Intellectual Challenges Students Face at Ohio State

Frank Turek  - CrossExamined.org Frank Turek - I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist Frank Turek – Stealing From God Lee Strobel - The Case for Christ Lee Strobel - The Case for Faith Michael Licona - RisenJesus.org William Lane Craig - ReasonableFaith.org

Dr. Darrell Bock

Welcome to The Table where we discuss issues of God and culture. I'm Darrell Bock, Executive Director of Cultural Engagement at Dallas Theological Seminary in the Hendrick's Center. And my guest today is Eric Chabot who works with Ratio Christi on the Ohio State University campus. It's the Ohio State University, is that correct?

Eric Chabot

Yes, sir.

Dr. Darrell Bock

Yeah, I went to the University of Texas, so when everybody is a "the" then we got an issue. But anyway it's a real pleasure to have you. Eric is involved with what is a new ministry as well as having associations with another ministry out of Texas.

I'm going to let him talk about that combination and what he does on campus. So first talk to us about Ratio Christi and what that organization is all about?

Eric Chabot

Okay, well it's great to be here. Ratio Christi really means reason for Christ. That's what that ministry means. And around 2009 there was a gentleman down in North Carolina who saw the need to really start a ministry down there at that campus basically with an apologetics focus.

And really Ratio Christi is a nationwide ministry. And so when this gentleman started that down in North Carolina in 2008 or '09 his name is Randy Hardman. He went onto do some grad work under Craig Keener. But we just basically – it kind of snowballed from there. We decided that campuses across the country needed more of an apologetics focus and a lot of the atheist literature was coming out. We were seeing a lot of students being impacted by that.

And so basically Ratio Christi helps students be more equipped in their faith to share their faith confidently, know what they believe, know why they believe it. And we are now to over like 120 chapters nationwide. We have some overseas too. So really just kind of snowballed from there. You know once the one chapter was started down in North Carolina and then I started the fourth chapter here at Ohio State, the Ohio State University.

Dr. Darrell Bock

There you go.

Eric Chabot

I get corrected all the time – in 2009. So we are definitely a ministry that has an apologetics focus. And that's what we do on the campus.

Dr. Darrell Bock

Now, North Carolina, was this North Carolina Chapel Hill where this started?

Eric Chabot

No, Randy started that chapter in Boone.

Dr. Darrell Bock

Oh.

Eric Chabot

Yeah. That's where he was. And then we – we were associated a little bit with SCS Seminary Southern Evangelical Seminary they're of course out of Charlotte and they are very apologetics focused – have an apologetics focus. So they kind of came on board and helped some other chapters start in North Carolina after that one. Now we have one at the campus you just mentioned there, the other North Carolina chapter or campus.

Dr. Darrell Bock

Yeah, that small North Carolina school.

Eric Chabot

Right, right. It all started down there. Down south, and we've gone out from there.

Dr. Darrell Bock

So one, how did students connect with you guys and then what do you do in terms of ministry in terms of your general approach?

Eric Chabot

Yeah, well, the one thing that I tell people is that Ratio Christi, we're not just basic Bible studies. As you know campuses have a lot of Bible studies. What we do is we have weekly meetings where we will tackle some of the big objections on the campus or in the culture. Of course such as God's existence or you know the reliability of the Bible or other topics. And then what we also do is that we bring in speakers. We will have apologetics speakers come to the campus and do lectures. We might do debates. I've had certain debates. I had Michael Brown debate Bart Ehrman. I've had Frank Turek twice to the campus. I've had William Lane Craig. I've had Michael Licona.

We've had a lot of speakers come in that really lecture on the top apologetic topics of our culture. So we try to keep an environment on the campus that is favorable to Christianity and also show that Christianity can answer the questions of life. That you know has intellectual viability.

So I personally also do a lot of evangelism on the campus where I go out and talk to students. And I bring students with me from the Ratio Christi chapter where we engage people on the campus and get kind of their feet wet in that area.

Dr. Darrell Bock

So this once a week that you guys meet or are scheduled to meet or how does that work?

