Apologia

Ryan Sanders is a writer and pastor at Irving Bible Church in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex where he focuses on building community. His most recent book is “Unbelievable: Examining the Unlikely Beauty Of the Christian Story,” an honest examination of Christianity in the 21st century. Rather than approach his faith with the argumentative vigor typically employed by apologists, Ryan seeks to look at the Christian religion both from the outside and the inside, while acknowledging the incredible power and meaning that it has provided to him and other believers throughout the centuries. In this discussion, Ryan and I talk about the difficulties in looking into and outside of the Christian bubble, and how our children’s generation is likely to be impacted by our current faith landscape.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was a literary figure and theological influence on many British Christians in the 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as a figure of continuing influence in the 21st century evangelical Christian Church. Although I’ve read Chesterton’s “Orthodoxy” in the past both as a Christian and as an apostate, I wanted to sit down and chat about him with a true fan, previous interview subject Rebekah Valerius. Rebekah is a figure with her own growing influence in the Christian apologetics community, co-hosting an apologetics podcast as well as posting regularly at her blog, “Along the Beam.” During this discussion, we talk about the influence that Chesterton had on the modern Church, as well as where we both might find some helpful insights from the man George Bernard Shaw once called, “a man of colossal genius.”

Lee Valerius is a lay Christian and ardent supporter of the Dallas/Fort Worth apologetics community. In this discussion, we talk about Nikos Kazantzakis’ book, “The Last Temptation of Christ,” and the challenges that it presents to orthodox Christians. From what I’ve come to understand and appreciate about Lee, I was eager to find out what he might think about such a controversial book. Listen along as we chat about the nature of Christ and the ways in which this is interpreted by the author of “The Last Temptation of Christ.”

Alix Jules is an activist and writer in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, serving as President of the Board of Directors of the Fellowship of Freethought Dallas, President of Black Non-Believers of Dallas, as well as a national speaker on issues of intersectionality between race, religion, and gender. In this discussion, Alix and I talk about “The New Jim Crow” by Michelle Alexander, which methodically lays out the case that the kind of sub-caste intended by the architects of Jim Crow laws in the American South (carrying on the legacy of African slavery throughout the Americas) can be found today in the racial biases employed by law enforcement, political leaders, and public policy that brought about the War on Drugs as a proxy to target and diminish the cultural power of Black Americans.

Shunda Lee was raised in a family that instilled in her a strong sense of Christian identity and morality, though not specifically following any particular denomination. But upon reaching adulthood, Shunda sought to explore the Christian faith in depth, particularly as a result of her sister’s deep dive into fundamentalist Christianity. However, a combination of the limitations of Christian theology, as well as the close relationships that she developed with a variety of non-Christian women, eventually led Shunda down a path to apostasy. Now a practicing criminal defense attorney, Shunda and I discuss her unique perspective on the Christian Church in America, as well as the growing organized Humanist community in which she’s been occasionally involved.

Trey Grant is Lead Pastor and founder of The Well Church in Keller, Texas, an intentionally multi-racial congregation that seeks to build a diverse community that worships Jesus together as one. I first met Trey after one of his first Sunday morning services, held in a local theater and attended by a small but diverse coterie of Christians. I was immediately entranced by Trey’s vision of a new kind of church for a sleepy corner of Red State Texas, and have sought to encourage him in his efforts to the best of my ability. We’ve shared a few books between us, but Trey recently offered to loan me his copy of “Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America,” by Christian Smith and Michael Emerson. Together, we discussed the troubling racialization of America, the evangelical Church, and our hope for a brighter, more collaborative future for our children.

Scriptorium is a new project I’m undertaking with Apologia, in which I’ll be seeking out interesting discussions about interesting books. These will typically have a theological or philosophical context, and I’ll be inviting people from both sides of the religious fence to participate with me. For the first in this series, I sat down with erstwhile Inquisition subject, Dan Ray, to talk about the historical novel “Silence” by Shūsaku Endō. “Silence” was recently adapted into a feature film by Martin Scorsese, and I found both the book and the film completely fascinating. The story involves two Portuguese Jesuit priests who journey to Edo Japan under threat of torture and death, seeking to support the persecuted Japanese Christians as well as to discover the truth about their reportedly apostatized mentor.

Dr. Martin Hughes was raised in a conservative Church of Christ family that embraced the fundamentalist Quiverfull movement, but though he aspired to be an apologist in the mold of C.S. Lewis, his study of literature left him on a path of apostasy. Now an atheist writer who manages the Barrierbreaker blog at patheos.com, Dr. Hughes is struggling to come to terms with a secular community that has disappointed him nearly as much as the Church. Though he has previously taken an aggressive anti-theistic approach with those who still defend Christianity, Dr. Hughes has now found some measure of peace with the role of the Church in America today.

