The Age Of The Apologist: Recent Episodes
Michael C Sherrard
Welcome to the Age of the Apologist, a broadcast dedicated to engaging the most pressing issues of our time. We seek to gain understanding, grow in compassion, and become more proficient in communicating our beliefs. Truth exists. It can be known. Let us discover it. Let us share it. Let us the enjoy the goodness that follows.
Even though you have done terrible things, you are still loved. You are still valuable. You still have work to do that God has prepared for you.
Religious freedom is on the decline. There is no doubt about this. Social sexual issues will slam the prison’s door on religious freedom. And the lack of desire for wisdom and knowledge within the church is the jailor.
How many of you have heard or even said yourself, “If we had answers then we wouldn’t need to have faith.” But Jesus welcomed skeptics and questioners and gave them answers and so should we. If we do not, we will affirm the doubts that cause questions and send our children to atheism.
How can we redeem the hostility surrounding the Kavanaugh confirmation and use it to unite a country divided?
The teachings and example of Jesus provide hope and a way forward in an age of incivility and political unrest.
Why has the pro-life movement embraced the slander of its critics and propagated one of their talking points for them?
Sean McDowell and Matthew Vines engage in an important conversation about what the Bible has to say about homosexuality. Their conversation was an example for us all to follow.
The younger the generation, the more post-christian it is. Why are they leaving, and what can we do about it?
Pastors, it is not enough that we are pro-life. Our pulpits must be as well.
Are Christians stupid? Have we all been fooled? Are we to be the most pitied people in all the earth because in this life we have hoped only in Christ?
Author, professor, and speaker, Sean McDowell, graciously agreed to have a 30 minute conversation with me about the nature of marriage and Christian response to the ever changing cultural landscape.
How do you know if your idea of right behavior is truer than mine? Seems like an important question to ask with all the fighting today.
How soon is too soon to talk to my children about abortion?
Is it possible to have productive conversations about abortion? What about on Facebook? The answer is yes if you but practice a little discipline and follow these six suggestions.
When everyone thinks they are the teacher, no-one ever learns. And if that does not describe our world today, I don’t know what does.
What is the source of my significance? What makes me special?
Other than “Is there a God?”, “What does it mean to be human?” is probably the most important question that exists.
What is Relational Apologetics? Sean McDowell interviews Mike Sherrard to get this answer and more.
Do you have hard time understanding how rational people can really think that genderless bathrooms are a good idea? Well, here’s what’s going on.
Many Christians have been pro-life for years which has amounted to precisely nothing– no conversations, no activism, nothing. It is easy to have a pro-life heart. But sentiment is a poor substitute for service. We cannot just feel like a pro-lifer, we must think and act like one. And Pastors, it is your job to lead the way.
Is it possible to have respectful and productive conversations on politics, sexuality, or religion anymore? Do we even want to. Or do we just want to silence all that do not share our view? In this article, we examine three ways to have better conversations about controversial subjects.
Many things work against us when we defend our faith. We do not need misunderstanding to be one of them. If you want to defend your faith well, become a good listener.
Parents do not have the luxury of waiting to teach their children apologetics. Every day our kids are under attack. If we are not actively proving to our children what is true, you can rest assured that someone else will.
Parents do not have the luxury of waiting to teach their children apologetics. Every day our kids are under attack. If we are not actively proving to our children what is true, you can rest assured that someone else will.
Parents do not have the luxury of waiting to teach their children apologetics. Every day our kids are under attack. If we are not actively proving to our children what is true, you can rest assured that someone else will.
Many are angry because they have seen abortion for the very first time. And you should be angry. Anger is good. It moves us to action. This sermon delivered to Crosspoint Community Church is to help us be angry and not sin by equipping us to make the case for life with gentleness and respect.
I've heard it said that God judges a nation by giving them the leadership they deserve. Is that what is happening to America?
This excerpt from A Solution: How to Help Teenagers Survive the Cultural Attack on Their Faith delivered at the National Conference on Christian Apologetics gives adults three things to provide teenagers. Teenagers need a community of adults that display holiness, create a safe envionrment to ask question, and provide answers to questions about God.
Sociologists, apologists, and the media have well articulated the abandoning of religion by many young adults. The church is aware of the attack on the faith of teenagers. It is becoming old news. We have become saturated with the statistics. We know the problem; it is time for a solution.
Everyone is peddling fear. Spread it then leveraged it to promote personal agendas. This is how “leaders” grab power these days. Well, while everyone else is fear mongering, here is a bit of hope.