Eric Chabot

Yes, so we have once a week meetings. And we're in a classroom. We rent out a classroom; we’re a student organization. All the Ratio Christi chapters are actually student organizations fully registered on the campus too – and then we can take advantage of the classrooms to meet in. So yes, we do meet once a week.

Dr. Darrell Bock

Okay, and then the other ministry that you're associated with, what is that?

Eric Chabot

Well, that's called CJF Ministries, and it was formally called the Christian Jew Foundation. And that was started by Charles Halff back in the late '60's. He was a Jewish person that came to faith in Jesus. And I have a strong background in reaching Jewish people for the faith. Because I came to faith actually through hearing the gospel through a Jewish believer even though I'm not Jewish. I was raised in a Jewish community. And I knew a lot about Jewish people.

So God seemed to always have my life – the calling of my life seems to always be centered around Jewish people. Now at Ohio State, Ohio State is 5,000 Jewish people. And that's a pretty large amount.

Dr. Darrell Bock

It's like ten percent of the total or thereabouts?

Eric Chabot

Right, yeah. And so every time I've done outreach on the campus, we have always tried to have a focus on reaching the Jewish community. As I said I brought Michael in. I've had him do a lecture as well on Jesus's messiahship. So we've done some outreach events there to reach out to the Jewish communities.

Dr. Darrell Bock

So that's Michael Brown who we've had on The Table and who also just wrote the response to the Newsweek Bible article that was produced on Christmas 2014 that's just come out. And has just been a part of the discussion about the nature of scripture in the public square.

And I take it that kind of discussion and those kinds of issues are precisely the kinds of things that you all interact with on a regular basis.

Eric Chabot

That's right. I mean we are trying to tackle the cultural objections that are out there all the time. The misinformation on the internet and a lot of things that people are picking up online and just everywhere. And as you know, it never ends. So we're constantly working in this area. So that's exactly what we do.

Dr. Darrell Bock

And between Christmas and Easter you're real busy and then everybody takes a breath and we go through the cycle again the next Christmas and the next Easter.

Eric Chabot

That's right.

Dr. Darrell Bock

Yeah. Now okay, so let's talk about the kinds of issues that you all deal with. You mentioned a couple of them already. The existence of God I suspect if you had Michael Licona he's talking about some of the issues particularly tied to the gospels in the New Testament. What are the issues that you regard as – well I'll just go ahead and ask what was our first general question when we're talking about university campuses. What do you see as the largest intellectual challenges on the Ohio State campus?

Eric Chabot

I would say the two most pressing issues, one of them has to do with a book you wrote called Truth Matters. And I am seeing just an overload of people on college campuses that don't seem to see what objective truth is, nor do they see it as relevant. And so we're sharing the gospel with people on college campuses, the responses I'm getting are kind of like, "Well, I don't feel it's true. So I don't really think it matters. Or does it work for me. It doesn't work for me. So Christianity isn't relevant." What we call a pragmatic view truth. So I'm seeing that everywhere I go. Now I even had an atheist tell me once, he said, "Look Eric, I don't care if Christianity is true. If this is a positive thing in your life it makes a difference. Then so be it. That's a good thing."

See he didn't care if it was true. So I'm seeing the issue of truth as an intellectual problem and then also God's existence. I think what I see is that students do not know how to think about God. What I mean by that is they don't know how to approach the existence of God. For example what method do I take to find God? Do I take an historical approach? Or look into history? Do I take an empirical approach? Do I take an experiential approach? Do I take a pragmatic approach? I mean students just don't know how to think in that area. And so you're kind of always starting from scratch with them.

And of course of the science thing, yes that's still an issue. Students think science rules as far as it's the only way to know, you know have knowledge. That's always obviously out there. But I find generally that just a lot of students are not seeing the urgency of why Christianity – if it's true, as I tell students, look if Jesus throws 2000 years ago is still true even if you don't feel it right now. Even if you don't think it's relevant. And I'm dealing a lot with the issue of objective truth. And then how do you approach the existence of God.

