not require Christians to get so involved in the scholarly stuff that they cross swords with skeptics at every level.  You are allegedly doing all you need to do when you quote the bible to "answer" a skeptic.  But since, by your relentless promotion and marketing of your books, you clearly don't believe the bible alone to be "sufficient" for faith and practice, never mind.

They Are Challenged by the Media

Young Christians are challenged very early, beginning with their first exposure to television, movies and the internet. Much of the media is aligned against Christian values, and Americans spend about one-third of their free time, (more than the next 10 most popular leisure activities combined) watching some form of television. The messages communicated by television programming are often in direct opposition to the teaching of Christianity, and students are deeply impacted by what they absorb from the media. Two out of every three shows on television, for example, include sexual content (a dramatic increase over the past 15 years). 50% of the couples involved in sexual behavior in television programming are depicted in casual relationships (10% of these couples had just met, and 9% of television programs depict sexual behavior between teens). In a set of Kaiser Family Foundation studies, 76% of teens said that one reason young people have sex is because TV shows and movies “make it seem normal”. College students who were exposed to the many examples of sexual behavior on television were more likely to believe their peers engaged in those same activities.

Maybe I'm just a spiritually dead atheist, but sounds to me like the sins of television counsel that you start telling your readership to stop watching tv.  Oh wait, if they didn't have a tv, they couldn't watch your dvds, which means sales of your stuff would decrease.  Never mind.  

They Are Challenged by Elementary and High School Programming

Make no mistake about it, when Christian values are attacked in the public education system, the basis for those beliefs (Christianity) is also attacked. Here in California, for example, comprehensive sexual health and HIV / AIDS instruction requires schools to teach students how to have “safe sex”. “Abstinence only” education is not permitted in California public schools. In addition, California schools cannot inform parents if their children leave campus to receive certain confidential medical services, including abortions. Classic Christian values related to sexuality (and marriage) are under attack in the public school system.

So the best effort the Christian parent can put forward to battle this ungodly secular school system, is to take their kids out of it and home-school them.  If they don't, this shows the limit to which their faith is genuine.  If mom and dad cannot make the mortgage payment if one of them quits work to home-school the kids, then they should prioritize preserving their Christian morality above the pleasures of this temporary world that the truly faithful put no stock in anyway, Hebrews 13:14.  What's more important?  Keeping kids free from satanic influences, or making mortgage payments?

They Are Challenged by University Professors

Once students get to college, they are likely to encounter professors who are even more aggressive in their opposition to Christianity and Christian values. According to the Institute for Jewish and Community research, a survey of 1,200 college faculty members revealed 1 in 4 professors (25%) is an atheist or agnostic (compared with 4-5% in the general population). In addition, only 6% of university professors say the Bible is “the actual word of God”. Instead, 51% say the Bible is “an ancient book of fables, legends, history & moral precepts”. More than half of professors have “unfavorable” feelings toward Evangelical Christians. Charles Francis Potter (author of Humanism: A New Religion) said it best when he proclaimed, “Education is thus a most powerful ally of Humanism, and every American public school is a school of Humanism.  What can the theistic Sunday-schools, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five day program of humanistic teaching?”

Nothing, which is why you need to start getting a bit more "real" with your "apologetics" and tell Christian parents they'd be battling Satan far more effectively if they started by taking their own kids out of Satan's school and home-school them, even if it means they'll have less money and won't be keeping up with the Jonses anymore.

They Are Challenged by University Students

The attitude and influence of hostile professors is often accepted by University students happy to reject the moral precepts of the Christian worldview. Atheist student groups are multiplying dramatically in universities across America. The Secular Student Alliance, for example, grew from 80 student clubs in 2007 to over 250 clubs in 2011. These students groups are eager to identify themselves with names that challenge the intellectual capacity of Christian students. Atheist groups often seek titles such as “Free Thinker Society,” the “Coalition of Reason,” or the “Center for Inquiry”. The implication, of course, is that Christians are ignorant and constrained by their antiquated worldview.

