The recent spate of books, lectures and debates by atheists are awakening the sleeping giant of the church, said Lee Strobel, one of America's most popular Christian apologists.
"The new atheists have kicked the church in the ribs, and she's waking up," said Strobel, who will speak next weekend in Tulsa.
"I'm seeing it all over the country," he said of huge apologetics conferences, new scholarship in the academic world and more formal debates.
Strobel said the average person in the pew is not reading the late Christopher Hitchens and other popular atheist authors, but neighbors and co-workers are.
"They're getting questions they can't answer," he said.
Average Christians are ill-equipped to answer those questions, and they are asking their pastors for training in apologetics, the study of the rational defense of the faith, he said.
"I think we're entering a golden era for apologetics," he said.
Strobel, a former atheist and Chicago Tribune journalist, said he doubts that surveys showing a rise in atheism accurately reflect a trend in U.S. society.
More people identify as secular because it has become socially acceptable to do so, he said.
In fact, politicians in some parts of the country who used to emphasize their Christian heritage now do the opposite.
Strobel said that as he travels and speaks, by far the No. 1 question people raise is how can a loving God allow pain and suffering?
Christianity has an answer to that question, but people who are suffering do not want "five intellectual steps to understanding," he said, they are looking for a personal answer.
"The worst thing we can do is offer a rational response. The best thing we can do is to just be with them," he said.
Strobel said he believes he communicates well with non-believers because he himself was an atheist until he was nearly 30 years old.
He was a legal affairs editor for the Chicago Tribune in the late 1970s when his wife became a Christian, an event he said conjured up images in his head of a sexually repressed woman spending all her time working at soup kitchens on skid row.
But when he saw positive changes in her, he went to church, and for the first time heard the claims of Christ clearly explained.
Using his training in law and journalism, he said, he set out to investigate whether the claims were true.
Evidence he collected over the next 18 months overwhelmingly supported the validity of Christianity, he said, and on Nov. 8, 1981, he became a Christian.
He stayed in journalism for another six years and then went into full-time ministry at Willow Creek, a huge evangelical church in a Chicago suburb.
He now lives near Denver, commutes to Houston, where he teaches Christian thought at Houston Baptist University, and writes and speaks.
The first of his 20 books, "The Case for Christ," continues to be a best seller.
His "The Case for ..." book series has sold more than 8 million copies.
He is now writing "The Case for Grace," coming out next year.
He and his wife have a son and a daughter, both authors.
Strobel will speak at 7 p.m. Sept. 7 at the Mabee Center, 81st Street and Lewis Avenue, on scientific evidence that points toward a creator, and on the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus.
Strobel's Tulsa appearance is sponsored by Park Plaza Church of Christ, 5925 E. 51st St., where he will speak at 9:45 a.m. Sunday.
Apologetics lecture
Who: Author Lee Strobel
When: 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 7
Where: Mabee Center, Lewis Avenue and 81st Street
Tickets: $12.50, or $7.50 for students and university faculty with ID available at Mabee Center box office or
tulsaworld.com/leestrobel
Bill Sherman 918-581-8398
bill.sherman@tulsaworld.com
Original Print Headline: Atheists awaken church, writer says
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