Dr. Darrell Bock

Yeah –

Eric Chabot

Is the most pressing issues.

Dr. Darrell Bock

The way I like to say it is that we've gone from a culture where the bible is the answer to the bible becoming part of the question. And of course behind that is if you say the bible is the Word of God, you've got to know that God exists in order for him to speak. So you're starting kind of at ground zero.

Here's an interesting element of this conversation, I think because it's one of the ways in which the ancient world and the modern world differ to a significant degree. In the ancient world, the societies were very religious. There was a belief about God's and divine activity of one sort all the around. And one could discuss what the Greco-Roman world was like. But still the idea of there being a transcendent or transcendent force to deal with was kind of a given. I like to tell audiences when I speak to them that you know the Greco-Roman calendar had a 150 religious holidays every year, which is – I mean that's one every three days. And I tell people we ought to get that calendar. That would be a good deal.

But the point is is that it was a lot of religious activity; a lot of belief in religious activity. Whereas in the modern world you almost have to build your way there, because the starting point in scripture assuming that everyone shares some sense of their something else out there is the idea that there's a creator, at least the possibility of a creator and we're creatures accountable to that creator. And we don't have anything quite like that operating for us today. We almost have to get there. Is that fair?

Eric Chabot

Yeah, I'd say that's about right. It just seems like you almost have to start from ground zero with people anymore. And like I said the biggest issue I'm dealing with these days is the issue of pragmatism. And that is a theory put out by William James many years ago that religion is true if it works for you. It makes a difference in your life. That's kind of what makes it true. That's the test for truth. Now that's kind of gone away from the classical view in Christianity, that truth is what corresponds to reality.

Dr. Darrell Bock

Right.

Eric Chabot

Where you make the claim and this is what corresponds to the actual world like if we say Jesus rose from the dead. This actually has to match up with reality. And so that's one of the biggest issues I see as this issue of pragmatism. I think our culture has been on pragmatism as you know. We get college degrees. We get a job that works for us. It makes us money. So pragmatism is really impacting the way people think. And if they don't see Christianity as making the difference or it's relevant or works for them, they kind of just scrap it, you know in a lot of ways. And then you got it start with ground zero with them about going back to truth.

So I agree with everything you're saying. You have to start from ground zero.

Dr. Darrell Bock

Yeah, and now one of the tricky things I think about pragmatism and one of the reasons I think pragmatism exists is that in our history dealing with religion and the issue of religion has always been a very controversial kind of subject. I mean anyone who understands the enlightenment project knows that the enlightenment in part was a reaction to many of the religious works that took place in Europe that devastated Europe for several centuries before we got to the enlightenment.

And so the advantage of pragmatism from a pragmatic point of view, is I'd say well, if it works for you that's great. I'm not going to put your religion down. I'm going to give you room to live your life the way you want, but give me the freedom to live and enjoy the life that I have in the way that I can. And as long as we don't create conflict for one another than we're in great shape. And so it's almost – it's not quite a hands-off approach, but almost a hands-off approach to religion. It's like a bizarre. You can choose to pick and use it if it works, but if not, if you bypass that particular helping in the cafeteria than you're okay.

That kind of the attitude that comes with this conversation?

Eric Chabot

Yeah, I think that part of the issue is I think that students are looking around the world seeing real serious problems in the world. As we know we have a lot of problems. And I think they're saying, “What solutions are out there for this? What can I grab onto that really might make a practical difference in this area?” And so I think that's the first question they're asking. Does Christianity make a practical difference? Is this going to help me with my future? Is it going to help me get a job? Is this going to help me with a family? Is this going to help me here and there?

And of course we have this thinking in the church. It's in the church as well. A lot of Christians think this way as well. Yeah, so don't get me wrong. There's still a lot of modernism. I mean I still see students that are very kind have a scientific mindset and everything has to be proven empirically. There's still a lot of students like that. But I'm also seeing the pragmatism as well. So it's kind of a mixed bag.