They are.  Only a fool would marry a woman he never previously slept with or lived with.  God does not honor his word in the practical world, and many people often experience disaster when they forge again on some mission that they know they did not adequately prepare for.  If you never sleep with or live with your intended spouse before you marry, there is nothing from God to indicate he will help fix any natural incompatibilities you might discover after the honeymoon.  Smart people prepare adequately for the mission to be accomplished.  They don't just graduate high school and then apply for a job as a rocket scientist, foolishly thinking whatever they lack on the job, God will magically provide.  God allows people to fail too many times for lack of adequate preparation, to justify thinking he'll magically fix any living or sexual incompatibility you discover after your honeymoon.  God's ultimate ideal for marriage is pointless in light of your belief that he allows human freewill to fuck up his intentions.  He won't be magically causing a sexually incompatible Christian boyfriend/girlfriend to desire each other that way if they discover their incompatibility on their honeymoon, so God cannot complain if they fix the anticipated problem of God doing nothing for them, by making sure they are compatible sexually and as living partners BEFORE they get married.

The Church will never begin to address the growing problem of young people leaving the faith if it doesn’t first recognize the challenges facing Christian students. The young Christians at Summit have already begun to feel the impact of the cultural forces aligning against the Christian worldview. That’s why they are so encouraged to discover and experience the robust intellectual tradition of Christian thought as represented by the professors, speakers and trainers over two intensive weeks of worldview training.

Can poverty-stricken young people attend too?  Or do you limit these gospel-essentials to just the rich Christians?  If your stuff is so essential to faith today, shouldn't you be conducting the Summit in a way that allows all born again people to attend at minimal cost?  Why aren't you satisfied that simply putting up videos on youtube will suffice?  If god is not involved in an atheist learning biology in college and then becoming a biologist, why do think God has the slightest thing to do with some Christian learning apologetics arguments and then becoming an apologist?  God's "presence" in this endeavor appears to be little more than a religiously necessary afterthought appended to the whole process.  You are doing nothing more than making money off of peoples' natural tendency to adhere to false religion.  Except that it must be said you do it with a bit more respectability than do the prosperity gospel preachers on TBN.

These young people are forever changed by their experience at Summit. They are equipped to meet the challenges they already face, even as they prepare for an even greater challenge in the university setting.

Not if you have anything to say about it.  You've routinely declined multiple invitations to answer critiques of your book in a real live debate session.  Some would argue this refusal of yours to be cross-examined has more to do with your knowledge of marketing psychology and less to do with your confidence in your apologetics arguments.

All of us, as youth pastors and ministers, can learn something from programs like Summit.

And it can all be learned and profited from in ways that don't require one to rent cars and motels, and incur travel expenses.  Except that you don't believe the bible, alone, to be sufficient for faith and practice, apparently.  Nobody will have the proper "forensic faith" unless they purchase your materials.

Cold Case Christianity: Why the Differences in the Gospel Accounts Make Them MORE Reliable

This is my reply to to Wallace on his post

Why the Differences in the Gospel Accounts Make Them MORE Reliable (Video)  

Posted: 04 Jul 2017 01:35 AM PDT

(I answer his actual video in point by point fashion after rebutting his introductory comments, see below)

J. Warner Wallace discusses the nature of reliable eyewitness accounts and demonstrates why we ought to expect eyewitness details to vary.

Given that the gospels clearly fail the "ancient documents rule", they are not admissible in court, and therefore, Wallace is begging for defeat by pretending the gospels should be evaluated by rules of evidence adopted in American courts. 

And given that the gospels are more likely anonymous than authored by eyewitnesses, they show themselves to be eyewitness accounts, using American rules of evidence as found in American courts to evaluate the gospels is even more asinine.

 This doesn’t make them unreliable; in fact, the variations are a demonstration of their truthful, reliable nature.

Which is rather stupid because under that logic, every time two eyewitnesses provide variant accounts, the variation can only mean they are being truthful (!?) 

All believers must learn the rules of evidence and train themselves and develop a more reasonable, evidential faith, as described in the book, Forensic Faith: A Homicide Detective Makes the Case for a More Reasonable, Evidential Christian Faith.

