What is "Apologetics"?

    The word "apologetics" comes from the ancient Greek court, where defendants were given the right to answer or "speak off" the charge against them (1Peter 3:15).  Thus, an "apology," in the traditional sense, is not saying you are "sorry" for something you did, but offering a defense of your beliefs and actions.

    Human beings are capable of rational thought and can act on it so as to commit themselves to some course of action.  Whatever course we take, whether well thought out or chosen impulsively, will influence the situations we later find ourselves in.  Therefore we should understand our commitments before we make them and be prepared to defend them afterwards.  The “examined” life and belief system will be the strongest and most capable of confronting the pressures of life.

    There is, or at least should be, a close relationship between “doctrine” (the beliefs which make up a philosophical or religious system) and “apologetics” (a defense of why one’s beliefs are reasonable and correct).  Whether you call it "Bible evidences" or "apologetics," it is still necessary to have reasons for your own faith and answers for the valid questions that others have, because “faith comes from hearing” (Romans 10:17) or encountering evidences and arguments, regardless of the viewpoint or theory under consideration.

    As one of the current needs of apologetics for the Western Church centers on responding to the French Enlightenment's retooling of knowledge upon a "materialistic natural progress" scenario (a.k.a. "evolution"), we will need to consider how each of these areas of knowledge differs from the Judeo-Christian/Biblical view and why the traditional Biblical view is not only compatible with the actual evidence, but is also the best explanation for it.  Following the French Enlightenment's promotion of this "gradual progress" scenario as the new "orthodox paradigm" for understanding everything, the "Modernist" children of the Enlightenment began retooling all fields of knowledge in terms of gradual development from simple/primitive original states to complex/advanced final states (i.e. "evolution").  Inherent in this optimistic approach, is the assumption that later states are always "more advanced/better" than earlier states.  Accordingly, our objectivity can suffer and it becomes difficult to recognize cultural decline, even as the evidences for it accumulate.  In recent decades, we have seen efforts in public education to cover up problems by "adjusting" ACT scores, doing away with tests / letter grades / and competition because "failure hurts delicate little psyches," constant emphasis by administrators that "more money" is the key to quality education, yet little discussion of the 35-50% of new teachers who leave teaching because of discouragement over the increasing student discipline problems and angry parents who refuse to consider that their "little darling" might be rebellious and dishonest, yet expect teachers to work miracles.  Having assumed inherent evolutionary "progress," many Americans have been duped into believing that the current generation just has to be the "best and brightest," regardless of accumulating evidence of increasing social turmoil.  There are those in every field of knowledge that question this "inherent progress" scenario, but they tend to be marginalized by the sheer volume of advertising that continues to pour forth in support of the Enlightenment agenda.

    In response, we will need to examine a number of important scientific topics: the true relationship of Biblical Christianity to science, cosmology (explaining the universe), geology (earth's physical history), biology (origin and history of life), paleontology (study of the remains of past living creatures in the rocks), human evolution (evidence that humans arose from ape-like ancestors, insectivores, reptiles, amphibians, fish, etc.), and other things.  The traditional conservative view of the Bible's origin and message was also countered by the "evolutionary progress" scenario and thus we need to examine Biblical criticism's origin and agenda.  It was logical that human history be stretched out from the Biblical picture to a slow gradual development from animal origins through many stages of cultural and technological "advance" to arrive at "modern Western man."  We will need to examine human history and how best to understand the record of human life on this planet.

A Ministry of Severn Christian Church (Severn, Maryland)

Unless otherwise noted, all material produced by Charles E. McCoy

All Scripture citations/quotations from the New American Standard Bible

To send a question to Chuck: chuck@severnchristian.org