Bridge-building : effective Christiah apologetics / Alister E. McGrath. [print]

PART I: CREATING OPENINGS FOR FAITH -- The point of contact: The theological foundations of effective apologetics -- Apologetics is grounded in God's ability to communicate himself through human language -- The point of contact in classical evangelical thought: John Calvin -- No point of contact? A critique of presuppositionalist apologetics -- Apologetics is theologically informed -- Apologetics addresses itself to specific audiences -- Points of contact: Their identity and potential -- A sense of unsatisfied longing -- Human rationality -- The ordering of the world -- Human morality -- Existential anxiety and alienation -- Awareness of finitude and mortality -- The point of contact and evangelistic preaching -- The step of faith: From assent to commitment -- The nature of faith -- Apologetics does not create faith -- The limitations of apologetics -- The point of contact as point of departure -- The decision to believe

PART II: OVERCOMING BARRIERS TO FAITH -- What stops people becoming Christians? Identifying barriers to faith -- Intellectual barriers to faith -- The historical associations of Christianity -- The problem of relevance -- Misunderstandings of the nature of Christianity -- The hunger for absolute certainty -- Prior commitment to another belief system -- The problem of personal integrity -- A sense of guilt or inadequacy -- Intellectual barriers to faith -- God as wish-fulfilment? -- Suffering -- Religious pluralism -- The resurrection -- The divinity of Christ -- Sin and salvation -- A clash of world-views: Modern rivals to Christianity -- Enlightenment rationalism -- Marxism -- Scientific materialism -- Feminism -- Postmodernism -- The New Age --

CONCLUSION: APOLOGETICS IN ACTION: FROM TEXTBOOK TO REAL LIFE -- Apologetics as dialogue -- Apologetics and preaching -- The appeal to the imagination -- Apologetics and literary forms: A detection of God -- The appeal to culture -- We have time for a few questions . . . -- Concluding remarks.

Christians engage in apologetics when they build bridges to faith. This, Alister McGrath maintains, is both a science and an art. Apologetics is a science, because it is vigorously grounded in Christianity, demonstrating and defending its truth. Equally, however, it is a craft -- a creative attempt to marry the gospel proclamation with the needs and concerns of flesh-and-blood people. Apologetics is therefore a vital and necessary part of the equipment of all Christians everywhere, above all those concerned with preaching and evangelism. Back book flap

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