Dr. Darrell Bock

So are you seeing the pragmatism even though it emerged very early. I mean William James was in the beginning of the last century. Are you seeing pragmatism being wedded to kind of the postmodern stepping back from the issue of truth? And those two working in combination?

Eric Chabot

Yeah, I would say so. Like for example I was on a panel last week. I did interfaith panel. Someone asked me to do it. And that's the first one I ever did. And I was on it with a Buddhist, a rabbi, and a Muslim and a Bahá" person. I'm sorry, a speaker. And I listened to them speak. I was the last person up. You know giving the Christian view on peace in the world. And I noticed that none of them talked about truth. None of them talked about our differences that we believe in different things. And it came across me listening to them that I think they all kind of viewed religion more in a pragmatic kind of practical way. And that's how we can all get along in the world, right if we just have a practical outcome of our faiths.

I was the only one that mentioned that we have to admit the fact that we make different truth claims, but we can agree to disagree on some things. And it was kind of quiet in there. I noticed as I was saying this.

Dr. Darrell Bock

They had to look up truth in the dictionary.

Eric Chabot

Yeah. I felt like I was the odd ball, but as the apologists organization on the campus, I felt like I needed it address it. And I felt like God gave me the platform, so I wasn't going to let it go by the wayside. And I was very kind with it. I was gentle. I just had to bring it up. So yeah, I think pragmatism has just come out of – I think what I see is the issues of the world today and people are seeing it as a lot of problems. And they're trying to figure out what difference does our faith make in these issues.

That's why the social justice movement is very big. You know, people like to latch onto those kinds of things as well.

Dr. Darrell Bock

Yeah. So where does that leave you in terms of – I mean you're trying to introduce students to truth. How do you get over the hurdle of the pragmatism?

Eric Chabot

Well, it's very – this is probably what goes on in 90 percent of my conversations. After I have explained the gospel or answered some of their objections, I generally find myself saying this almost every time. I'll give you an example. Let's say you're a student. "Now listen, Darrell, what if Christianity is really true? Would you agree with me if this is really true this impacts your life now? Like if Jesus came into this world 2000 years ago and he rose from the dead. And this actually happened in time, space and history. Would you not agree that this would make a difference in your life right now, if it's really true? Right?" So I get them to think about truth. I get them to point admit to me that this matters if it's really true. It's true.

And they actually most of the time will admit to me, you know what? This could be true, and I really need to think about this. So I don't let them off the hook. I just try to bring them back around always to say – to bring them to the urgency of the question whether it's really true. If this is true this does impact your life and get to admit, yes it does matter if it's true.

Now they may say, "I'm not sure if it's true." But I have to admit the fact that this very well could be true. So that's what I find myself doing most of my conversation almost all the time.

Dr. Darrell Bock

So it's really getting them to grapple with the nature of the claim that's being made on their lives by God in many ways?

Eric Chabot

Right.

Dr. Darrell Bock

And coming to grips with that that if a God exists, if you are the creature he is the creator, and he's designed you for a relationship with him. Then probably checking in is not a bad idea.

Eric Chabot

Exactly.

Dr. Darrell Bock

Yeah. Okay well that helps. What about issues – what about tone? You know we've done – we've gone through a period of a lot of battles and cultural wars. And there certainly are differences of opinion when you're talking about truth. So how do you guys handle tone and what do you tell your students about tone as you engage?

Eric Chabot

Well, I tell them that I think kind of like the apologetics text. You know everybody uses the 1 Peter 3:15 16. Of course they take it out of context most of the time. But you know it does talk about giving a reason for the hope and gentleness and reverence. Gentleness and respect. So I try to tell them that the hallmark of doing Christian apologetics is one of you need to be humble. You can be truthful, but also you need to be humble. You need to have the right attitude. Our tone needs to be one of humility. You know that we don't want to come across as the – we obviously don't want to be arrogant, but we can still speak the four truth with love and just be gentle.

