Dinesh D’Souza wanted to debate Bart Ehrman on his home turf, before his own students, to show them that his arguments could be met and that there is an intelligent case for the other side.

Some folks behind one of Canada’s most popular Christian TV shows got caught up in a Ponzi scheme….

And Christian apologist Lee Strobel is schedule to speak at one of the most prominent Seventh-day Adventist churches in America — which has other apologists, noting the SDA’s unbiblical doctrines, puzzled.
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Greg Stafford is one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

He is considered one of today’s top Jehovah’s Witness apologists — even though he rejects some of the teachings and practices of The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, the faith’s formal organization.
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Has your favorite pastor or TV evangelist suggested that God will make you rich if only you make a ‘positive confession’ along with a big — step-out-in-faith — donation?

Have you ever been asked to think of your layoff, cancer, or foreclosure as an “opportunity”?

Here’s a book that explodes the myths of ‘positive thinking.
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“Positive thinking is not only a water carrier for the business world, excusing its excesses and masking its follies,” Barbara Ehrenreich writes.

“The promotion of positive thinking has become a minor industry in its own right, producing an endless flow of books, DVDs, and other products; providing employment for tens of thousands of “life coaches,” “executive coaches,” and motivational speakers, as well as for the growing cadre of professional psychologists who seek to train them.

America has historically offered space for all sorts of sects, cults, faith healers, and purveyors of snake oil, and those that are profitable, like positive thinking, tend to flourish.”

Read the introduction to Barbara Ehrenreich’s new book: Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America.
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The Foundation for a Drug-Free World — at drugfreeworld.org — is an anti-drug organization with links to and funded by the Church of Scientology.

We suggest trusted alternative sources of information about drugs.
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The folks at PleaseConvinceMe.com are making available a free course in Christian apologetics.
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The term ‘cult’ has a precise definition — or rather, several precise definitions. Which definition is the right one largely depends on the context in which the term ‘cult’ is applied.
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“I was raised in the ashram of this man who declared himself an incarnation of God. Before I could walk, my parents dressed me in a sari and took me on their recruiting trips. Instead of acting in school plays and playing soccer, I distributed leaflets proclaiming the guru’s divinity from parade floats that wound through city streets.”
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The term hijab refers to a type of scarf worn by many — though certainly not all — Muslim women, but the term can also refer to a modest Muslim dress code in general.
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Generations Church, in Yuma, Arizona, is a G12 church — G12 being the controversial evangelism and discipleship program developed by Cesar Castellanos.

Castellannos has appointed Generation Church’s founding pastors Rich and Melissa Witmer as G12 coordinators of the Philippines.
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Comments regarding Generations Church, Yuma, Arizona
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Christian writers have produced parallel works harmonizing the Gospels since the early Church, and there are several such books in print today. But Reed’s is the first to use the modern language World English Bible.

He also departs from the tradition of breaking up the text into numbered pericopes or episodes, and instead presents it in an unbroken readable format similar to regular Bibles, with page headings.
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The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has published a report titled, “A Portrait of Mormons in the U.S.”

The report, using data from its own 2007 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, is of interest to anyone researching religions, religion trends, and the Mormon Church in particular.

But we do take issue with the fact that the report lumps the Mormon Church in with what Pew refers to as “other Christian traditions.”
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Ai’s Apologetics Roundup is a compendium of blurbs and links to, for the most part, apologetics- and countercult related articles, news items and other research resources.

In this issue: JP Moreland on Apologetics; Douglas Groothuis: Does God Exist?; and Shane Rosenthal on challenges to the 21st Century Church: Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, Narcissism & Gnosticism

Jackie Alnor reports on The Church in the Marketplace, and Anthea Butler addresses Prosperity, Spiritual Warfare, and the “On-Demand” God.

Also: a scary cult of Christianity known as The Family or The Fellowship, and a look at some apologetics-related books.
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Zoroastrianism predates Christianity and Islam, and many historians say it influenced those faiths and cross-fertilized Judaism as well, with its doctrines of one God, a dualistic universe of good and evil and a final day of judgment.
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A listing of various graduate, undergraduate and non-accredited Christian apologetics training courses.
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The key to understanding the phenomenon of abusive churches is within the human psyche — the desire to control others and to exercise power over people. That has always been a part of the human experience and it will continue to be.

All of us have been exposed to the temptation of power, whether as parent, spouse, teacher, or worker. It has been said that human nature is always ready to abuse its power the moment it can do so with impunity. It should not be surprising, then, that the will to power sometimes invades the religious realm, and specifically the church.

One of the pressing needs of the Christian church is to assist in the development of discernment skills among believers so that the likelihood of following an aberrant teacher or a false doctrine is diminished.
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Many people involved in apologetics and countercult ministry have fond memories of Walter Martin — founder of the Christian Research Institute, and considered the original ‘Bible Answer Man’.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Martin’s death, prompting former colleague Kenneth Samples to share what he learned from his former boss and apologetics mentor.
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Former fundamentalist Bart Ehrman says that doctrines such as the divinity of Jesus and heaven and hell are not based on anything Jesus or his earlier followers said. He also claims at least 19 of the 27 books in the New Testament are forgeries.

Critics say they’ve heard it all before. Others welcome the opportunity to re-examine the issues Ehrman brings up.
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Five Christian apologists evaluate the teachings of Witness Lee and The Local Church
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...Nobody joins a cult. You join a self-help group a religious movement a political organization.

They change so gradually, by the time you realize you're entrapped - and almost everybody does - you can't figure a safe way back out....
- Deborah Layton, Survivor of Jim Jones' Peoples Temple

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