So apparently the person who wrote those words does not believe the bible to be, alone, sufficient to govern faith and practice.  Wallace clearly thinks you are missing something vital from your Christian faith and practice, if you don't associate what the bible says, with what he says.

Let's move on to answering Wallace's specific points in his video:

First, Wallace has soft music playing in the background, apparently his motives are no different than the churches who play similar music while the tithing plate is passed around.  Churches wouldn't do this if such music didn't have a psychologically soothing effect increasing the odds the reader will find the speech acceptable.  Hollywood knows emotions are stirred by such music, at least for most people, which is most serious romantic movie scenes are accompanied by soft music.  Apparently, Wallace doesn't think the Holy Spirit moving through his voice is sufficient, Wallace apparently feels the need to employ the same psychological tricks secular people and organizations employ in their own godless advertising.  Billions would not be spent on marketing like this, if soothing music had no appreciable effect on most of the intended listeners.

Second, Wallace says he never flinched for a minute on the differences he saw in the 4 canonical resurrection accounts (video at 1:30 ff).  His reason?  He knew, as a detective in modern-day America, that eyewitnesses often agree on the truth while providing variant testimony.  Of course, this is foolish, because the variations in the resurrection testimony of the canonical gospels are there for reasons other than mere typical tendency of eyewitnesses to differ.  Wallace's characterizing the canonical gospels as roughly on the order of under-oath affidavits taken shortly after the event in question happened, is foolish for myriad reasons:

---a) most Christian scholars do not believe the gospels were written by resurrection eyewitnesses (for example, most scholars accept that Matthew borrowed most of his text from earlier Mark who allegedly wrote down what Peter preached), in which case we have an eyewitness apostle Matthew choosing to prioritize the way a non-eyewitness characterized an alleged eyewitness's testimony, over Matthew's own memories, which is highly suspect to say the least.  Worse, this scholarly view of Matthew contradicts Wallace's desire that eyewitnesses be separated early so they don't collude.  Matthew did worse than collude, nobody can tell where his text reflects his own memories, and where it reflects only his copying off of Mark;
---b) Patristic accounts differ on whether Mark was written before or after Peter's death, raising the possibility that Peter died before he could supervise the finished form of Mark's record, hurting the apologetics argument that the gospels were written when the eyewitnesses were still alive and could be questioned;
---c) Clement of Alexandria said Peter knew about, but neither discouraged nor encouraged, the written version of his preaching produced by Mark, suggesting Peter thought it best that a written version not be made, or that the written version did not accurately record his preaching;
---d) we don't know enough about Matthew and his credibility to make a reasonably certain judgment call about his ability or willingness to tell only the truth; his presenting Jesus in the most Jewish of lights suggests Matthew's selection process was guided more by desire to spin Jesus a certain way, than to mere convey historical facts;
---e) the Muratorian Fragment asserts that apostle John wanted the other apostles to contribute to "his" gospel by fasting for three days and then reporting whatever  had been divinely "revealed" to them, showing us just how far departed this alleged gospel author was from the modern Christian belief that he only intended convey historical facts.  The MF says that in response, Apostle Andrew convinced John to write the account himself, and allow it to be "reviewed" or corrected by the other apostles before publication...if this be true, then it will prove impossible for the reader to figure out which parts of John's gospel, if any, represent errors by John that were corrected before publication, hence a possible way to impeach John's credibility has been lost.
---f) Luke and Mark infamously remark that the resurrected Jesus had appeared to the disciples sometimes looking so different that they didn't recognize him, or that their eyes were supernaturally prevented from recognizing him, and this sounds more like fictional drama to heighten the tension of the story, than it sounds like a god with the least bit of concern to lay a basis for future apologist to argue eyewitness authorship of the gospels.

Third, Wallace is absurd here because he doesn't have the first clue how much or how little the gospel traditions were changed and shaped before the time of our earliest textual evidence (church fathers).

