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The problem with nearly all apologetics is that they start with unwarranted assumptions (i.e. the Bible is "holy") and go on from there. In the end all apologetics I've so far encountered have boiled down to "It's true because I said so."

I've lost track of the times I've been asked to read C.S. Lewis, for instance. No one seems to realize that his material was meant more for believers than for us skeptics.

I haven't read anything by this fellow, but since I believe I've encountered pretty much every standard point in the apologetics tool kit, I would be surprised if it turns out he has anything new.

Eric: In addition to Alex's book, I'd recommend Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ and I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Norm Geisler and Frank Turek.

Nancy: I hope the N&R will run something in its print edition about Alex's book signing!

Hi, Mickey!

Yes, I've looked over both of these books already. They aren't exceptions to the pattern I described regarding apologetics earlier.

Well, Eric, I consider those to be two of the best ones out there, offering quite a bit of evidence. But in the end, it does require faith, not in the authors of Christian apologetics books but in how God has revealed Himself through the Scriptures; His creation; and through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And as Norm Geisler and Frank Turek point out, it takes a lot more faith not to believe than to believe.

Here's a question: Why do most evangelicals/fundamentalists equate nationalism with Christianity? Why is it that unless you are a flag waving, war loving "believer" are you considered less than Christian? Why do evangelicals/fundamentalists focus more on gay marriage and abortion than on poverty and love? Seems Jesus had a lot to say about poverty and unconditional love and nothing to say about abortion and homosexuality (yeah, I know what Paul wrote...but he's not Jesus).

What is the evangelical/fundamentalist Christian community saying to the ethics of the current administration? Abortion bad...torture good? Homosexuality bad...poverty and unemployment good? Lies good...truth bad?

Eric, here's another one I just ran across that may interest you, especially since you've already read some of C.S. Lewis' work: C.S. Lewis's Case for Christ by Art Lindsley. Chuck Colson writes, "Art adopts a fresh approach to the material by framing it with a story about a discussion group gathering in a bookstore to talk about the works of Lewis. Each chapter opens and closes with a vignette about this fictional group, which is made up of very different people who are there for very different reasons. There's a mother interested in children's literature; an atheist who wants to know how Lewis 'was duped into believing in a God'; a woman on a 'spiritual quest' who thinks that all religions are equally true; a nominal Christian; and a man who’s 'just here for the coffee.' The group's only committed believer is its leader, John, who does his best to answer the group's questions about Lewis, literature, and God."

I recommend "How We Believe" by Michael Shermer and "On God" by Kai Neilsen.

Any book of apologetics which sets up a straw man for part of atheist undoubtedly hedges all bets and ignores the stronger arguments. An honest debate requires both sides be represented in their strongest form, with their best reasoning. In the end, however, it isn't so much a debate as one side claiming intuitive, absolute knowledge of truth, and another prone to utter relativism. Two "final vocabularies",as Richard Rorty puts it: the concepts and words we choose or have been raised to accept as "final" in that they provide the core of what we take as most true, most valued.

The thing that sticks in the craw of the apologist is that an atheist can and does navigate this life (the only life we have proof of and for some, need of) quite as well as any without recourse to the Christian magic words. In times of crisis, certainly, many atheists are prone to fall into wishful, magical thinking (see Joan Didion's new book). But there are plenty of examples of upright, ethical, yea, even moral persons who lived and died without whispering the names of Jesus or any other god as they expired. Even in foxholes.