Who is Faith Beyond Belief?
We are a group of Evangelical Christians from various churches in Calgary who have been studying how to defend our faith. In other words, we’ve been learning Christian apologetics.
The need for apologetics seems greater now than ever. From Oprah to the New Atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, the Christian faith is mischaracterized and attacked. Too many times we see Christians who are either unable to defend their faith or, perhaps worse, who embrace false ideas about the faith.
Too few Christians seem to take their faith seriously enough to learn how to answer such claims against Christianity. Many see faith as mere belief, something that may or may not be true. It is a preference, not a worldview that makes sense. Because of this, many think they are rejecting Christianity but are really rejecting a misrepresentation of the Christian faith; they have not been shown the real Jesus.
This is a sign of our failure as followers of Jesus. We strongly believe that it is our Christian mandate to make the gospel as clear as possible. This includes defending against attacks and correcting false notions about the faith, just as Paul wrote:
For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ ... (2 Cor 10:3-5 ESV)
Furthermore, through trial and error, we’ve realized apologetics has a bad connotation; not just for nonbelievers but for believers too. Many see it as merely head knowledge with no heart or that we take pleasure in creating arguments for argument’s sake
There is a failure to recognize the role apologetics can take in fulfilling the Great Commission.
For these reasons, we have come together to organize events and training opportunities to help introduce the Christian community in Calgary, Alberta to some of the best Christian ideas. To the kind of apologetics that is geared towards helping Christians become good ambassadors for God’s Kingdom by helping them understand what the Christian worldview is and then equipping them to clearly share that worldview with others.