Fourth, Clement of Alexandria asserted that after John recognized the Synoptic authors did a sufficient job providing the "history", he chose to write a "spiritual" gospel, and the fact that in John, Jesus makes his deity known far more clearly than in the Synoptics, suggests that the Synoptic authors either didn't know about, or didn't approve of, this critically important material, suggesting John either invented it as fiction, or made use of false traditions about Jesus.  Exactly how much of the Christ-sayings in John are what Jesus historically said, and how many Christ-sayings were invented by the author and to what extend, is a never-ending debate in Christian scholarship...yet apologists think atheists are "compelling" to step into this in-house Christian debate and try to figure out which of God's spiritually alive people discerned the truth correctly.

Fifth, Wallace says its always good to separate murder-eyewitnesses when they are at the scene (video at 2:10 ff).  That was rather disingenuous, since, if the basic history of the gospel is true, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John had plenty of time to share their experiences before they allegedly separated for mission work abroad.  If Wallace thinks it critical to seperate eyewitnesses early, then logically he must think the gospel authors fail his own proposed test, and failed it with a great deal of gusto.

Sixth, Wallace blindly presumes that because the resurrection accounts differ the way other multiple eyewitness accounts do, the gospels must be eyewitness accounts.  Again, Christian scholars are locked in ceaseless debate about how close the canonical form of the 4 gospels today matches the form/content they had before the second century.  Most scholars dismiss Papias' testimony about Matthew, but for fundies who accept it, every other church father who mentions the language Matthew wrote in says Matthew wrote in Hebrew "letters", which likely means they thought Papias meant Hebrew "letters" when he said Matthew wrote in Hebrew dialectos.  But most scholars agree that today's canonical Greek Matthew does not appear to be translation Greek.  Fundies insist Matthew "must have" written a second original in Greek after his original Hebrew version (showing how willing they are to stop believing arguments from silence are fallacious, whenever expediency dictates), but a) there is no patristic testimony for a Greek-version Matthew, and b) while the church fathers say "Hebrew" every time they mention the language Matthew wrote it, they never say anything about him writing in "Greek", up to and including Jerome, writing in the 4th century.  If that testimony is reliable, it means somebody other than Matthew is responsible for creating the Greek language form of that gospel, thus raising legitimate questions about how much or how little the Greek version departs from the original Hebrew version.  Why do fundies believe the Greek and Hebrew versions contain exactly the same materials, when they don't have a clue what the Hebrew Matthew gospel looked like in the first century, and when they cannot possibly know who was responsible for creating the canonical Greek Matthew we use today?  Wallace is a fool to characterize the 4 gospels as basically 4 affidavits from 4 eyewitnesses recorded soon after they saw the crime.

Seventh, Wallace says the resurrection account details can be harmonized, but a) the ability to harmonize something is done with expert proficiency by jail house lawyers every day in court to patch up problems in their dishonest client's testimony, but ability to harmonize hardly argues that the accounts are true. 

b) Wallace seems to forget that variation can also come about because the two accounts are contradictory;

c) most Christian scholars assert that Mark is the earliest published gospel and that he intentionally ended his story at 16:8 (i.e., they say the long endings of Mark are later interpolations), and if that theory be true, it would appear that the resurrection appearances spoken of in the three later gospels are fictions created by later authors who knew the original story could be made more memorable and dramatic if such details were embellished into it.

Finally, Wallace says nothing about the fact that one of the most scholarly of the resurrection apologists today, Mike Licona, infamously believes John contradicts the Synoptics in some details , in ways that leave other Christian apologists stunned.

Again, Bart Ehrman says Mark's crucifixion time at 9 contradicts John's time for the event at around noon, and Licona responds by saying John used "artistry" when giving his own account.

And let's not forget Licona's infamous belief that the zombie resurrection in Matthew 27:52 was mere apocalyptic imagery:

Why is it that all of the other Gospels and nearly all of the earliest Church fathers who mention the darkness, the earthquake, and the tearing of the temple veil neglect to include the raised saints? To me, “special effects” is a more plausible understanding of how Matthew likely intended for his readers to interpret the saints raised at Jesus’s death.

One could well argue that with conservative Christian scholars disagreeing with each other on such critical matters, the average atheist walking down the street has perfect rational justification to dismiss the question of Jesus rising from the dead and prioritize doing anything else in their free time after work or school.  Bonding time with the kids, or fixing stuff around the house, or volunteering for a homeless charity event,  is far more important than pointing out that your opponent on a religious issue got something wrong.

