In discussions with other apologists, I sometimes come across an attitude that apologetics equals philosophy. If you want to be a good apologist, you need a PhD in philosophy. I suspect this comes from William Lane Craig and his vision to see more Christian philosophers in secular universities. I very much agree with that vision, but there is more to the apologetics story.
One of the problems is that there are philosophers who are not apologists and apologists who are not philosophers. I suppose I am sensitive to that as I have never taken a course in philosophy and I can count the philosophy books I have read on one hand and yet I would still call myself an apologist. Here are some other areas that we need some good apologists in.
1. Old Testament. This is one of the most neglected areas of apologetics. There are numerous attacks on the Old Testament. The issue about the Canaanite killing is one of the most common criticisms against the Bible. There is also Genesis 1-2. Most of the defences of the Old Testament are from philosophers or apologetics generalists and not from Old Testament scholars.
2. New Testament. I have strong feelings about this as this is where my background is. This is important because I believe that apologetics comes down to Jesus. If you can defend every other area of Christianity, but cannot defend the truth about Jesus, your apologetics means nothing.
3. History. One of the most confusing areas for many people is church history. How did the canon develop? What exactly did Constantine do? Do the crusades really disprove Christianity? Many of the doubts about Christianity that I come across are because of historical confusion.
4. Religious Studies. People often think that religious studies are a Christian discipline. It is not. Religious studies can include all religions and it is taught from a secular point of views. There would be a great advantage for religious studies scholars to have a heart for apologetics.
5. Science. This should be broken into numerous other categories but since I have no science background I will lump it all together. Science is another one of the important apologetics battlegrounds. We still hear the claims that science is incompatible with religion. We need good scientists to demonstrate how false this is.
So I would say God bless to my philosopher apologists. But I would also say you are not alone. There are numerous other areas of study that are just as important to apologetics.
- Apologetics
- History
- Old Testament
- Philosophy
- Religious Studies
- Science