So that's kind of the text I really try to hammer home with them. You want to be gentle with people. People are very sensitive these days. It seems to be more and more. You say one thing they get awfully mad. So I just tell them tone needs to be humble and gracious and let your speech be seasoned with grace and salt. And you know but it's a work in progress you know about how we handle it.

Dr. Darrell Bock

Another practical question that comes out of this relates to the tone issue is that sometimes what happens of course when you discuss the truth and you have a difference of opinion is you can get locked into a debate. And then the goal becomes to win the debate. But what I'm sensing from you just talking about this is that what you're goal is really to get them to have a conversation, get them to reflect on where they are and kind of draw them in a the issues as opposed to being mostly confrontative. That's a fair distinction to make?

Eric Chabot

Yes, I would say the goal is always to have a conversation and what I'm noticing more and more on campuses and students at Ohio State is today's college campuses you have to work generally a job, maybe a couple internships. You know you're going to school full time. These students are so busy, so busy. And I'm trying to get them to slow down for ten minutes and reflect on the issue of God and how that impacts their life. So yes, it is a goal of conversation. Now the goal is a conversation. But I will say my experience shows me that over time if you're talking to a person then they start asking questions, it can get a little confrontational sometime if they're – if it starts going on and on for an hour or more and they have a lot of objections.

But I don't mean confrontational necessarily in a negative way. I mean just that they may just be – have some really good objections and you start going back and forth. Before you know it – if someone is listening in. This kind of sounds like a debate. I didn't want it to turn into a debate. But since it just may go in that direction, but I've never had anybody that's been – where it's been like a terrible situation. It's just – I call it a friendly debate.

Dr. Darrell Bock

You know that you're in disagreement and you're trying to sort it out or that there's a difference of opinion or that there are questions being raised that need to be sorted through.

Eric Chabot

Right, exactly. And so my goal when I talk to people and when I talk to students, the goal is to obviously share the gospel, try to answer their objections to the best of their ability, remove any obstacles you can to get from them – prevent them from coming to the gospel. And if you've done that to the best of your ability in the presence of God then you've done your part. And that's all you can do. You leave the results to the Lord.

Dr. Darrell Bock

So pragmatism and it's an interesting mix. Pragmatism on the one hand and wrestling whether there is truth and then this kind of scientific thing floating underneath. Those are the two large challenges.

Do you have any – many campuses have what are called faith buster classes or things like that. Where there are specific classes on campus that really do go after Christianity pretty hard and have a reputation for doing so. Do you have anything like that at Ohio State?

Eric Chabot

I don't think if we have any faith buster classes. I mean we have the atheist organization here of course. They're always around. And we've had interaction with them over the years. They're a little – they’re a little quiet right now, but we did a couple student debates with them a few years ago.

But I don't think we have any faith busters classes. I would say the antagonism or obstacle as a Christian on the campus come into biology classes where professor are openly putting down theories like intelligent design or of course they say creationism. That's one other topic. That happens a lot.

But I don't really – I can't think of anything else. Now I'll tell you this. The New Testament, Early Christianity class they teach here, they use Bart's Book, Bart Ehrman's book on introduction to Christianity. And that has – I've had two students that come to my meetings because they're in that class and they don't know how to answer those things. And they've been showing up at our meetings. So that's been an issue.

But I don't know any faith buster classes. I would say the obstacles more come from the atheist group if they want to do something. Like they have a lecture. I’ve been to two Jesus myth lectures where they try to say Jesus didn't exist. Those kinds of things are on the campus more or less.

Dr. Darrell Bock

So the campus sounds like it's more like an open bizarre of ideas as opposed to being a particular hostile environment per se?

Eric Chabot

I would say it's a mix. I would say that it is an open – it's a smorgasbord of beliefs. You have people from all different backgrounds, different religions. You have a lot of atheism. You have a lot of different religions, but I would say there's some opposition to Christianity. But I wouldn't say that it's just like everywhere I go, but it's certainly out there. I mean I've been – of course I've been – some people said some things over the years on the campus. I've been out a few negative things with I can't repeat. So yeah, there's opposition, but I would say that it's mostly in different arenas.

