Books, Bibles and DVDs helping Christians make the case for belief in this 'golden age'

Apologetics material recently moved to the front of the Denver-area Inklings bookstore at Cherry Hills Community Church, in close proximity to pastor Jim Dixon's book and sermon series on DVD.

The higher profile for books and videos defending Christianity and the Bible is linked to September's debut of the Institute of Apologetics and Evangelism at the Evangelical Presbyterian church—and highlights a trend that one publisher calls a golden age for apologetics.

Manager Rusty Miller expects to expand her inventory of the genre at Inklings by 20%, coinciding with the customer interest she believes will follow the institute's launch.

"It's not big compared to a larger store," Miller said of the 4-foot, four-shelf layout that moved from the middle of the 2,000-square-foot outlet. "But for our store it's a fairly big section."

High-profile authors Lee Strobel and Mark Mittelberg have moved to Colorado to make regular appearances at Cherry Hills following an institute kick-off event in March that was nationally simulcast.

Strobel, already popular with his "Case for" series of books that culminated in the Case for Christ Study Bible (Zondervan, February), is one of the better-selling apologetics authors at Inklings.

His forthcoming schedule at the church includes an appearance July 25, the day after an apologetics conference in Denver sponsored by Veritas Seminary. A nationwide satellite telecast of Mittelberg's Becoming a Contagious Christian seminar follows Oct. 16.

This is part of what Miller calls a church-wide effort to equip Christians to evangelize and explain their faith, a movement that is stirring far beyond Colorado's borders.

Aside from his seminars, Mittelberg also continues to write new works on apologetics, including his October Tyndale House Publishers release, The Questions Christians Hope No One Will Ask.

Apologetics is of interest worldwide, said Dave Almack, U.S. director for CLC International. The Fort Washington, Pa.-based ministry operates eight bookstores in the U.S. and 200 in other nations.

"Of course, some of the classic works on theology and apologetics in general are popular," Almack said. "I would include people like C.S. Lewis and others that define the faith as major players today."

"I think it's being driven by production of high-quality product," observed Kevin Walker, CLC's marketing coordinator. He lists Strobel's study Bible, the Apologetics Study Bible (Holman Bibles, 2007) and a series of more than 250 charts and apologetics pamphlets from Rose Publishing as CLC's leading items.

Other recent top sellers are books from Harvest House Publishers, one of the most active in the genre with seven releases scheduled between January 2010 and March 2011, including last month's release The Unshakable Truth by veteran apologist Josh McDowell and his son, Sean. The book takes a relational approach to apologetics and aims to be a comprehensive handbook on what Christians believe, why they believe it, how it is relevant to life and how they can pass it on to the next generation.

Two other popular titles from Harvest House are Sean McDowell's Apologetics for a New Generation (2009) and The Popular Encyclopedia of Apologetics (2008) by Ed Hindson and Ergun Caner.

At CLC's stores, the leading Harvest House sellers are titles on cults and other religions by John Ankerberg; and titles by Ron Rhodes, president of Reasoning from the Scriptures. Rhodes' The Popular Dictionary of Bible Prophecy released in February.

Ken Ham, director of the Answers in Genesis museum near Cincinnati, has also been attracting buyers. His Dinosaurs for Kids (Master Books/New Leaf Publishing Group) released last October.

Interestingly, many CLC stores are located in urban areas, where Walker said they get a boost from numerous churches sponsoring Bible institutes.

Interest in apologetics extends to rural areas as well. In the last year, central Minnesota retailer Debbie Woodard has doubled the inventory at Bethany Book & Gift in Baxter. She and her husband, Mike, are giving close attention to the category at their second store, which they opened last October in neighboring Wadena.

"It started with Jerusalem Countdown (John Hagee, FrontLine/Strang Book Group, 2006) and David Jeremiah's What in the World is Going On? (Thomas Nelson, 2008)," Woodard said of the long-developing groundswell.

The wave has stimulated a surge of interest in Jeremiah's Escape The Coming Night (Thomas Nelson), a 2001 title that was updated in 2005; and Charting the End Times (Harvest House, 2001), "Left Behind" co-author Tim LaHaye's eschatological treatise that released amid the fiction series' popular run.

More current titles leaving the shelves include Joel C. Rosenberg's Inside the Revolution (Tyndale House Publishers, 2009), which is also available on DVD; Mark Hitchcock's Cashless and 2012 (Harvest House, both 2009) and Israel Under Fire by Ankerberg and Jimmy DeYoung (Harvest House, 2009).

Interest in apologetics spills over into strong Bible sales, which have remained consistent at Bethany Book & Gift despite the recession.

