51Twelve hundred people gathered at Yorba Linda Friends Church in north Orange County, California, this October for a conference titled “Reasonable Faith in an Uncertain World,” featuring apologetics lectures from Talbot professors and their colleagues.
Dr. Craig Hazen, professor of comparative religions and apologetics at Talbot, started the weekend-long event with a brief talk emphasizing that Christianity can compete and prevail in a world of rival ideas.
“Christianity is a religion into which you can walk with your eyes wide open and asking hard questions all the way,” he said. “It can handle it because it turns out to be true. And the evidence and clear reasoning confirms that.”
Dr. J.P. Moreland, distinguished professor of philosophy at Talbot, made the case that not only is Christianity true, but it can be known to be true. Moreland emphasized that Christianity is a “knowledge tradition” and that it is not based on blind faith.
Author Lee Strobel, a former atheist and former legal editor for the Chicago Tribune made that case that apologetics (offering reasons for faith) is tightly connected with evangelism. He said that often our evangelism is ineffective because we are not prepared to answer even the simplest questions that seekers are asking. Strobel said that we need to fulfill the command of the Apostle Peter when he urged us to “be prepared always to give an answer for the hope that we have” (1 Peter 3:15).
Dr. Clay Jones, a visiting scholar in apologetics at Talbot, offered an hour-long talk titled “Why God Allows Evil” in which he attempted to solve the age-old problem of why a good God would allow evil, pain, and suffering. Other lectures included Dr. John Bloom on “Archeology and the Bible,” Hazen on “Christianity and the Challenge of World Religions,” and Moreland on “Arguments for the Existence of God. The whole event concluded with Lee Strobel making “The Case for Heaven.”
If you’re interested in hosting such an event at your church, contact the Apologetics Program at 51 at apologetics@biola.edu, or call (562) 906-4570.