God is quite capable of presenting the evidence for Jesus rising from the dead in a way that is undeniable (such as with the force that causes jurors in criminal cases to overcome presumption of innocence and declare the defendant guilty, which they routinely do without having their freewill violated), so God shouldn't be asking me to put forth my best effort at analysis until he puts forth his best effort at presentation.

Cold Case Christianity: My recent challenge to J. Warner Wallace

I sent this debate challenge to Wallace by email on July 7, 2017, at 12:20 p.m.

I provide point-by-point responses to each article you post to the internet,

see https://turchisrong.blogspot.com/search/label/Cold%20Case%20Christianity

I offer to meet you in any internet forum of your choosing to have a formal written debate on any bible or apologetics topic of your choosing, at any time and date of your choosing, so long as we are allowed equal word limits and equal limits to cross-examine each other. 

The more you use silence to respond to this challenge, the more I will blog that you fear the only way to make your "evidence" convincing is by preventing your audience from seeing how your stuff holds up under informed cross-examination in the real-world you admit they are going to encounter after they put down your book and go outside their houses.

Feel free to surf the other parts of my blog, such as those parts where I provide the world all the incriminating evidence that "apologist" James Patrick Holding is no less of an unsaved scumbag than Benny Hinn.  At least Benny Hinn never subjected his readers to shockingly gross pornographic metaphors.

Barry Jones

-------------------------


 So far, this is the response Wallace has made:

Conversation opened. 2 messages. 1 message unread.

debate challenge

Barry Jones                 12:21 PM (2 hours ago)

I provide point-by-point responses to each article you post to the internet, ...

J. Warner Wallace <jim@coldcasechristianity.com>

12:27 PM (2 hours ago)

to me

Hello!

Thanks for writing me. I'm presently on a tight writing deadline and I

may not be able to respond to this email quickly. Please forgive me if

that is the case; I so appreciate your understanding!

J. Warner Wallace

Cold-Case Detective, Senior Fellow at the Colson Center for Christian

Worldview, Adjunct Professor of Apologetics at Biola, and Author of

Cold-Case Christianity

<https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Case-Christianity-Homicide-Detective-Invest

igates/dp/1434704696/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344968964&sr=8-1&keywords=c

old+case+christianity> , Cold-Case Christianity for Kids

<https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Case-Christianity-Kids-Investigate-Detectiv

e/dp/0781414571/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8> , God's Crime Scene

<https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Case-Christianity-Kids-Investigate-Detectiv

e/dp/0781414571/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8> , and Forensic Faith

<http://coldcasechristianity.com/forensic-faith-by-j-warner-wallace/>

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Cold Case Christianity: Why Are You a Christian Believer?

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled:

Cold Case Christianity: Why Are You a Christian Believer?  Posted: 03 Jul 2017 01:49 AM PDT  

I’ve been speaking around the country for a number of years now. I often address church groups of one nature or another, and when I do, I usually begin by asking a simple question: “Why are you a Christian?” The response I get is sometimes disappointing. Typically, attendees provide responses in one of the following broad categories:

Answer 1: “I was raised in the church” / “My parents were Christians” / “I’ve been a Christian as long as I can remember”

 Answer 2: “I’ve had an experience that convinced me” / “The Holy Spirit confirmed it for me” / “God demonstrated His existence to me”

 Answer 3: “I was changed by Jesus” / “I used to be [fill in your choice of immoral lifestyle], and God changed my life”

 Answer 4: “Because I just know the Bible is true” / “Because God called me to believe”

It's nice to know that you regard as "disappointing" these perfectly biblical answer:  Answer 1 (kids are supposed to be raised in the church and are expected to not deviate from this after adulthood, Ephesians 6:1, Proverbs 22:6);  Answer 2 (experience is a valid basis for religious conversion, what about Paul's experience of Jesus on the road to Damascus, Acts 9, 22, 26?  The Holy Spirit often uses "experience" to "confirm" conversion, Acts 14:3); Answer 3 (giving up immorality is an attribute of true Christians, 1st John 3:9, 1st Cor. 6:9-11);  Answer 4 (conversion on the basis of God "calling" something is biblical, Romans 1:6, 8:30;  1st Cor. 1:9, 24, 7:21, Galatians 1:15, Ephesians 4:4, etc, etc.)