The Case for Christ Study Bible, which was featured along with other Strobel titles, was popular at Easter. Holman Bibles' Apologetics Study Bible (B&H Publishing Group, 2007) has been a consistent seller, Woodard said.

"I have a staff member who just turned 18, and she wants the Apologetics Study Bible—not the student edition," the retailer said. "Because of her excitement, I think we'll see some of her friends pick it up."

A Golden Age

Such notable retail activity symbolizes what Jeremy Howard, managing acquisitions editor for Bibles, reference books and commentaries at B&H Publishing Group, calls a golden age of apologetics.

The holder of a Ph.D. in the field, Howard said Christians are being forced to develop more convincing arguments to counter the New Atheists, who are led by such best-selling authors as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris.

"Even from elementary school forward you're likely to be confronted with opposition," Howard said. "There's been a development the last 50 years; out of that have arisen a lot of Christian scholars who have decided, 'You know, that's where I'm going to develop my expertise.' "

This emphasis is featured in B&H's Holman Christian Standard Study Bible, which releases in October. It will include essays on apologetics by two-dozen scholars and a pair of feature-length articles exploring the Bible as God's inspired Word.

The product, which will also be released as an iPhone app, follows the Apologetics Study Bible, with sales of more than 150,000 copies. It spawned a student version this year edited by Sean McDowell. There is also a digital edition of the Apologetics Study Bible, The Apologetics Study Bible for Students app.

"We live in an age in which resources dedicated to propagating unbelief are widely available," Howard said. "This highlights more than ever the need for Christians to be trained in explaining and defending their faith."

Atheists are also using new technology to combat apologetics arguments made by Christians. A new app, the "Atheist Pocket Debater," was recently released and at press time was ranked at No. 100 in popularity at Apple's iTunes store. The product is set up for quick reference and memorization, and includes different ways to argue the same topics. Examples include the "Lack of Historical Evidence for Jesus" and "America Was NOT Created as a Christian Nation."

B&H Publishing Group/LifeWay Digital is releasing four new Apologetics iPhone apps to help students defend and articulate their beliefs.

Among B&H's other apologetics material is Contending With Christianity's Critics (2009), the second in a two-book series that originated with a conference sponsored by the Evangelical Philosophical Society.

Howard sees other publishers entering this niche, a development he hopes will move it beyond what he called the pop-level apologetics that characterized much of the 1980s.

"It's getting back to apologists having to hone their arguments," he said.

Jon Farrar, acquisition director for nonfiction at Tyndale House Publishers, said one reason for the flowering of interest is some authors' exaggerated rumors of apologetics' demise.

Books such as Josh McDowell's More Than a Carpenter (15 million in print) and Strobel's The Case for Christ (Zondervan, 1998) continue selling in larger numbers than those who claimed the interest had passed, Farrar said.

However, he pointed out that New Atheists' arguments are gathering steam, with 20% of young Americans now professing no faith. The resurgent non-believers became more vocal after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which became a symbol of the evil that religion can inspire, Farrar added.

In the past, atheists accused religious people of being backward and misguided, but now they are claiming the "misinformation" of religious traditions is harmful, the Tyndale editor said.

"That new message requires a new and different type of apologetics—an apologetics that reviews the significant contributions of a Christian worldview to the world," Farrar said.

"There is a need to answer the new critiques atheists have leveled against religion as a whole and Christianity in particular. New authors, such as Dinesh D'Souza (What's So Great About Christianity?, Tyndale, 2007) are rising to that challenge."

Still, the genre is getting saturated, said Al Hsu, associate editor of InterVarsity Press (IVP). He noted that numerous authors have published responses to the New Atheists—which includes IVP's March release Against All Gods by Phillip Johnson and John Mark Reynolds.

While there seems to be a perennial need for classic, "know why you believe" resources addressing such topics as the Bible's reliability and the historicity of the resurrection, Hsu said the New Atheists are raising other issues.

"There's also an increasing need for resources addressing more postmodern concerns," said Hsu, whose company is releasing its latest series of apologetics pamphlets this summer. "Things like Christianity's mistreatment of others, misuse of power and questions of whether God and Scripture are abusive, sexist (or) homophobic."

Among the titles InterVarsity is releasing is A Place for Truth: Leading Thinkers Explore Life's Hardest Questions (Veritas Books), edited by Dallas Willard. Releasing in September, the book features in one volume some of the Veritas Forum's most notable presentations by Francis Collins, Tim Keller, N.T. Wright and others.

Joni Eareckson Tada & Friends delve into some of the issues of our day in Life In the Balance, to be released from Regal Books next month. The authors address such topics as street violence, eugenics and end-of-life issues.