Ricky Allen and Zac Poppen are two Christians who have become uncomfortable with the rigid requirements of the pervasive evangelical orthodoxy in America today. Though both revel in the study of theology and find spiritual discussions thrilling, they recognize that their beliefs place them firmly outside the boundaries set by the mainstream American Church. In an online exchange, Ricky and Zac semi-seriously suggested the establishment of a “Heretics Club” to serve the many believers who, like them, didn’t necessarily believe everything they’re supposed to.

Dr. George Yancey is the author of "There is No God: Atheists in America," based on research in which I personally participated. He is a professor of sociology at the University of North Texas, contributes at Patheos in the Evangelical Channel at the blog, Black, White, and Gray, is a Senior Contributor at the conservative political and religious website The Stream, and has also written for Christianity Today. In this interview, Dr. Yancey and I talk about racial issues within the Church and the atheist community, and the prospects for the future of both.

In this follow-up interview, I spoke again with Dan Ray, now a graduate of the Houston Baptist University Master's program in Christian Apologetics, and who is looking for more things to do in that realm. With some help from an old professor, as well as an astronomer who has experience with the Hubble space telescope, Dan may have found something to move his mission forward.

Averroes Paracha was the first interview posted to the Inquisition series, recorded mere hours before his baptism into the Christian faith. In this follow-up interview, Averroes talks about the struggles he's had since then, focusing on the challenges of being a "Skeptical Christian," and becoming comfortable living outside the boundaries defined by strict orthodoxy.

Kymberli Cook describes herself as a "reluctant apologist," which is an interesting characterization coming from someone who works at the Dallas Theological Seminary's Hendricks Center for Christian Leadership and Cultural Engagement, a position that requires her to professionally support the apologetical initiatives promoted by that institution. I sat down with Kym at the DTS campus to talk more about how a fiery young Christian girl from Kansas found herself working closely with venerable academics like Dr. Darrell Bock and Dr. Daniel Wallace, and what she envisions for the future of the Church.

Over the years, I've found myself occasionally returning to the university setting to meet with, speak to, and encourage students in exploring and challenging their doubts. Allen Hainline makes a habit of it. Allen studied physics from the University of Texas at Austin, later being trained at the graduate level in Systems and Software Engineering. But after a season of skepticism and doubt, Allen found a renewed faith in his childhood religion, and has made a formal study of Science and Religion at Biola University. Allen has been a recurring participant at the Bible and Beer Consortium, having given presentations about the Fine-Tuning of the Universe, as well as debating the compatibility of Science and God with Lydia Allen. His desire to encourage student apologists led him to help found an apologetics ministry at UT Dallas several years ago, which is now a chapter of William Lane Craig's Reasonable Faith. Allen also leads an apologetics ministry at his church, Lake Pointe Church in Rockwall, Texas.

The American Church has flourished over the past several decades by building itself up into a distinct subculture that, for a time, was one of the dominant political forces in American society. That all seems to be changing now, and Ezra Boggs couldn’t be happier. After creating a unique venue for Christian apologetics called the Bible and Beer Consortium, Ezra is hopeful that he can stimulate churchgoing Christians (and interested atheists) to break out of their assumptions, read more books, and think more carefully about God. In the meantime, he plans to continue fostering a safe space for people to question their worldviews, and the worldviews of their friends, family, and neighbors, optimally while drinking a Dragon’s Milk and puffing on a hand-carved pipe.

Many people describe their lives as a roller-coaster. Ezra Boggs describes his life as being shot into space, then falling back to Earth to plunge under the ocean in a submarine. When Ezra was a child growing up in Texas, everyone with a pulse was a Christian. Reacting against that culture, Ezra first found himself reacting negatively to organized religion, even considering himself to be an anti-theist. But that opposition to God eventually became a strong devotion to the Christian worldview, leading Ezra to enter seminary, take an active role in the Church, and create a unique ministry called the Bible and Beer Consortium that brings together Christians and atheists.

The Pew Forum and the Barna Research Group have shown that the demographics of the American religious landscape are undergoing a slow but steady shift away from Christianity. In this context, how should the Church respond? Blake Giunta notes that many of the reasons that people give for abandoning Christianity are directly addressable by apologetics, so this provides a unique opportunity for him and other professional apologists to respond to this cultural pressure on the Church. And it also gives him a chance to engage more with academic-minded atheists, in the hopes of bringing some enlightenment to lay atheists and Christians alike.

Blake Giunta never thought too much about his Christian faith as something objectively verifiable, until a presentation on Christian apologetics changed his mind. He later founded the online ministry BeliefMap, a digital tool designed to give Christians good reasons to defend what it is they believe. Now a student at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Blake talks about his experience as an aspiring professional apologist, from debating Justin Scheiber to sitting down with David Smalley of Dogma Debate.

Being a conservative Christian in the United Kingdom is a very different experience from being such in the United States, to say nothing of setting out to develop a career as a young apologist. Calum Miller is a recently-graduated physician from the University of Oxford, and an academic philosopher who has a strong interest in Christian apologetics. In this short interview, Dr. Miller shares some of his thoughts about growing up in a culture were Christianity is comfortable only if it’s largely ignored, why two of the Four Horsemen hailed originally from England, and what is the best possible future for the Church both in the United Kingdom, as well as in the United States.

Aspiring apologist Rebekah Valerius suggests that the rise of the "Nones" and the increasing influence of the New Atheists may be a good thing for the Church, prompting a move in the direction of a more traditional, "Nicene Creed" type of Christianity. Her assessment of the state of the Christian religion in America now is one that is driven by fear, manifesting in many negative ways, including the entanglement of religion with politics. As America prepares to move culturally into a post-Christian era, Rebekah wants to see more women involved in the shepherding of the faithful, especially in the realm of apologetics.

Rebekah Valerius was raised as a Christian with little more than a “Sunday School” understanding of the religion. She struggled with doubt at three critical junctions in her life, first as a struggling young ballet dancer studying far away from Texas in the liberal culture of the Pacific Northwest, later as a student of science frustrated by the seemingly impossible divide between God and evolutionary theory, and finally as a mother, faced with the prospect of bringing children into a seemingly meaningless world. Through these struggles, Rebekah found sanctuary and sanity in an intellectual embrace of her native faith, seeking answers from apologists like William Lane Craig and C.S. Lewis. Now studying apologetics formally at Houston Baptist University, she is excited at the prospect of educating her fellow Christians and skeptics alike about the reasonable faith that she’s rediscovered.

What are the sins of the modern American Church, and why does a seminary student think that unless it radically changes soon, it's destined for failure? Brandon Tejedor is not a typical Christian, but he is a much-needed voice of reason from within the Church's hallowed halls. In this second and final part of my interview, listen to find out what he thinks are the challenges facing the Church, the threat of the New Atheism, and his solution to this us-vs-them dichotomy that so far has dominated the discourse between them.

I first met Brandon Tejedor over a plastic tray piled high with slow-cooked pit barbecue and pickled jalapeños. Though Brandon was Christian seminary student of apologetics, he had come to meet Justin Schieber, an atheist debater whom he respected and admired. In this discussion, I learn about Brandon's story and his difficult and circuitous path between doubt and faith, and what led him ultimately to accept Christ and a life in service to the Church which he frequently criticizes alongside me.

In the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, what is meant theologically by the use of light? In this third and final part of my discussion with Dan Ray, we talk at length about the underlying mythology of Middle-earth, and how Tolkien's own Catholic faith provided and influence on the metaphysical nature of his fictional world. Brace yourself as I nerd-gush about the particulars of Tolkien's mythology at near Colbert-like levels.

What does the Cosmos mean to us? Is there an ultimate meaning to be found in it? In this second discussion with Dan Ray, we chat about the question of cosmic meaning in the context of our theological assumptions. Why is it that the exploration of the Cosmos has captured so much of our attention and wonder, why have we spent billions and billions of dollars learning as much as we can about the billions and billions of stars that exist out there? If we take the phrase, "we are stardust," seriously, does it imply that we should look with worshipful reverence to the Heavens?

I received an email out of the blue a few months back from a guy named Dan Ray. He had gotten my information from Ezra Boggs, who runs the Bible and Beer Consortium here in Dallas and Fort Worth. Dan had seen me participate in a debate with Calum Miller on behalf of the BBC, and I had mentioned a few things about the Cosmos that got him thinking. He mentioned that he's working on a Master's degree in Apologetics from Houston Baptist University, and that he had been busy researching the intersection of cosmology, theology, and fantasy literature. I suggested that this might be another good opportunity for an Inquisition, and our conversation was so engrossing that it ended up spanning three separate episodes.

