Defending the faith?

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Why do we need to defend the Catholic faith?

any convincing reasons for those Catholics not yet engaged in apologetics?
 
jamil_joseph02 said:
well, aside from 1 Peter 3:15?
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“Proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable
or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the
utmost patience in teaching.”
(2 Timothy 4:2)

👍
 
wait, I think you misinterpret me. Alright, I’ll state my purpose of why I asked the question.

Well, we are individually asked by our professor to prepare a presentation of any topic that interests us. And I think it’s time for me to open the eyes of my classmates by presenting the topic I have chosen- Catholic Apologetics.

Think of it this way: I would be talking to those people who partially or know nothing about the bible, so I guess it would not be convincing for them if I quote from the bible right away. I’m looking more of a practical answer. So how do I convince them without quoting from the bible right away?

Well I hope I clarified things up:o
 
This would be the format of my presentation:

I. What is Catholic apologetics?
II. Why do you need to defend your faith?
III. How do you start yourself in apologetics?
IV. Topics about the Catholic Church most Catholics confused at

My presentation would just be as simple as that. So could you help me add ideas in those four topics?
 
The thing about us Filipinos is that it’s not that we’re not familiar with the Bible, or what the Bible says. It’s just that it’s all jumbled up in our brains because we’ve been learning the Catholic faith ever since we were in kindergarten. We rarely get excited by it because like the family car, the Faith has always been there and we take it for granted. It’s up to you to make it more interesting for your audience.

Generally it’s inconceivable for us Filipinos to think that people don’t believe the same way we do. We’re a people with a very strong faith in Christianity, particularly in Catholicism because we’ve been so ever since the Spanish colonized us hundreds of years ago.

I would try to present Apologetics to us Filipinos in such a way that it “ties together” everything we’ve learned about the Faith in a cohesive manner, solid against adversity and logical, not just feelings-based.

The outline you’ve presented is already very nice. The only suggestion I could make is to make the contents relatable to your audience. What grade level are they? What are their backgrounds? If they’re Filipino then they have a very strong sense of family. Make it relate to that.

It’s a rule that an audience will only give you about 1 minute to sell your material before they get bored and move on to something else. Make that first minute that they’re listening to you worth their while and they’ll stay for the rest of the presentation.
 
e61iuser said:
The thing about us Filipinos is that it’s not that we’re not familiar with the Bible, or what the Bible says. It’s just that it’s all jumbled up in our brains because we’ve been learning the Catholic faith ever since we were in kindergarten. We rarely get excited by it because like the family car, the Faith has always been there and we take it for granted. It’s up to you to make it more interesting for your audience.

Generally it’s inconceivable for us Filipinos to think that people don’t believe the same way we do. We’re a people with a very strong faith in Christianity, particularly in Catholicism because we’ve been so ever since the Spanish colonized us hundreds of years ago.

I would try to present Apologetics to us Filipinos in such a way that it “ties together” everything we’ve learned about the Faith in a cohesive manner, solid against adversity and logical, not just feelings-based.

The outline you’ve presented is already very nice. The only suggestion I could make is to make the contents relatable to your audience. What grade level are they? What are their backgrounds? If they’re Filipino then they have a very strong sense of family. Make it relate to that.

It’s a rule that an audience will only give you about 1 minute to sell your material before they get bored and move on to something else. Make that first minute that they’re listening to you worth their while and they’ll stay for the rest of the presentation.
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Yes, I study in a Catholic University so you would be really expecting the audience to be Filipinos. Thanks for the suggestion anyway.
 
Here is the bare-bones outline I use in my Beginning Apologetics classes which is always well received:
INTRODUCTION TO APOLOGETICS
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Welcome/Prayer
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Introduction to apologetics
· Defined: APOLOGETICS. The science that aims to explain and justify religious doctrine. It shows the reasonableness of such doctrine in the face of the objections offered by those who refuse to accept any religion, especially Christianity and more particularly Roman Catholicism. Also called fundamental theology as the science that establishes the credibility of Christian revelation on the evidence of miraculous phenomena and the testimony of unbiased history. (Etym. Greek apologetikos, a defense.) [Modern Catholic Dictionary by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.]
· 1 Peter 3:15
· Purpose
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Objections: Divisiveness; “…Use words if Neccesary”
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Tools of the apologist:
· Personal Holiness
A. Listening (be a friend)
B. Don’t hide your faith
C. Invite
E. Offer info
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· Holy Scripture : Frank Sheed: “A Catholic apologist who is not soaked in the Gospels is an anomaly in himself, and his work is doomed to aridity.”
· Study: theology/history G.K. Chesterton
i. G.K. Chesterton “Theology is only thought applied to religion.”
ii. Cardinal John Newman “To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.”
· Resources.
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Three Basic Types of Objectors:
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  1. Non-Catholic Christians
    · Protestants—cannot all be lumped together. Some anti-Catholic, some not.
    · Issues: Authority—Scripture Alone (Sola Scriptura); Tradition
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  1. Non-Christians (Jehovah’s Witnesses—Mormons/LDS)
    · Issues: Authority; the Trinity; the Existence of Hell
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  1. Non-believers: (atheists & agnostics)
    · Issues: Existence of God; Science vs. Religion; Evil in the world
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Conclusion
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Like I said, this is only a skeleton of a presentation and each of these points need to be fleshed out during the talk. The task for you as a presenter is to become as knowledgable about each facet of the topic to the extent you have confidence speaking about it, and at the same time keeping it interesting. This means you have to do some research and study on each topic. If you don’t, your presentation will either be short and uninformative, or you will be reading directly off a piece of paper, which is really boring for everyone.

Good luck on this.
 
In my presentation I would tell the students that we should defend our faith because God wants us to defend the truth always - and what we are taught in our faith is the absolute infallible truth.
 
Continued from above…

As for the 'purpose" of apologetics (Which I think is your main question), I would inform them (or remind them) of what the stakes are:
  1. The truth: Apologetics is important because the truth matters. Truth is not relative to this person or that person but, rather, is objective. This is especially important when it comes to religious truth, because as Christians we believe that God himself has revealed certain truths for us to know. As Catholics also, we believe that the fullness of revealed truth is found in the Catholic Church, which includes both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, as well as authoritive interpretation of both.
  2. As Catholics, if we do not know how to explain and defend our Faith, we will endanger our own faith and that of others (like our children and other loved ones) by leaving open to doubt the truths of the Faith. Thus we can endanger the salvation of ourselves and others.
  3. As Catholics we have an obligation to evangelize others to the fullness of the truth as it has been revealed to the Church. Apologetics is a handmaiden to evangelization in that it helps remove the barriers a person might have to accepting that fullness of truth.
 
jamil_joseph02 said:
Why do we need to defend the Catholic faith?

any convincing reasons for those Catholics not yet engaged in apologetics?
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We do it out of love for God and neighbor. It’s an act of charity to share this faith with another.
 
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