Have we all been napping? How did we get here? How is it that the children of light seem always to be in the dark, blind to what is happening in culture and in our congregations?
You can have respectful and persuasive conversations about controversial issues like politics, morality, and even religion if you check your P.U.L.S.E. When you feel yourself getting angry and sense the conversation is ready to spiral out of control, ask yourself these five questions:
How can we defend the Christian faith with gentleness and respect? My interview with Janet Mefferd to discuss, “Relational Apologetics.”
I was expecting backlash from my recent article “Why the Pulpit Must Be Political.” But I didn’t expect that the backlash would be so reasonable as to change my mind.
Same-sex marriage, abortion, gender neutrality, an impending election, if it is not the pastor's job to instruct the people of God on these things, whose job is it?
This excerpt from "Where Do We Go From Here" highlights the need for all believers to be able to defend Christianity, show images like aborted children, and tell our redemptive stories.
Trump is not your president. He’s the mouthpiece for your pent up frustration.
As millions are feeling the real pain from their transgression, let us be quick to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to them rather than our condemnation. The liberating power of forgiveness will feel warm and comforting to those steeped in darkness. It will be alluring if we can get out of our own self-righouess way.
The latest news of Planned Parenthood selling the body parts of aborted fetus’ should disgust all and bring to mind horrific images of some futuristic dystopia. So when does the horror and calamity from ignorant practices require us to take the gloves off?
I don’t know how a society that wants to put the emotional fulfillment of adults ahead of the well being of its children can survive. And that is what troubles me most about Same-Sex Marriage; children are the afterthought.
Opportunities to share the gospel abound if one is looking. In every situation with nonbelievers, ask yourself what about our immediate context and conversation points to God. Then be brave and steer your conversation to the cross.
To be American was to be a Christian. Whether a person actually trusted in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins and regardless if they followed his teachings, living in America meant you were a Christian. Is was part of our culture. It was part of our national identity. This was both good and bad.
There is always work to be done. There is always a pressing need. And we easily and readily neglect the important for the urgent. And in doing so, we finish tasks while never truly accomplishing anything. Looking to God’s word and seeking wisdom, here are but two things to help us in this tension...
There is only one worldview that provides a justification for belief in inherent human value and thereby true morality. It is theism. A transcendent creator is needed for our sense of justice to have any value.
The value of knowledge cannot be grasped through a lecture. It must come through a relationship. When one sees how the pursuit of knowledge has changed you for the better, they will desire it for themselves. But when your knowledge is used to elevate yourself as you berate the ignorant, people will despise you and run into emotionalism.
Will you go? Will you do more than just learn? Will you act upon your desire to persuade others that Jesus is the messiah? You need to wrestle with this. You need to decide if you are going to be one that takes our Lord’s mercy and grace to others or be one that hoards it for yourself.
How many of you feel rested right now? Or, how many of you would describe your general state of being as one who sits on pins and needles? In life and ministry in particular, I find more and more that I have a burden to go and do and never feel as though I get anything done. Rest does not dominate my life. Can any of you relate?
Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox. – Proverbs 14:4 ESV.
This made me laugh this morning. And then I felt peace.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. —ROMANS 1:16
As an apologist, let me encourage you to trust in the power of the gospel.
You don’t know everything. Nobody knows everything. Not even your condescending, skeptical coworker or classmate who has made you feel intellectually inferior for believing in God. So fear not. A lack of knowledge puts you in the same boat as everyone else. We all have our limitations. It is good and comforting to know this.
As the scintillating Richard G. Howe says, “three out of two people are bad at fractions.” Fewer, I imagine, are good at statistics. Statistics are useful and powerful in telling a story but are often misleading. In fact, statistics can be used to tell any story you want depending on how the questions are asked and the findings presented. And so goes it with the mass exodus of young adults leaving the church. We want to know why. Polls then are taken, findings are presented, and the blogopshere runs wild with them. Thus we find our social media filled with articles telling us the five reasons millennials have forsaken God. And this is fine. Do not misunderstand my point here. I only want to add one thought to this discussion, and it is this. People never give you the real reason they leave church.
The church is quick to lift up a man and follow him. And this perhaps more than anything else grieves me. It makes me sick to see a movement ride the coat tales of a powerful speaker only to toss him aside when his public presence is not furthering their agenda. The public nature of this is hideous. It is as bad as any sex scandal within the church. And it should cause us all to consider the ramifications of Christian stardom.