"Good" Protestant Apologists

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kaycee said:
On what subject? Even Catholic historians know the debts of debauchery that occured in the medieval church. Porn is tame compared to the past abuse and sin.
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John MacArthur made a claim that the Vatican Library has the world’s largest collection of pornography. Now, there is no evidence to support this allegation. Now perhaps he has told you some evidence that we are not privy to, but the question is: What credible evidence exists that his allegation is true?

If there is no evidence, then it means that he is either a sloppy researcher, or he is deliberately misleading people. Neither one are admirable qualities for an apologist.
 
Two good mentions by people before, which I will second: Norman Geisler (as long as he sticks to philosophy and stays out of science—he is a good Protestant Thomist). And J.P. Moreland.

Also William Lane Craig—he also has an exceptionally useful website with archived articles.

Alvin Plantinga, of course, if you can read what he writes. That’s not a slam on him, by the way, or on anyone reading this. It’s just that some of what he writes is quite technical.

:bowdown: C.S. Lewis.

Someone mentioned Peter Kreeft, which I would second except that Kreeft is notably Catholic, so does he count for this thread? If he does, then of course Chesterton, J.H. Newman, J. Budziszewski, Robert P. George (best writer out there on social issues) and everyone else I’ll think of as soon as I finish typing. 😛 I like Scott Hahn and Dave Armstrong as well.
 
stinkcat_14 said:
John MacArthur made a claim that the Vatican Library has the world’s largest collection of pornography. Now, there is no evidence to support this allegation. Now perhaps he has told you some evidence that we are not privy to, but the question is: What credible evidence exists that his allegation is true?
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He made no allegation. This is his entire comment on the subject.

“I was fascinated to read in Lorraine Boettner’s book on Roman Catholicism this quote. “The largest collection of books in the world on the subject of sex is in the Vatican library.” Who checks them out? What are they, in there doing some scholastic work?”

Thats it. Commenting on someone elses claim is hardly creating an allegation.

I think demonizing MaCarthur for a comment he read is hardly fair.

I have seen some Catholics quote some of the older wacky “bios” on Luther as if it were the Gospel. There certainly is no substantiation to those claims, but it apparently doesnt matter.
 
kaycee said:
He made no allegation. This is his entire comment on the subject.

“I was fascinated to read in Lorraine Boettner’s book on Roman Catholicism this quote. “The largest collection of books in the world on the subject of sex is in the Vatican library.” Who checks them out? What are they, in there doing some scholastic work?”

Thats it. Commenting on someone elses claim is hardly creating an allegation.

I think demonizing MaCarthur for a comment he read is hardly fair.

I have seen some Catholics quote some of the older wacky “bios” on Luther as if it were the Gospel. There certainly is no substantiation to those claims, but it apparently doesnt matter.
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He is citing Boettner’s claim (which of course, should tell us something about how careful of a researcher he is). He then proceeds to ask those questions as if those claims were true.
 
Jerry-Jet said:
There is no such thing as a good Protestant apologist … Anyone that leads anyone away from the Catholic faith is by definition bad!
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Jerry, you seem to equate Protestant with “anti-Catholic”. They’re not the same. J. I. Packer, for example, is a first-class Catholic apologist. He certainly leads people TO Catholic faith, not away from it. But he’s a Protestant as it pertains to the Roman version of Catholicism. He’s Anglican, through and through.
 
His name has been mentioned here and while he’s maybe not an ‘apologist’ in the traditional sense, his work is very good. Alister McGrath. His apologetics specialises on existence of God from a scientific context (unlike many of these people he is a scientist).

But he has a great intellect, I read his book about the reformation recently: Christianity’s Big Idea - The Protestant Revolution. This is an amazing work of scholarship and I would recommend it to anyone interested in theology, especially a lot of the catholics here who don’t know much about protestantism! But it’s not written as an apologetic work, but as an introduction to study.

I like C.S. Lewis. Michael Ramsden is good, he works for the Ravi Zacharias trust.

In terms of catholic apologists, Scott Hahn and Jimmy Akin are pretty sound, even though I disagree with them on many things.
 
Bob Dutko, local radio show host in Detroit area on WMUZ the light has some good “top 10 proofs.” he has a great show and I believe him to be a great apologist.

