Volume 34:Issue 3

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CONTENTS:

04 From the Editor
Time for a “New” Apologetics Approach

07 Response
Cherry Picking the Commandments…What Is Essential Christian Doctrine?

08 Effective Evangelism
How the Gospel Frees Us from Psychological Oppression

10 Practical Hermeneutics
Context Is Everything

12 The Bully Pulpit: When Gay Teens Commit Suicide, Are Preachers to Blame?
by Joe Dallas
Ethical Apologetics: The recent tragic rash of suicides among homosexual teens, who had been bullied by classmates and peers, has raised the question of whether Christian teaching about homosexuality inspires bullying and violence against homosexuals. These accusations do not stand up under scrutiny, but it’s also essential that we examine ourselves and our rhetoric

20 The New Monasticism: A Quest for Spiritual Renewal in the Urban Desert
by Warren Nozaki
Today’s Religious Movements: The new monastics are young adult Christians who are abandoning middle-class comforts to live communally in lower-income neighborhoods. These new monks can be commended for their sacrificial work to promote social reforms, but they need to guard against reducing the biblical gospel to a liberation theology concerned more with deliverance from social oppression than with deliverance from sin

22 Old Testament Storytelling Apologetics
by Brian Godawa
Cultural Apologetics: The word apologetics usually conjures a picture of defending the faith with rational and empirical arguments. What is often missed is the biblical use of imagination in storytelling apologetics, in which biblical authors utilized narrative motifs and images that were common to their surrounding Near Eastern cultures in order to subvert them

34The Christian Citizen
by Francis J. Beckwith
Ethical Discernment: Should a Christian citizen be politically engaged? Although the New Testament speaks very little about a Christian’s responsibility as a citizen, certain principles can be gleaned from the Bible that provide insight on a Christian’s responsibility in democracies such as we have in America and the Western world

42What Skeptics Want Christians to Know
by Sean McDowell
General Apologetics: Recently apologist Sean McDowell spent an evening with skeptics, answering questions and asking questions of his own. He sought not to put the skeptics on the spot, but rather to put a spotlight on Christians: where are we failing as representatives of Jesus Christ? Their answers may make us uncomfortable, but they can also spur us to growth

52 Reviews
A Summary Critique: Toly and Block’sKeeping God’s Earth…Baker and Goetz’s The Soul Hypothesis…Atlas Shrugged (directed by Paul Johansson)…The Adjustment Bureau (directed by George Nolfi)

60 Viewpoint
Compassionate Adoption for the Most Helpless

62 Ask Hank
Did the Old Testament Prophets Predict Christ’s Crucifixion?