 That will perhaps tell your readers which goal (their spiritual maturity or their selling your books) you prioritize higher.

As often as I ask this question, I seldom receive anything other than these four responses.

Because Christianity appeals mostly to people looking for a social club, not people who are impressed with its academic claims (1st Cor. 1:26). 

If you were asked this question, which answer would you give?

When I was a Christian, my answer was "because I've done what the bible says I need to do, in order to be saved, confess Christ as Lord and believe in his resurrection, Romans 10:9".

Some of these are good answers, but others are not. If you’re a Christian simply because you’ve been raised in the church, how can you be sure Christianity is true?

Well since the bible requires Christian parents to raise their kids in the faith, it is apparently God's will that certain adults be Christian more because they were raised that way, and less because they are impressed with things asserted by Christianity's current car salesman, J. Warner Wallace.
 

If you’re a Christian because you’ve had a transformative experience, how do you know if this experience is truly from the God described on the pages of the New Testament?

They don't need to know for sure, Paul apparently was capable of being a good apostle despite the fact that he couldn't tell, even 14 years after the fact, whether a divine experience he had was in his body or out of his body, 2nd Corinthians 12:1-4.  Apparently, knowing "for sure" wasn't as big of a deal to first-century Christians, as it is to modern day business men who view Christianity as an opportunity to making money and be the center of attention.

As an atheist for most of my life, I learned to be skeptical of people who told me they believed something simply because they grew up a certain way or had an “experience.” I wasn’t raised in a Christian home, and the man I respected most (my father) was a cynical detective. He was (and still is) also a committed atheist.

Which should have told you that the way the human mind works, there's more reason why we believe or deny something, than merely "evidence".  Yet you carry on as if your intended readership could be blank slates ready to process information as objectively as a computer.

I grew up as a skeptic and noticed something important along the way: the members of every religion seem to give the same answers. The four responses provided by my Christian audiences today are also the four answers my Mormon friends offer when asked why they believe Mormonism is true. In fact, the vast majority of believers in any religion—from Buddhist to Baptist—are likely to offer the same responses. While these kinds of answers are common, they are not sufficient. Mormonism and Christianity, for example, make entirely contradictory claims related to the nature of Jesus, God the Father, the Holy Spirit, salvation, and a myriad of other important theological truths. Both groups could be wrong, or one could be correct, but they can’t both be right, given their contradictory beliefs. Yet both groups offer the same kinds of answers when asked “Why are you a Christian / Mormon?”

Perhaps Christianity is just as false as Mormonism?

It seems that all believers (regardless of religious affiliation) typically answer this question in the same way, and that’s the problem. If our answers sound like the answers given by every other religious group, we need better answers.

Trouble is, you have failed in your materials to establish Jesus' resurrection as historical fact.  You certainly talk a lot about it, but you refuse debate challenges from informed bible critics. You apparently recognize you'll be less successful allowing your readership to see how well your fluff stands up under real life attacks, and you apparently think you'll be more successful selling your stuff if Christians are the only ones doing the talking.

You know the one response I seldom, if ever, get when I ask my believing audiences why they are Christians? It’s this one: “I am a Christian because it is true.”

Testifying to what a failure Christianity is.  Perhaps a more biblical answer is "I am a Christian because I don't want to suffer in hell for all eternity", and Lord knows the bible sets nforth conscious eternal suffering in the afterworld as a motive to "get saved".  Luke 16. 

Few people seem to have taken the time to investigate the claims of Christianity to determine if they are evidentially true.

That's because Christianity is not an evidentialist faith.  God has chosen to do less than his best to establish Christianity as a true religion, thankfully creating a problem that your reasonably priced materials can $olve.

In fact, as I present the case for Christianity around the country, people repeatedly approach me after my presentations to tell me they never knew there was so much evidence supporting what they believe.