I first met Averroes Paracha at a debate between Justin Schieber and Blake Giunta held at the University of Texas at Dallas. He was introduced to me as an skeptical and agnostic former Muslim with interesting ideas about God. Since that time, Averroes has come to embrace theism, and even Christian theism. He was scheduled to be baptized at the 1042 Church pastored by my former debate partner Dr. Justin Bass, so I met up with Averroes to inaugurate the Inquisition project, find out a little more about his background, and get to know what had led him to discover Jesus Christ.

For this visit, I attended an apologetics conference at Watermark Community Church, a relatively influential and sometimes controversial megachurch that prides itself on conservative theology. This conference was organized by and featured William Lane Craig as keynote speaker, along with Ravi Zacharias, Frank Turek, Greg Koukl, John Stonestreet, and Daniel Wallace.

In this special interview, Zach interviews another Zach Moore, a young ex-pastor in Washington, DC whose first encounter with the Apologia host came through the Reason Rally Twitter feed in March of this year. After challenging each others' views through social media, the other Zach has had a significant change in worldview.

Christopher Hitchens, one of the "New Atheists" and counted among the "Four Horsemen" alongside Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris, died from esophageal cancer on December 15, 2011. In this discussion, Zach, Dan, and Kevin reminisce about Hitchens' life and the impact he's had on atheists as well as Christians.

In a previous discussion, we touched on the changing cultural landscape and its effect on the family, but what about its effect on marriage? In America, the most significant cultural conflict surrounding marriage is the concept of same-sex marriage. This issue is typically thought as being driven by a religious agenda, but not all religious organizations are opposed to an expanded understanding of marriage. Featuring Dr. Derek Penwell of Douglass Boulevard Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky.

How will the religious and nonreligious landscape change for the generation of kids being raised now by atheists and believers? What will happen to the concept of the family as American society becomes increasingly secularized?

A group discussion of Sam Harris' new book, "The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values."

A group discussion of Sam Harris' new book, "The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values."

A group discussion of Sam Harris' new book, "The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values."

In this inaugural episode, we visit The Village Church and talk with Clint Gunter, a young Christian who finds community and purpose among his fellow believers.

Saima Chagani, who was born in Pakistan and raised an Ismaili Muslim before converting to Sunni Islam and moving to the United States, is featured in the discussion to examine the current state of global Islam, and the somewhat unique experience of living as a Muslim in post-9/11 America.

A special interview with Dale McGowan, co-author of "Raising Freethinkers" and founder of the new secular charity, "Foundation Beyond Belief." Also, Amie Parsons, 2009 Camp Director of Camp Quest Texas. Dale and Amie chat about raising freethinking children and the challenges of being a freethinking parent in a society that largely embraces supernaturalism.

Sarah Trachtenberg, who blogs at sarahtrachtenberg.com, joins the discussion to talk about her book project, "Not My God," which will be collecting personal "un-testimonies" from atheists and freethinkers. In that spirit, the discussion participants share some of their own stories of apostasy.

Enrico Indiogine, a convert to the Baha'i faith, provides the Apologia participants with a brief explanation of his religious beliefs and the similarities and differences that can be seen with more widely recognized faiths.

Why is Galileo's theory today so uncontroversial? Does it not challenge sacred scriptures and contradict the specialness of mankind similar to evolutionary theory?

It's fairly obvious why there is such a profound cultural division because of evolutionary theory, but is it good to have this divide?

The Dallas-Fort Worth Coalition of Reason (www.dfwcor.org) has recently been formed, with a new billboard campaign as their first project. Terry McDonald of the Metroplex Atheists and Fred Edwords of the United Coalition of Reason join the discussion as special guests.

Is there a fundamental difference in how theists and atheists approach the question of death and grief?

Kevin Harris and Zachary Moore attended the Christian Book Expo in Dallas, Texas; the convention featured a panel debate that included Christopher Hitchens and William Lane Craig. After the panel completed, Kevin and Zach recorded a live discussion that included several members of the audience, as well as Hitchens and Craig.

Is there a fundamental difference in how theists and atheists approach the question of death and grief?

Danny Schade leads the discussion, talking about some of the most commonly-cited problems with theism. Danny's father, Terry, visits the discussion.

A counterpoint to the previous Stump the Atheists discussion, this time featuring a new Christian and a new Baha'i participant.

A discussion about Satan, and how he relates to both orthodox Christianity and atheism, as well as Satanism.

The atheists in the discussion gather together to share some of their problems, whether they be intellectual, emotional, or cultural, with atheism.

A slightly different format- the theists moderate and ask questions of the atheists, with the goal of stumping them.