Someone mentioned R.C Sproul, I would include John Macarthur, Norm Geisler, James White, I thinks that there is a guy named Nash who has a book called “The Gospel And The Greeks” refuting “pagan origins” claims–I think that’s the name of the book.–One I want to read–of course Ravi and McDowell—all Protestant
 
Although we may agree with them on certain issues I believe we can take what they say with a grain of salt…

Hank Hannegraph, Chuck Missler, Perry Stone
 
Pixie_Dust said:
I wish I could remember what the sermon was that I heard on Moody radio (it’s been over a month since I heard it) so I could listen to it again, but it sounded very much to me like he was trashing the RCC so I changed the station. I was so shocked to hear a man I previously admired and listened to regularly say such uncharitable things. 😦
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Don’t take Protestant Apologist’s comments against Roman Catholicism personal. All of them who study the doctines of Rome and find what they consider to be contrary to Biblical teaching do not hate/bash Catholics. None do if you seriously investigate their statements including Allister Baig. What they despise is what they see as a religious system that preaches a false gospel which the aposlte Paul spoke against with the strongest language as well (Galatians 1) pronouncing even anathema against any religious system that preaches a gospel contrary to that of Paul and the Apostles. Great Protestant apologists do not attack the Catholic people personally. Real Protestants who have truly converted to biblical christianity love the Catholic people and want to help see them understand the gospel of grace.

Peace in Christ,
 
RNRobert said:
C.S. Lewis was popular with Christians of all stripes since he focused on the core beliefs common to all Christians. I read that once someone asked him his opinion about some high church/low church debate. He refused to answer, saying that is usefulness derived from keeping clear of denominational squabbles.

He also said that that the conservatives of each denom had much in common with each other, and would be the best hope for Christian reunion- he said we’d never get there with the liberals.
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Interesting statement from Clive.
 
theLogos said:
Don’t take Protestant Apologist’s comments against Roman Catholicism personal. All of them who study the doctines of Rome and find what they consider to be contrary to Biblical teaching do not hate/bash Catholics. None do if you seriously investigate their statements including Allister Baig. What they despise is what they see as a religious system that preaches a false gospel which the aposlte Paul spoke against with the strongest language as well (Galatians 1) pronouncing even anathema against any religious system that preaches a gospel contrary to that of Paul and the Apostles. Great Protestant apologists do not attack the Catholic people personally. Real Protestants who have truly converted to biblical christianity love the Catholic people and want to help see them understand the gospel of grace.

Peace in Christ,
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What they “see” isn’t what really is. 😉
Biblical Christianity is Catholicism. The Catholic Church preaches the very same gospel that Jesus and His Apostles preached, it is Protestants who are preaching a different gospel.

The doctrines of the Catholic Faith are the doctrines of Jesus Christ, not Rome. There are many, many Catholics who are not Roman Catholic. If someone truly studied the Catholic Church’s history, they would not refer to it as “Rome.”
 
Pixie_Dust said:
What they “see” isn’t what really is. 😉
Biblical Christianity is Catholicism. The Catholic Church preaches the very same gospel that Jesus and His Apostles preached, it is Protestants who are preaching a different gospel.

The doctrines of the Catholic Faith are the doctrines of Jesus Christ, not Rome. There are many, many Catholics who are not Roman Catholic. If someone truly studied the Catholic Church’s history, they would not refer to it as “Rome.”
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Let’s not argue semantics. What Protestants are protesting against is not the wider Catholic church, but the particular Roman version of ‘Catholic’. As an Anglican I am both Protestant and Catholic. The Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds are integral to my faith … including their statements about belief in the holy catholic church. But there are certain practices of Roman Catholicism which I regard as unsupported by Scripture.

You may be using the term “Catholicism” to refer to the Catholic church generally, but you should recognize that the ‘-ism’ is widely and most commonly understood as referring specifically to Roman Catholicism, not generally to the wider Catholic church.
 
Simka said:
Let’s not argue semantics. What Protestants are protesting against is not the wider Catholic church, but the particular Roman version of ‘Catholic’. As an Anglican I am both Protestant and Catholic. The Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds are integral to my faith … including their statements about belief in the holy catholic church. But there are certain practices of Roman Catholicism which I regard as unsupported by Scripture.

