Table of Contents

    • Contents
    • Introduction
  • Part 1: CREATING OPENINGS FOR FAITH
    • 1. The Theological Foundations of Effective Apologetics
    • A. Apologetics Is Grounded in the Doctrines of Creation and Redemption
    • B. Apologetics Is Grounded in God's Ability to Communicate Himself Through Human Language
    • C. Apologetics Is Theologically Informed
    • D. Apologetics Addresses Itself to Specific Audiences
    • 2. Points of Contact
    • A. A Sense of Unsatisfied Longing
    • B. Human Rationality
    • C. The Ordering of the World
    • D. Human Morality
    • E. Existential Anxiety and Alienation
    • F. Awareness of Finitude and Mortality
    • G. The Point of Contact and Evangelistic Preaching
    • 3. From Assent to Commitment
    • A. The Nature of Faith
    • B. Apologetics Does Not Create Faith
    • C. The Limitations of Apologetics
    • D. The Point of Contact as Point of Departure
    • E. The Decision to Believe
  • Part 2: OVERCOMING BARRIERS TO FAITH
    • 4. What Keeps People from Becoming Christians
    • A. Intellectual Barriers to Faith
    • B. The Historical Associations of Christianity
    • C. The Problem of Relevance
    • D. Misunderstandings of the Nature of Christianity
    • E. The Hunger for Absolute Certainty
    • F. Prior Commitment to Another Belief System
    • G. The Problem of Personal Integrity
    • H. A Sense of Guilt or Inadequacy
    • 5. Intellectual Barriers to Faith
    • A. God as Wish Fulfillment?
    • B. Suffering
    • C. Religious Pluralism
    • D. The Resurrection
    • E. The Divinity of Christ
    • F. Sin and Salvation
    • 6. A Clash of Worldviews
    • A. Enlightenment Rationalism
    • B. Marxism
    • C. Scientific Materialism
    • D. Feminism
    • E. Postmodernism
    • F. The New Age
  • Part 3: APOLOGETICS IN ACTION
    • 7. From Textbookto Real Life
    • A. Apologetics as Dialogue
    • B. Apologetics and Preaching
    • C. The Appeal to the Imagination
    • D. Apologetics and Literary Forms
    • E. The Appeal to Culture
    • F. We Have Time for a Few Questions ...
    • G. Concluding Remarks
    • Appendix A. The Point of Contact in Classical Evangelical Thought: John Calvin
    • Appendix B. A Critique of Presuppositionalism: Cornelius van Til
    • Notes
    • For Further Reading
    • Index