Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Apologetics-- (John W. Montgomery link to Testing the Truth Claims of Christianity)



This week as I prepare the message for Easter Sunday I’m enjoying listening/reading some of my favorite Christian apologists. The English term “apologetics” is derived from apologia meaning “to give an answer.” (See 1 Peter 3:15) As a high school senior I heard Josh McDowell speak at a youth conference. It was there that I picked up information about Bible College. When I was a Bible College freshman I attended two lectures and met in person John Warwick Montgomery.

You can listen to the lecture by Dr. Montgomery, Testing the Truth Claims of Christianity, here.

JOHN WARWICK MONTGOMERY is considered by many to be the foremost living apologist for biblical Christianity. A renaissance scholar with a flair for controversy, he lives in France, England and the United States. To use C. S. Lewis's words, John Warwick Montgomery was brought over the threshold of Christian faith "kicking and struggling." In 1949 Montgomery was a student at Cornell University and drawn into conversation by Herman John Eckelmann, an engineering student. Eckelmann’s persistence succeeded in goading Montgomery into religious discussions. Montgomery, a philosophy major disinterested in religion, found himself forced to consider seriously the claims of Jesus Christ in the New Testament in order to preserve big intellectual integrity. After no mean struggle he acknowledged his rebellion against God and asked His forgiveness. Dr. Montgomery is the author of over one hundred scholarly journal articles and more than fifty books in English, French, Spanish, and German. He is internationally regarded both as a theologian (his debates with the late Bishop James Pike, death-of-God advocate Thomas Altizer, and situation-ethicist Joseph Fletcher are historic) and as a lawyer (barrister-at-law of the Middle Temple and Lincoln's Inn, England; member of the California, Virginia, Washington State, and District of Columbia Bars and the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States).

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