You may be using the term “Catholicism” to refer to the Catholic church generally, but you should recognize that the ‘-ism’ is widely and most commonly understood as referring specifically to Roman Catholicism, not generally to the wider Catholic church.
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Most protestants do not understand the term “Catholic” even in the manner which you are using it and would be appalled if you called them Catholics. It is mostly just branch theory believers who try to make the distinctions which you are advocating.
 
rr1213 said:
Most protestants do not understand the term “Catholic” even in the manner which you are using it and would be appalled if you called them Catholics. It is mostly just branch theory believers who try to make the distinctions which you are advocating.
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No!!
Most protestant churches believe they belong to the catholic church (note small C).
 
Tim_Cleveland said:
To these I woudl add Allistair Begg. See him at truthforlife.com He is to Protestant teaching what I think Fr. John Corapi is to Catholic teraching. The most unapologetic of the Apologists to the extent that he pulls no punches. He is not afraid to call sin what it is. Perhaps because of this or in spite of it, he is one of the most sought after speakers in conservatiove evangelicalism today.
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Allistair Begg has a sharp mind. 🙂

Give him a few years and he will probably convert to the Church.
 
I like JP Holding and his website, they are more generally Christian Apologetics, but he usually has a fair look at Catholicism and has said good things about B16. Also, he is nice, you send him an email and he will respond if you have a question. He also is very critical of people like Osteen, Jakes, and a lot of these pop evangelist out there. check out his website, tektonics.org/newstuff.html
 
I can give you some people who aren’t really apologists, but you should probably read them anyway. First guy is Mark A. Noll. He was a history prof at Wheaton College for a long time, which is a Protestant undergrad college. Teaching undergrads is well below his pay grade, though, as he should have been teaching people going for their doctorates. But Wheaton doesn’t have that program for his field, plus his son was going to Wheaton, so he didn’t want to move out of there right away. Anyway, Notre Dame was going after him for several years and kept offering more and more money for doing the kind of teaching he really should have been doing for quite some time, and a couple of years ago he made the switch. Now he’s at Notre Dame teaching history with a huge emphasis on the history of the church. Isn’t it intriguing that Notre Dame would go after a Protestant Evangelical so aggressively, and that he would go there and apparently fit in fine with teaching doctoral students? Yea, read anything by him.

The other guy is Mark R. Talbot. He’s a philosophy prof. He’s awesome and has written some good stuff. One thing you can check out instantly is the-highway.com/articleMay05.html

Paul K. Moser is also very impressive. He’s the chair of the Philosophy department at Loyola. Divine Hiddenness is a very useful book, and I think you can find a good deal of it online.
 
Simka said:
Let’s not argue semantics. What Protestants are protesting against is not the wider Catholic church, but the particular Roman version of ‘Catholic’. As an Anglican I am both Protestant and Catholic.
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I’ve heard lots of Anglicans say that, myself included for some time. If you were truly Catholic you wouldn’t be Protestant. You can be catholic all you want, though! 😉
The Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds are integral to my faith … including their statements about belief in the holy catholic church. But there are certain practices of Roman Catholicism which I regard as unsupported by Scripture.
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My point was that you would also find those “unsupported” practices in the Eastern Catholic Churches, which are* just as Catholic* as the Latin Rite, commonly known as Roman Catholic. That is what I mean when I say Catholic Church, is all 23 Rites that are in formal communion with one another. All baptized Christians are members of this One Catholic Church, though not formally or completely.

The brand of Protestant I was before I became Catholic would have never called themselves even little-c “catholic” they were so very anti-Catholic. On my way into the Catholic Church (though I didn’t know that’s where I’d end up) I was attending a Lutheran Church (would have gone Episcopalian, but the ECUSA had already gone off the rails and my local parish went with them) and considered myself “catholic” but not “Catholic.” :cool:
You may be using the term “Catholicism” to refer to the Catholic church generally, but you should recognize that the ‘-ism’ is widely and most commonly understood as referring specifically to Roman Catholicism, not generally to the wider Catholic church.
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No, I’m using the term to include the other 22 Rites that are in communion with the Latin-rite Catholic Church.
 
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