Corpus Christi Hosts First [un]Apologetic Conference

First Baptist Church Corpus Christi hosted its first [un]Apologetic conference south of Highway I-10 on May 5- 6. Three hundred and five people were present.

Brian Hill, pastor of FBC Corpus Christi, said he prayed for over a year for an [un]Apologetic conference to take place in his church. His hopes are that the event "energizes and emboldens" his congregation to better share their faith.

"In an ever growing secular society we cannot just assume people believe God exists and that the Bible is authoritative. We need to be ready to explain why we believe these truths and apologetics helps to remove those roadblocks in evangelism," said Leighton Flowers, director of apologetics for Texas Baptists. 

Keynote speaker William Lane Craig, introduced as the world's premiere apologist, talked about the importance of being able to persuade people with the truth of Jesus Christ.

"Apologetics is defending the truth of what we believe in the Scriptures," Craig said as he presented his five arguments: contingency, cosmological, intelligent design, moral and ontological.

• contingency - "The universe exists contingently, and the only argument for its existence is the existence of a necessary God. The cause of the universe cannot be part of the universe."
  
• cosmological - "The universe exists, therefore the universe has a cause. Can something exist without a cause? If something can come into being from nothing, then why don’t we see this happening all the time?"
  
• intelligent design - "The delicacy and complexity of the conditions today, from the Big Bang, are astounding. Our existence is balanced on a razor’s edge … initial conditions fine-tuned to a degree that is incomprehensible … this remarkable fine-tuning points to an intelligent design."
  
• moral - "God makes sense of objective moral values. Can you be good without God? Without an objective reference point, we have no way of knowing if something is good or bad."
  
• ontological - "If it is possible that God exists, then God exists."
  

In another session, best-selling author and sought after speaker Mark Mittleberg, discussed the necessary values to keep in mind when trying to reach a secular culture for Christ.

"This is an evangelistic primer for how to think about what other people in your life need as they move towards Christ," Mittleberg said. "Learn to speak the language, as a missiologist would."

The values Mittleberg mentioned included remembering that people matter, realizing that they are lost without Christ, knowing that Christ is their only solution and making sure to be equipped with answers for those who may question faith in Christ. He also recommended the book Confident Faith, which he said is geared for non-Christians.

"We need to remind ourselves this is a life and death issue. People desperately need what we have. We cannot keep this to ourselves," he said.

[un]Apologetic conferences also took place in Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas, on January 27-28, with 430 attendees and at Austin Baptist Church on February 24-25, with 818 attendees.

"We are excited to see so many churches interested in training their members in how to share their faith to a culture that becoming more and more skeptical to the claims of Christianity,” Flowers said. “The [un]Apologetic conference gives Christians the tools we need to defend our faith and explain the hope we find in Christ."