But it's not like ridiculous like every day go out while someone is doing something to put down the Christian faith right in front of me.

Dr. Darrell Bock

Would it be fair to say that the opposition that comes to Christianity is part of the environment of just skepticism about religion in general or is it Christianity specific in anyway?

Eric Chabot

I think it's skepticism in general. I think with the impact to post modernism and just skepticism. I think a lot of people have just, and cynicism by the way. Cynicism as well. I think a lot of people just don't know how to think about God and they're really skeptical of knowing anything with any kind of certainty. The issue of God is the problem, because you can't see God directly. And so they assume if you can't see God directly it's blind faith. And then you got to go through the whole issue of clarifying what it means to say God exists. And you have to come up with a method of approaching God's existence.

So I think the number one issue is people don't know how to think about God. And that's something that churches haven't done a great job in equipping Christians on as they go onto the campus. And then the culture in general – what class do you go to on a college campus that teaches you how to think about God other than maybe philosophy of religion? That's maybe about it if you take a class on that. Otherwise it's just – there's nothing there for students to take and they just don't know how to approach it.

Dr. Darrell Bock

And as you say churches don't really help students get there either, so you're kind of – they walk into these conversations very ill equipped to have them in many ways.

Eric Chabot

Exactly.

Dr. Darrell Bock

So, you guys exist to kind of plug that gap?

Eric Chabot

Yeah, exactly. I found about 2009 was when the atheist literature was getting more prominent around some of the time those writings were coming out. Now it's kind of maybe died down a little bit. It's still out there but not as much as – it was the height of – the culture it was all over the place about 2008, 2009. And I was seeing a lot of students reading that stuff. The president of the atheist group at that time became an atheist because he read Richard Dawkin's book on The God Delusion. He was raised Christian and he left the faith over that.

I saw other students becoming skeptics or atheists by reading those works. So that's why a lot of us we need something on a campus. We need a presence to deal with this stuff. I notice that probably over the last – I've been on the campus for ten years. A lot of the objections are still the same every year. Same kind of objections over and over. But I would say that I just see a lot of the students that don't know of an outlet, a place they can go to to get their objections dealt with. They need to know that there is a place. And that's what we try to do.

Dr. Darrell Bock

Well, without giving the house away, so someone comes to you and you're trying to push them to deal with the existence of God, how do you build that bridge? What kind of things are you saying to them?

Eric Chabot

Well, if they come to me, the first question is I ask are they really seeking? I ask them are you really – do you care if God exists? Is this something that you're thinking about? Is this something that impacts you? Or is this something you're kind of like just apathetic about? You know some people are like, "Well, maybe God exists, maybe he doesn't. I don't care I'm busy."

But if they are truly seeking, then I start to talk to them about how do we approach the existence of God. And then here's what I say, "Look, if God exists would it make sense that he would speak somewhere in history somewhere to reveal himself to humanity? That he would want to show up and show what he has for us?" And then that builds a bridge to talk about Christ, to talk about the resurrection, to talk about the work of Jesus.

I create a plausibility factor with them. And then I talk about the world of nature. I say, "Look, do you think that God has revealed himself maybe in the natural world, and so the features we see in the biological realm like our DNA or the information code in our systems or I just try to get them to think about how we approach existence of God," but ultimately my best argument apologetically is a historical fate. I try to get them to the person of Christ, to consider that as a plausible and ultimately that's the best argument. I'm trying to get them to reach that place.

Because ultimately, I got to get them to there. That's the goal.

Dr. Darrell Bock

Yeah, it's an interesting challenge to get people to think about the way in which really our world is ordered. And seems to have structure, seems to make sense, it doesn't – there's a regularness to existence that is pretty stable in many ways. And it doesn't look like it could just happen by accident.