And they wouldn't come up to you like that had you done the nmore objective thing, and present your Christian case in the context of a live debate with an informed bible critic.  When it's just you who is doing the speaking, your audience isn't being given the opportunity to see how your alleged evidence holds up under real-world crossfire by informed skeptics like me.

These Christian brothers and sisters have intuitions and experiences that incline them to believe Christianity is true long before they’ve actually investigated the case. They’re correct, but when challenged to tell others why they believe Christianity is true, they sound like every other non-Christian theistic believer. Their defenses seldom stand up to aggressive challenges and are often less than persuasive. Why should atheists accept the testimonial experiences of Christians when Christians themselves don’t accept the testimonial experiences of other believing groups—or of atheists? Now, more than ever, it’s time to develop a Forensic Faith. It’s time to know what you believe and why you believe it.

Translation:  "Now, more than ever, it's time to purchase my reasonably priced materials intended to fix the problems created by God's failure to explain things better in the bible.  How can you possibly have that Forensic Faith if you depend solely on the bible as sufficient for faith and practice?"

Cold Case Christianity: Students Love Answers More Than the Church Loves Answers

This is my reply to J. Warner Wallace's article

Cold Case Christianity: Students Love Answers More Than the Church Loves Answers

Posted: 30 Jun 2017 01:42 AM PDT

271I’ve been training high school students at Summit Worldview Academy in Manitou Springs, Colorado for several years now. We hold nine 2-week conferences for young people each year (six in Colorado, one in California and two in Tennessee), designed specifically to “teach students how to analyze the various ideas that are currently competing for their hearts and minds.”

So your curriculum includes instructing them on how to figure out which version of Christianity is true?

The curriculum is incredibly rigorous and students spend long hours in class each day, listening to Christian case makers, professors, teachers and speakers from all over the country. Some students even take written exams at the end to qualify for college credit (offered through Bryan College as part of a “Contemporary Worldviews” course, Philosophy 111). This is not your typical high school “camp”; it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to learn why Christianity is true and how to develop a Christian worldview rooted in this truth. While there are certainly fun activities scheduled for the students, that’s not why they come. Students come to Summit to be trained.

Do you think they'd get a more realistic experience of what your informed critics have to say, if you made them attend a few live in-person debates with some of your more informed atheist critics?  Or did I forget that as a Christian, you prioritize whether something is "biblical" a bit more than you prioritize whether it is "objective"?

I spent part of my pastoral life as a youth pastor and I witnessed firsthand the challenge young people face in high school (and especially in college). When I first began as a youth pastor, I expressed my creative inclinations robustly (I have a degree in design and a master’s degree in Architecture). My weekend services were a visual and audible extravaganza. I was focused entirely on experience. About a year into my pastorate I realized the incredible deficiencies of this approach. The seniors graduated from my ministry and eventually graduated from Christianity altogether. They were simply not prepared to respond to the challenges they faced from skeptics in the university setting. They needed answers, and I wasn’t providing them; I changed my approach to youth ministry completely.

Nothing's changed.

I began to share the evidence I found so compelling when I was a skeptic, and I started responding to the objections and questions my students already had (but were sometimes afraid to express). Many of my youth pastor colleagues thought I was crazy to make “apologetics” the sole focus of my weekend meetings, but the students we prepared in this way were ready for life in the “real world”.

And it is precisely your debating a real live informed bible critic/atheist in person, that would more "realistically" prepare your students for what they will get when they leave the nest.

I discovered something important: Students want the truth. Don’t let the pundits or cultural observers fool you into thinking students are more concerned about experience, entertainment or storytelling. Students want answers. In fact, I think young people want answers more than the Church knows or understands.

That's a really great marketing technique:  tell your readers how objective they are and how concerned they are to know the truth.  It makes it sound like you write the intros used by the news media.  They also inform their listeners just how much the listeners want truth as opposed to anything else...then they present that "truth" with slickly produced videos, voice inflections and every other trick that is designed to make a person want to listen.  But I think the popularity of television and internet gaming and texting is sufficient to show that the vast majority of people, including "Christians" seek to be entertained.  You don't go where a church has only "truth".  You go where the church gives you the right "vibe".

