James W. Sire addresses:
What is the biggest challenge to today’s apologist? — A question received by email inquiry.
I doubt that there is a “today’s apologist.†Every person engaged in presenting the Christian faith is “today’s apologist.†Moreover, I can address the question but I am no longer an active traveling apologist with exposure to “today’s†campuses. Among my current friends are a bitter Dawkins-type atheist and retired scientist, a mid-forties New Ager, a curious high school grandson, a liturgical Christian devoted to the Prayer Book, and a couple of dozen close friends and fellow evangelical suburban Presbyterian church members mostly in the professions or retired. I will therefore answer briefly and more from what I observe about present culture than what I understand from my friends.
Apathy heads the list of challenges. Who cares about serious issues of religion and faith? Of course, apathy is more a cultural or spiritual condition than an intellectual puzzle. Pascal said wine, women, song and gambling were the major ways of escaping doubt and the terror of a universe empty of the divine. Today we could add sports, TV and video games. But on to some of the intellectual challenges. [Read more…] about What is the biggest challenge to today’s apologist?