February 9

Then they came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and asked him, saying, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” John 12:21

The study of apologetics is the discipline of defending your religious position. 

Last week the British actor, comedian, writer, presenter and stanch atheist Stephen Fry, launched a missile of words in the direction of Christians when he was asked this question. ‘What will you say to God when confronted by Him at the pearly gates?’

"I'll say: bone cancer in children, what's that about? How dare you how dare you create a world where there is such misery that's not our fault? It's utterly, utterly evil… Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid god who creates a world, which is so full of injustice and pain? ...The moment you banish him, your life becomes simpler, purer cleaner, more worth living in my opinion."

These are just the highlights from a heated rant he made to an Irish talk show host. Ironically, in his own words, he was surprised by the reaction it provoked from all quarters. However, the Arch Bishop of Canterbury, the head of the England, came out in his defence and said that he had a right to say what he said!

The Internet is full of arguments from all manner of people who have differing experiences of Christianity. I have looked and found that the focus of many an argument is the atrocities that have been performed in the name of religion as opposed to the question of the nature of who Christ is. To every argument there is a counter argument, and so the questions that Fry poses, whilst being very real don’t address the fact that sin came into the world and is also very real. At the end of his rant, Fry suggested that he would rather go to Hades, as he was more sympathetic to the Greek worldview and their position on suffering and its meaning.

I think that Christ for Christians, must be more than an intellectual or emotional response to a set of circumstances or stories we have read or heard. Do we need to study apologetics to defend Christ? Does He indeed need our defence and if so, what would that defence consist of? Let us do and be all that we can to show our friends, our family, our community a risen Saviour, as more that ever before, we are the only Jesus some may ever see.