When I first planted a church, I formed the core congregation from the young people I was training as a youth pastor. It wasn’t long before their parents began to join us to see what was happening at the church where their sons and daughters were excited to train and serve. After a few years, the younger members of my congregation grew up, moved off to college or got married and moved to new job opportunities. The parents of these young people stayed behind, and my congregation “aged” considerably. I noticed a palpable difference. The urgency and need for answers waned. These older members were much more comfortable in their daily settings and, as Christians, they were not being challenged nearly as vigorously as their students had been. As a result, they were less interested in “case making”.

You fail to consider that it was spiritual maturity that caused these older Christians who stayed behind, to express little interest in "case-making".  But no, you need to promote your book like a car salesman employing the told "create a problem/offer a solution" paradigm:  How convenient that the only way today's Christian youth can grow spiritually is by purchasing your case-making materials.

I get the chance now to travel all over the country sharing the case for Christianity.

But the funding for such trips would not come from your book sales if you allowed your devotees to see how sorry you perform in a live debate with an informed bible skeptic like me.  I find your confidence about as fearful as the confidence of Benny Hinn that he can do miracles.  YAWN.

I recognize the difference between student and adult congregations.

But one difference you didn't account for was the obvious likelihood that the adult congregations generally care less about case-making, by reason of their generally greater spiritual maturity.  

While the Church seems to be satisfied with undemanding Sunday experiences, young people want so much more: They want answers.

No, they are human beings, and you can no more deny that church fulfills a psychological need, than you can deny that bingo fulfills a psychological need.  Churches are not exempt from the naturalistic rules that motivate people to organize into groups.  Churches that cater mostly to the youth, employ all the tricks that godless secular media does to pull them in:  cartoons, slickly produced attention-deficit MTV-style videos, etc.

I'm just wondering when you plan on selling case-making shampoo.

They are willing and ready to roll up their sleeves and prepare themselves.

Again, the older Christians aren't so willing to do this, why?  Why do you keep discounting the possibility that it is spiritual maturity that dissuades older Christians from your marketing tricks?

They want their own doubts answered and they want to respond to the skeptics in their lives.

And the very fact that you so relentlessly promote your books as the answer to their dreams, testifies with trumpets and bullhorns that you don't think the bible is ALONE sufficient to do this job.  God will not speak his truth through the bible unless an imperfect sinner is there to help the Holy Spirit do His job.

Sadly, the Church doesn’t seem to recognize this yet, and it definitely seems ill-equipped to meet the challenge.

And one possibility to explain this is that Christianity is a false religion, and that's why many of its converts couldn't care less about the stuff you think is truly important.  You also find lazy Mormons and Muslims, also just as easily explained by the fact that those religions are false, nothing but social clubs.

I'm willing to have a formal written debate with you in any forum of your choosing on any bible or specific apologetics topic you feel most comfortable defending, but no, you just go on and on about how your materials are the key to taking the handcuffs off of the Holy Spirit.  What...did God get a degree in marketing since the bad old days?

That’s why I love Summit Ministries. They provide a much needed solution to the apathy I sometimes see in the Church.

Another reason to say you don't think the bible "alone" is sufficient to fix that problem.  If the bible "alone" is sufficient to equip Christian youth as you think they need to be equipped, then the Holy Spirit would not need your materials to do it today, anymore than he would have needed your materials to do this back in the year 783 a.d. 

If you’re a parent who understands the simple value of answers, I highly recommend Summit. It’s time for the Church to raise up a generation of young people who are equipped with a Biblical worldview and can articulate this worldview with strength and conviction.

Because the bible "alone" (i.e., reading the bible without the help of "Summit") would not be sufficient to fix that problem.

Students love answers; it’s time to woo the Church into a similar love affair with the truth.

Students also love socializing and being idealistic....now there's a money making opportunity:  They have a problem, their bible is, alone, insufficient to fix their problems, and you have the solution: they should invest money in your for-profit enterprises.  Well, at least you finally opened your eyes to the obvious:  the bible alone is not sufficient for faith and practice.  We all need the bible + J. Warner Wallace's materials, offered at a reasonable discount when purchased in bulk.