The Apologetics Resource Center is about the process of understanding the times and the alien philosophies opposed to God’s truth, as well as understanding and effecting the antidote of both knowing God’s truth and being the truth in our home, neighborhood, and culture. Now is the time for the Church to be served a wake up call, to be motivated, equipped and deployed into our world as radical change agents, redemptively as salt and light.
Why An Apologetics Resource Center?
Radical and malignant changes have been occurring in western culture. There has been a comprehensive shifting of values, world-views and ways of life. While most Christians have some perception of this drift towards cultural decay, several Christian leaders and thinkers have been sounding the alarm in clear and stark terms.
For example, apologist/philosopher Francis Schaeffer had been sounding the alarm about this present plight for over 20 years. In his book, The Great Evangelical Disaster, published in 1984, he warned, “But something has happened in the last 60 years. The freedom that once was founded on a Biblical consensus and a Christian ethos has now become autonomous freedom, cut loose from all constraints. Here we have the world spirit of our age – autonomous man setting himself up as God, in defiance of the moral and spiritual truth, which God has given…. The world spirit of our age rolls on and on claiming to be autonomous and crushing all that we cherish in its path.”
Dr. Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and recent apologetics speaker at Briarwood agrees,
The most basic contours of American culture have been radically altered. The so-called Judeo-Christian consensus of the last millennium has given way to a postmodern, post-Christian, post-western cultural crisis, which threatens the very heart of our culture.
Os Guinness and John Seel observed that, “The American republic is nearing the climax of a generation-long crisis of cultural authority that calls into question it’s very character and strength. The problem is not simply ‘out there’ – in either such obvious problems as drugs and crime or such common explanations as the influence of family breakdown, moral relativism, secularism, neo-paganism, and the New Age Movement.
Nor is the crisis of cultural authority simply a matter of the ‘culture wars’…. Instead, American beliefs, ideals and tradition – civic as well as religious – are losing their compelling power to shape and restrain lives in both the private and public spheres.
One of the most glaring recent examples is the 70% approval rating polls of Bill Clinton, and the mantra both reported and shaped by the media signaling that personal peace and prosperity are a higher priority than traditional moral standards.
Q & A
Is ARC’s staff available for speaking engagements?
Yes. Just click here for more information or call our office toll-free.
How long has ARC been in existence?
Since January 1999.
What exactly does ARC do?
- Publish – Our writing ministry is extension including Areopagus Journal, Worldviews Newsletter, articles for journals, books, and blogs. This is the key format for equipping the saints in apologetics.
- Speak – We travel and speak on apologetics topics at churches and otherwise as invited. Several of our staff have been interviewed for radio and television media as well.
- Coach and Council – We meet with believers and unbelievers alike who have serious questions about faith in Jesus Christ and help them see the rational of viewing life through the biblical worldview.
Will you help me witness to an unbeliever?
Yes. We will coach you through the process. Just call our office. We also will speak with the person, but we do prefer training Christians in the process so that you can be a long-term effective witness for Christ.
Shouldn’t we be doing evangelism instead of apologetics?
No. There is a false dichotomy between these two disciplines and both are necessary. Apologetics has rightly been called pre-evangelism. Apologetics seeks to remove barriers to belief so that the gospel can be presented in an intellectually appropriate context. Both of these disciplines are two sides to the same coin.
Do I have to come from a certain theological persuasion to benefit from ARC’s ministry?
We do have a statement of faith that is conservative and evangelical. Our staff is comprised of Presbyterians and Baptists. We work quite frequently with charismatic and Methodist churches. There are some boundaries dictated by our statement of faith, but we have something to offer most everyone.
Statement of Faith
1. We believe that the 66 books of the Bible, inerrant and infallible in the original writings, are inspired by God and are the supreme and final authority for mankind.
2. We believe that while the truth of the Bible is supported by the witness of the church and many evidences through the ages, these Scriptures are true and are the final authority because they are authored by and are declared to be by God Himself.
3. We believe that God has revealed Himself through His Son and through the Old and New Testaments which bear witness to Him.
4. We believe that there is one true God eternally existing in one essence, nature or Being, yet in three co-equal Persons, the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
5. We believe that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, one Person with two natures, was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin.
6. We believe that the Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Godhead sent to convict the world of sin – to indwell, guide, empower, sanctify, and provide spiritual gifts in believers – bearing witness of our Lord Jesus Christ.
7. We believe that all mankind, uniquely created in the image of God, sinned and thereby incurred not only physical death but spiritual death, which is separation from God.
8. We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died as a representative and substitutionary sacrifice and atonement on the cross, and was raised bodily from the dead and ascended into heaven for our sin.
9. The true Church consists of all those who have put their faith or trust only in the completed, finished work of Jesus Christ and are therefore justified on the basis of Christ’s sole righteousness imputed to the believer by grace through faith alone – those having been born again unto a process of sanctification by the Holy Spirit.
10. We believe in the future return of Jesus Christ and the resurrection of the just and the unjust, the just to everlasting life, and the unjust to eternal punishment.
11. We affirm that other religions and ideologies are not alternative paths to God, and that human spirituality if unredeemed by Christ, leads not to God but to judgment, for Jesus Christ is the only way.
12. We affirm that God has committed to the whole church and every member of it to the task of making Christ and His truths known throughout the world, and we long to see all lay and ordained persons mobilized and trained for this privileged task.
13. We believe that Christian apologetics is the vindication of Christian truth claims and philosophy of life against the various forms of non-Christian philosophies of life. It is the responsibility of every Christian to be equipped in some knowledge and use of apologetics.
14. We affirm that doing the work of apologetics should include the following three dimensions: (a) Apologetics as proof – presenting a rational basis for faith that confronts unbelief in the believer as well as in the unbeliever; (b) Apologetics as defense – answering the objections and overcoming the barriers of unbelief; (c) Apologetics as offense – demonstrating or revealing the foolishness of unbelieving thought and world-views in conflict with the Christian faith.
15. We affirm that in doing the work of apologetics we are to stress that God is also interested in the character of the Christian and in the manner in which truth is communicated. The Christian must speak the truth in love, not being quarrelsome, able to teach, correcting the error with gentleness, kindness, patience, and humility.
16. We affirm that in our proclamation of the Gospel we recognize the urgency of calling all to decision to receive and follow Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, and to do so lovingly without coercion and manipulation.
17. We affirm our obligation as servants of God, to lead lives of holiness and moral purity, knowing that we exemplify Christ to the Church and to the world.
18. We affirm that we who claim to be members of the Body of Christ must transcend the barriers of race, gender, class, and non-essential doctrinal matters within the Body.
19. We affirm that God is calling the whole church to take the whole gospel to the whole world; so we determine to proclaim it faithfully, urgently and sacrificially until He comes.
Can I make a donation to ARC online?
Yes. All donations are tax-deductible. You can add a donation to your shopping cart by clicking here, or you may use the following link: