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Posted: 17 Oct 2017 01:47 AM PDT
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Wendy Griffith interviews J. Warner Wallace on the 700 Club and asks why it’s so important for the current generation of Christian believers to be prepared to give the reason for the hope they have in Jesus. More young people are walking away from the Church than ever before.Gee, that couldn't have any relation to the fact that Christian apologetics arguments are unpersuasive, could it? If Wallace is so sure his apologetics arguments are solid and convincing, why is he so deathly afraid of engaging in a real-time debate with informed atheist bible critics? Is he aware, as an expert in marketing, that the less you subject your sales pitch to the criticisms of the other side, the more chance you have of the typical average person purchasing your product?
Gee, that couldn't possibly be it, could it?
What can we do, as older believers, to address the problem?Maybe quit acting like God is just a higher Corporate executive who orders you to solve problems but never himself gets involved? Maybe act in a way that shows you often step out of the way and let God do God's part? Because from the looks of it, your claim that God does his part appears to be utterly gratuitous, the ONLY basis upon which a kid in the church grows up, makes less immature decisions, and memorizes more bible and apologetics arguments, is straight purely naturalistic learning. What you call "spiritual growth" appears to be nothing more than the naturalistic learning and aging, with the attendant effects of such, of the person alleged to be growing spiritually.
Would you say the 50 year old atheist, who naturally doesn't wish to commit fornicatio as much as he did back in his 20's, has "grown spiritually"? Then how can you be so sure that when young people grow up in the church, their similar pattern of growth is rooted in the invisible world?
If you think the Christian solution to the problem need involve anything more than quoting the bible and limiting your spiritual studies to just the bible, I'm afraid you'll just look like you are using Christianity to sell your absurdly unconvincing apologetics materials. Gee, how did God sufficiently guide the church in matters of apologetics for 20 centuries when nobody could purchase your forensic faith crap?
All believers must recognize their duty and train themselves to 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.That's what I thought, you dishonest greedy salesman. Christianity just couldn't survive unless people purchased your products, amen?
Take some advice from a spiritually dead atheist whom you believe willfully rebels against the truth:
The bible is sufficient for faith and practice. Now go google the dictionary definition of "sufficient".
Under your reasoning, saying the bible is sufficient for faith and practice is like saying water is "sufficient" nutrition for a baby. Perhaps you should be honest, and just come right on out and bluntly admit that if people never purchase your forensic faith materials and instead rely on the bible alone as their source of Christian instruction, they won't be growing spiritually as efficiently as they might.
Why can't you just admit what logically follows from your marketing gimmicks?
Warner at video time code 0:40 ff says the resurrection of Jesus in the first century "stands up against all evidential scrutiny". It doesn't matter if that is his sincere opinion, he would have been more aligned with "truth" and more objective to say that he disagrees with the Christian scholars who view the resurrection of Jesus differently from him (i.e., they deny the bodily nature of the resurrection, or they think it is something that cannot be proven, etc), Clearly, Wallace is more interested in one-sided marketing here than he is in telling the view about the reality of the situation.
Wallace absolutely refuses to have any serious scholarly online or live debates with informed skeptics. So do Benny Hinn, James Patrick Holding and many other "Christians" who do a lot of yammering and not a lot of actual interaction with skeptics themselves.
Gee, what are the odds that Wallace runs away from those atheist debate challenges because he is afraid he'll win?
I don't think so.
Wallace at time code 0:50 ff says "young people are leaving the church in record numbers".
Maybe he should consider a) that's not a problem because those who leave the Church aren't true Christians in the first place, or b) true Christians leave because i) eternal security is not true and ii) modern Christian apologetics arguments simply aren't convincing to those who give every appearance of being authentically born again, or maybe even iii) eternal security is true, and the reason so many true Christians leave the church is because the "church" of America is cursed with consumerism and materialism.
J. Warner Wallace would be a good example of a church leader who cares more about marketing his products, than much else. In his opinion, God could not think of any way to sufficiently induce the spiritual growth of Christians for 20 centuries, then breathed a hurricane sigh of relief when Wallace started up this "God's Crime Scene" marketing gimmickry.