Eric Chabot

Right, well, you know my friend Frank Turek has a new book out, which it's called How Atheism Borrows From God, I think it's called. It's called Atheism has to Borrow From God. And one of the things that I tell students is that you have features of reality all around you that you see every day. You take for granted. And then I say what explains this better, Christianity or theism or atheism. You know we have rational beings, right. We're able to make inferences. We have the laws of logic. We have more obligations every day that we take for granted. We're morally obligated to treat people certain ways or do this or do that. We have the law of causality that impacts science. We have – we just have features of reality every day all around us you take for granted.

Then I ask them what makes sense of that and whether atheism can account for those things or no God. Does it make more sense there's that there’s a God that's built these things in the reality? That's the approach Frank is kind of taking in his book. And that's the approach I kind of take with students as well just to get them to think about that.

Dr. Darrell Bock

So tell people a little bit about Frank. Because these are good resources that you're mentioning.

Eric Chabot

Yeah. Frank Turek has written a book called I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist with Norm Geisler. It came out several years ago. He's just written a new book called How Atheists Steal From God. It's called Stealing From God. I think is the exact title of the book; it just came out last month. And I've had him, Frank, to the campus a couple times. And I've noticed that when I promote an event called I Don't Have Faith to be an Atheist. Oh my goodness, does that draw up a lot of interest on a college campus.

Yeah it's so fun to promote that event. I didn't come up with the title. Of course Frank and Norm did. I think it's a fantastic title for an event, because whenever I go out with the posters or the fliers, students automatically come up to me, and they're like, "Wait a minute. I don't get it. What do you mean? I don't have faith. I'm an atheist. You have faith." And it just kind of draws them in. And we've generally had pretty good turnouts for both of those events.

Now Frank, of course has been doing that presentation over and over on campuses for years. Now he's going to be promoting this new book. So it's a really good resource. I think it's a very good introduction just to think about Christianity. It's not advanced, but it's just a good intro, I think for students to read.

Dr. Darrell Bock

Yeah. Now what's Frank's ministry? Where does he serve?

Eric Chabot

He's at crossexamine.org if you go to his website Cross Examine. And you can find all his resources on there. Like I said, we also had Dr. William Craig come. He did a lecture on the existence of God. He gave seven reasons for the existence of God. That was pretty interesting. And I got to see – we had a pretty good turnout for that. We had about 600 or 700 people. Then we had of course like I said, we had Mike Licona who lectured on the resurrection of Jesus. That's his specialty. You go to risenjesus.org.

So we're trying to put ideas out there. Things that students can come and hear. This is the way I tell people. This may be their only opportunity out of the four years they're on a college campus to hear a presentation on the truthfulness of the Christian claim. This may be it out of their entire four years they'll ever hear something. It may stay with them for the rest of their life. And so that's the way I look at it as far as when you have a speaker come in and do something like that. That's the importance of it.

Dr. Darrell Bock

Now just so people can know who people are, William Lane Craig teaches out at Talbot Biola. He's been doing philosophy religion and historiographical work and apologetics for a long time. Has a philosophy in New Testament background. Mike Licona is at Houston Baptist and does the same kinds of things for them.

Both have written extensively a variety of works that walk into various – these areas. So if we're thinking about resources that parents or church leader can get their hands around, those are three very good names for resources, correct?

Eric Chabot

Yes, I think those are good introductions – they all have introductory works you can get online. Just go to their websites. Dr. Craig's website is reasonablefaith.org. You can go to Amazon look at his books. Of course Mike's books are on Amazon as well and his website. I also think that as far as introductory works, I think obviously Lee Strobel's stuff is a good introductory. All his books, Lee Strobel wrote The Case For Christ, The Case For Creator, The Case For Faith, The Case for the Real Jesus. So I think those are all good resources. He has D.V.D.'s. Go to Lee Strobel's websites.

The things I'm encouraged about as the church has more than enough resources today to take hold of. You've put out works as well. You know some of the stuff you've done on historical Jesus. Some of those works are all excellent. So the way I see it is there's more than enough material out there. It's just the fact that Christians just need to get a hold of it and try to absorb it and work with the material we are putting out there for the church. So I'm encouraged by what we got.