Author: paduraru

ARS Apologetics Certificate Program with John Oakes on http://evidenceforchristianity.org/ars-apologetics-certificate-program

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Many of us have not noticed it.  The fact is that we are now living in a post-Christian age and in a post-Christian culture.  No longer can we assume that people we talk to know anything about the Bible or the Christian God.

The faith have been bombarded with negative, stereotyped ideas about religion coming from the mass media.  How can we share our faith in Jesus with a person who has no basis at all for belief that God exists?  How can we establish the inspiration of the Bible for people who do not even understand the concept of authority?  How are we going to explain Christian faith in a postmodern world which has abandoned the idea of truth?

Clearly, the solution is not simply to read a passage of scripture and let it do its work.  We need to understand the world view of the unreligious and those of other faiths.  We need to explain Christianity in ways that connect with the modern mind.  We need to repair the defensive posture of the Christian world toward the findings of modern science.

Paul modeled this behavior when he gave his apologetic argument to the Greeks in Athens.  In Acts 17 we find Paul discoursing with the Greek philosophers taking illustrations from the Stoics and the Epicureans and applying it to belief in the one true God.  We need people trained to do the same thing in our own modern versions of the Areopagus.

Curriculum for Certificate in Christian Apologetics:

1.  Intro to Christian Apologetics: The Existence of God.
a. The Need for Christian Apologetics
b. History of Chrisitan Apologetics
c. Approaches to Apologetics
d. Atheist arguments against the existence of God
e. Why Atheism fails
f. Classical theistic arguments
g. The Nature of God
Instructors: Dr. Douglas Jacoby, Dr. John Oakes

2.  Inspiration of the Bible I/Authority
a.  Inspiration, Inerrancy, Definitions and defense.
b. Supposed contradictions of fact and doctrine.
c. Consistency and unity of the Bible as a whole.
d. The Bible is the greatest book of….
e.  How We Got the Bible, Canon of OT, NT
Instructor:  Dr. John Oakes

3. Inspiration of Bible II  The Bible and Textual Criticism
a.  History of Biblical Criticism
b. Textual Criticism, Form Criticism, etc…
c. Response and defense of the unity and inspiration of the Bible.
Instructor:  Glenn Giles

4.  Science and God/Science and the Bible.
a. Age of earth/universe.
b. Creation of life.
c. Anthropic Principle/Intelligent Design
d. Biological and human evolution.
e. The flood and “flood geology.”
f. Science and the Bible.
g. Science and other religions.
Instructor:  Dr. John Oakes

5.  Prophecy and Christian Apologetics
a. Messianic Prophecies
b. Kingdom Prophecies
c. Old Testament Prophecies fulfilled in the Old Testament
d. Old Testament Prophecies fulfilled between the Testaments and in the New Testament (especially Daniel)
e. Types, foreshadows and prefigures
Instructor:  Dr. John Oakes

6. Apologetics and the Christian World View.
a. Greek world views:  Paul in Athens.
b. Eastern religions: Pantheism
c. Naturalism, Scientific Materialism
d. Postmodernism.
e. Other World Views
f. The Christian worldview.
Instructor:  Dr. Robert Kurka

7.  History, Archaeology and the Bible.
a. World History and the Old Testament.
b. Old Testament archaeology.
c. New Testament archaeology.
Instructors:  Dr. John Wilson, Dr. Douglas Jacoby, Foster Stanback, Dr. John Oakes

8.  Jesus and Christian Apologetics/Miracles
a. The deity of Jesus.
b. Liar, Lord, Lunatic, Legend.
c. Claims of Jesus.
d. The historical Jesus
e. Response to the Jesus myth hypothesis
f. Science and miracles.
g. OT miracles
h. The miracles of Jesus
i. Incarnation, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus
Instructors:  Dr. John Oakes (guest lecturer: Foster Stanback)

9.  World Religions.
a. Scope of the topic.
b. Greek and other classical religious concepts.
c. Eastern Religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikkhism, Jaina
d. New Age, Bahai
e. Islam
f. Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witness and other pseudo-Christian religions.
Instructor:  Dr. John Oakes, Dan Conder

10.  Defense of Biblical Theology: Answering the Hard Questions
a. The trinity
b. The problem of evil.
c. The problem of pain and suffering.
d. Predestination and free will
e. The problem of hell
f. The Problems of violence and slavery in the Old Testament
Instructor: Dr. John Oakes

Classes available for immediate shipment:
1. Prophecy and Christian Apologetics.
2. Science and Christian Apologetics.
3. Apologetics and the Christian World View.
Classes available as of Jan. 2011:
1. Jesus and Christian Apologetics
2. Apologetics and World Religions
3. Apologetics and Biblical Criticism

For more information or to register for any of the available classes, contact Jan Oakes at joakes01@san.rr.com or 858-505-8841.   Sign up today!