Are you new to graduate school and looking for ways to respond when people around you ask questions about faith? Or searching for some helpful shorthand to distill your years-long study of apologetics into a brief conversation? Sometimes we only have a moment to share a question or idea that can be a springboard to later conversations. In this new series, Rick Mattson shares some ideas for these moments from his extensive work in apologetics. In my prior post I noted that in apologetic dialogue (making a case … [Read more...] about Elevator Apologetics, Part 2: Religion equals ignorance?
apologetics
Elevator Apologetics, Part 1
Are you new to graduate school and looking for ways to respond when people around you ask questions about faith? Or searching for some helpful shorthand to distill your years-long study of apologetics into a brief conversation? Sometimes we only have a moment to share a question or idea that can be a springboard to later conversations. In this new series, Rick Mattson shares some ideas for these moments from his extensive work in apologetics. Sometimes in apologetic dialogue (making a case for Christian faith) we … [Read more...] about Elevator Apologetics, Part 1
Open-Handed Communication: The Rhetoric of Christian Persuasion
In Os Guinness's recent apologetics book Fool's Talk, what role does rhetoric play? Literary scholar David Parry draws on his knowledge of classical and Christian rhetorical traditions to unpack one strand of Guinness's ideas about apologetics. To read David's other work for ESN, click here. “Do you know how you can act or speak about rhetoric so as to please God best?” (Socrates in Plato's Phaedrus)[1] The epigraph above is selected from the five pages of thought-provoking quotations that open Os … [Read more...] about Open-Handed Communication: The Rhetoric of Christian Persuasion
Book Review: The Romantic Rationalist: God, Life and Imagination in the Work of C.S. Lewis
I seldom give much consideration to the title of non-fiction books other than from the perspective of whether it is a book which might be worthy of my time and (perhaps more importantly) of my limited dollars. However, as I read the first couple of essays on the thought of C.S. Lewis in this book by well-known evangelicals, I was struck by the thought that the book was misnamed. The book should be called, “Why we think it is ok for evangelicals to like Lewis.” They go so far as to call Lewis “the patron saint of … [Read more...] about Book Review: The Romantic Rationalist: God, Life and Imagination in the Work of C.S. Lewis
Book Review: Fool’s Talk, by Os Guinness
Fool's Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion, Os Guinness. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2015. Summary: Guinness argues for the recovery of the lost art of persuasion that combines good apologetic work with evangelism and is aware of the many people Christians address who are not open to their message. … [Read more...] about Book Review: Fool’s Talk, by Os Guinness