Yup, we're talking William Lane Craig. I've never understood why thinking evangelicals (yes, there are a few of them) could possibly take this guy seriously. He has the chutzpah of an insurance salesman and a voracious capacity for memorising 'cue-card' responses to any objection he's likely to encounter. Put him up against someone who, unlike himself, is in contact with reality, and he puts on quite a performance.Performance is the key word. There are true believers in the audience and an apologist has to score points early and often in order to cover up the fact that he's way out on a limb. Get 'em laughing, get 'em nodding, pull in some applause and then ride the wave of "stuff the details you'se smart-arse heathens, I'm in denial and ya can't get me!" If all else fails, muddy the waters and get them to think, "hey, wow, this guy is so smart I have no idea what he's talking about!"
Slick Willie appears all over the place. Dear lord, I believe the guy was even in New Zealand a while back. An upcoming engagement will find him in Atlanta at a conference sponsored by something called the Evangelical Philosophical Society. Also present will be current number four on the biblioblogger hit parade, Matthew Flannagan. Flannagan, a Kiwi who writes for the local right-wing monthly magazine Investigate, displays less showmanship but greater substance, but the tune is inevitably the same. At the end of the day all apologetics amounts to the same hill of beans, though it's wise to especially avoid those that have been contaminated with Reformed ketchup. At least Slick Willie can be mildly entertaining... the more cerebral Calvinista are just plain scary.
Nearly every profession is infected with what I call "orators". These are often the people who get ahead, because 1) They have mastered the ability to fake ethics and sincerity, and 2) They are so persuasive that they can actually tell others to go to hell in such a way that their audience is on the edge of their seats, and looking forward to the trip!
ReplyDeleteHere is the problem: Once one has had an encounter with such people, one totally sours on whatever these silver tongued devils are attempting to advance.
BB
Yup Bob,
ReplyDeleteWhat a pity William Craig does not fashionably agree with Bart Ehrman, who spouts off that the Bible cannot be trusted, and therefore we can’t know whether Jesus rose bodily from the dead.
And William Craig has the audacity to question an effete Oxford snob such as Christopher Hitchens, who has nothing of hope or substance to offer, who regards both Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky as great men, while at the same time denying Christ on the cross.
Gavin,
ReplyDeleteyou make no sense in your article, in fact you do exactly what you claim Craig does. You attack him on style and not substance. Oh well, everyone has a right to their opinion...LOL.
Christian apologetics is BIG in the USA -- high $$$ stakes -- attracts/rewards high powered talent.
ReplyDeleteWikipedia says Lenin placed scholarly works in schools to combat Christian propaganda.
ReplyDeleteWow, I have new respect for Lenin.
Wikipedia~'Christ Myth Theory'
"..[Arthur]Drew's work found fertile soil in the Soviet Union. Lenin.. accepted it [Christ Myth]as fact and argued that it was imperative in the struggle against religious obscurantists to form a union with people like Drews.[40] Several editions of Drews's The Christ Myth were published in the Soviet Union from the early 1920s onwards, and his arguments were included in school and university textbooks.[41] Public meetings asking "Did Christ live?" were organized, during which party operatives, including the Commissar of Enlightenment, Anatoly Lunacharsky, debated with clergymen"
Says: New York Times called Drew's public debates the best since Luther.
So Lenin was 50 years ahead of European secularism and anticipated by 90 years the hot Christ Myth debate now raging on the internet!
ReplyDeleteLenin was clearly ahead of his time.
ReplyDeleteWay ahead of Satan in promoting atheistic Communism. He slaughtered, imprisoned or enslaved millions of innocents in the process to get his own way, and dumped fuel on the fire of the hot ~~Satanic Christ Myth Theory~~ debate now raging all over!
In conclusion, Americans/Western Christians shouldn't be too upset with the Commies when their Govt, too, eventually kicked Jesus out of the classroom in the 1970's.
ReplyDelete