Universities and dated apologetics?

Dear Editor,

I read with interest Jon Barrett’s article “Is our apologetics ‘frightfully early 2000s, darling’?” I fully agree that there has been a big shift in the kinds of questions that people are asking – something that I have observed first hand during the 200+ mission weeks I’ve spoken at in universities around the UK and the rest of Europe over the last 20 years.

I did, however, feel that there was an implicit (and unfair) criticism of university CU missions (or, as they are now more commonly referred to – events weeks). Jon seems to suggest that they are somehow a bastion of outdated apologetics. I’m not sure which university events weeks Jon has been involved in recently, but it has certainly not been true of the ones that I have witnessed.

Over the last ten years especially, we have seen a real shift in the kinds of topics and questions being addressed in CU events weeks – a movement away from evidential to more existential issues. (See www.eventsweek. com/proclamation/choosing-talk-titles )

I would also want to raise a word of caution before we throw classical apologetics onto the scrap heap. While it is true that the New Atheist objections may no longer be the initial hook that they once were, it does not mean that there is no place for addressing some of these more objective questions in the public square. The fact that a Christian apologist (Wes Huff) recently spent three hours addressing many classical apologetic questions on the world’s most popular podcast (The Joe Rogan Experience) should give us pause for thought.

I have found that at some stage, many people will still have questions about such things as the reliability of the Bible or the historicity of the resurrection. The difference is in when and how such questions are being asked. They are raised less as angry objections and now with much more open-minded curiosity and interest – often by those who are already on a journey towards faith in Christ. As Lindsay Brown, former General Secretary of IFES often says: “We need to show the gospel is true, wonderful and powerful”. Which of those three things we start with may change from person to person, and generation to generation – but ultimately, we do need to do all three.

Yours sincerely,

Michael Ots
Field Director of FEUER (The Fellowship of Evangelists in the Universities of Europe – a ministry of IFES).