Examining Trends

With more than 20 books and Bible editions by well-known author Ray Comfort, Bridge-Logos Foundation almost has a one-man apologetics section.

Among the Southern Californian's titles are World Religions in a Nutshell (2008), a 2009 re-release of Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species with a 50-page critique of his ideas; and Moody Gold (2009), the fourth in a series of books reviewing sermons by legendary American preachers.

"In this genre, he's definitely our best-selling author," said Publisher Lloyd Hildebrand. "In Evolution: A Fairy Tale for Grownups (2008) he uses the words of well-known evolutionists who are raising doubts about Darwin's theory."

Comfort's following, coupled with the continuing popularity of C.S. Lewis and such books as Josh McDowell's decades-old Evidence that Demands a Verdict (re-released by Nelson in 1999), shows that people are searching for answers, Hildebrand said.

This search includes a growing interest in creationism and answering evolution's supporters, one of the leading trends in apologetics material, Hildebrand said.

Not only did the 2008 documentary, Expelled prompt a re-examination of evolution, he said the homeschool movement is sparking interest in creationism.

"It seems Christianity and creationism are gathering more evidence than they did back then," Hildebrand said of the infamous 1925 Scopes trial, which bolstered evolution's public image.

"There is more openness on the part of people who used to believe in evolution to be questioning it because of what they're heard," he said. "I think Christians have become more articulate, and I think people are sitting up and listening more than they used to."

Yet, that doesn't mean they are receptive to old-style lectures rooted in biblical awareness, according to two publishers' representatives.

Tyndale's Farrar said his interpretation of this phenomenon is that people today usually want a relationship first with someone before they are willing to talk about faith and religion.

"But, after the relationship, they do want to explore the 'evidences' for Christianity and the reasonableness of faith," Farrar said.

Harvest House Editor Paul Gossard said the trend is away from non-relational, non-applicational apologetics—an approach he says lays out biblical information in an orderly fashion but expects the user to know what to do with it.

With the cultural shift, such data gets thrown into a "mind swamp" of competing opinions, he said.

"The best apologetics have always put our defense of the faith in a 'people context,' " Gossard said. "That is, what implications does the grand scheme of Christian doctrine have for day-to-day life and for immortal life?"

A Northern California retailer has noticed this search for relevance. Brian Hill, one of the owners of Lighthouse Christian Supply in Dublin, said buyers there show more interest in D'Souza's What So Great About Christianity? or Tim Keller's The Reason for God (Dutton, 2007) than Strobel's The Case for Christ or The Case for Faith (Zondervan, 2000.)

"We're seeing a shift in the type of apologetics," Hill said. "(People are saying), 'Instead of proving that Christ is right or God exists, prove that it matters.' "

Despite this preference, Strobel's books are still popular at Lighthouse. So are the companion DVDs linked to his "Case for" titles, as well as a three-part DVD series, "Incredible Creatures That Defy Evolution" (Exploration Films).

In general, apologetics videos are strong sellers, Hill said.

"The (Bible study) groups like to have a video clip to watch before their study or discussion," Hill said. "But they have to be done well. Just because it's video curriculum doesn't mean it's going to sell."

Well-done material has earned a place on retailers' shelves, though, such as Focus on the Family's "The Truth Project" (Tyndale, 2006), a series of 12 one-hour lessons taught by Del Tackett. Focus released TrueU: Does God Exist?, its latest DVD series in May, the first of its "TrueU" apologetics series aimed at college students.

Narrated by Stephen Mayer, director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture—an intelligent-design think tank—the curriculum includes two DVDs (each with 10 30-minute lessons) and a 64-page discussion booklet. It will be followed by Is the Bible Reliable? and Who Is Jesus?, plus a fourth DVD that has yet to be titled.

Kiomi Schweitz of the Garden of Read'N in Missoula, Mont., expects the new series to do well, saying anything from Focus generally sells well. The Case for Christ and The Case for Faith DVDs have, too, although not as much as the books, she said.

"But I think more apologetics DVD product would go well," Schweitz said. "I had a customer in yesterday looking for The Case for a Creator, which we had for $24.98 for a three-DVD series. He was really excited about that. If we had more of that, it would do really well."

Another trend is a form of counterinsurgency to the New Atheists, typified by the recent Zondervan release, The Rage Against God by British journalist Peter Hitchens.

In it, the brother of Christopher Hitchens—whose God is Not Great (Hachette Book Group, 2008) was a New York Times best-seller—attacks the arguments of anti-God enthusiasts.

Still, B&H's Howard said Christians owe their critics a nod of appreciation.

"The New Atheists thing is healthy for Christianity," Howard said. "It's forcing the conversation. It's a prime opportunity for apologists to step forward and say, 'You know what? Let's address this.' "