Dr. R.C. Metcalf joins CrossExamined.org Team

Dr. R.C. Metcalf has joined the CrossExamined.org team.

Let's solve the 75% problem and reach our youth with the reasons they can confidently affirm their Christian faith in public. Please prayerfully consider inviting us to your church for a free seminar. Contact Dr. R.C. Metcalf at rcmetcalf@thinkagain.us after reading about our program.

3 out of 4 Christian teens walk away from the church after they leave home.

Dr. Frank Turek and the CrossExamined team are committed to reversing this alarming trend. Invite us to your campus and we'll present a dynamic interactive seminar that'll show you why Christianity is true and why it takes a lot more faith to be an atheist!

Consider these facts:

1) 75% of Christian youth leave the church after high school.
2) Intellectual skepticism is one of the major reasons they walk away.
3) Most Christian students are unequipped to resist rabidly anti-Christian college professors who are intent on converting their students to atheism.
4) College professors are five times more likely to identify themselves as atheists than the general public.
5) More than half of all college professors view evangelical Christian students unfavorably.
6) The “new atheists”—Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens—are writing books and are growing in popularity.

Christian youth in America are not being taught to cross examine the skeptical and atheistic views they encounter when they leave home. The good news is that we can do something about it! Browse the CrossExamined site for more information about how we're helping young people understand and defend why the Christian faith is true and reasonable, and how you can help.

“Dad, I’m not sure I believe in God anymore.”

My friend never thought he would hear those words. After all, he’s a well-known pastor with a large church and an international ministry. Yet, after just one year of college, his own daughter doubted nearly everything he tried to instill in her for eighteen years. “I now realize that I didn’t do a good job showing her why Christianity is true,” he told me. “Now, it might be too late.”

He’s not the only parent or pastor who’s failed to provide sound answers to young people. There are plenty of examples:

1) Anna, a pastor’s daughter, became an agnostic at UNC Chapel Hill.
2) Steve, son of a famous Christian, renounced biblical morality at Elon.
3) John, a high school worker for Campus Crusade, became an atheist after reading a Richard Dawkins’ book on atheism.

In fact, the problem is at epidemic levels — 75% of young adults raised in a Christian home leave the church after they leave the home. Think about that — on average, three out of every four kids attending your youth group won’t be attending any church a few years from now.

-- Frank Turek, CrossExamined.org Founder & President

Are You Paying for Atheism?

"Children spend the majority of their waking hours in school. Parents invest a good portion of their life savings in college education and entrust their offspring to people who are supposed to educate them. Isn’t it wonderful that educators have figured out a way to make parents the instruments of their own undoing? Isn’t it brilliant that they have persuaded Christian moms and dads to finance the destruction of their own beliefs and values? Who said atheists aren’t clever?" -- Dinesh D'Souza, What's So Great About Christianity, 2007

Why are they leaving?

Some think church is irrelevant. Others, out on their own for the first time, are attracted by all the world has to offer and put God on the back burner. Yet many leave because they’ve come to doubt Christianity. In fact, intellectual skepticism is a major reason cited by those who have left.

We can lay the blame for much of this on ourselves — that is, on the church. While there are notable exceptions, most American churches over-emphasize emotion and ignore the biblical commands to develop the mind (1 Pet 3:15, 2 Cor. 10:5). In other words, we’re doing a great job performing for our youth with skits, bands and videos, but a terrible job informing them with logic, truth, and a Christian worldview. We’ve failed to recognize that what we win them with we win them to. If we win them with emotion, we win them to emotion.

Now, I don’t want to discount the importance of emotion. If the Bible is true (as we show in the seminar), then God does want us to love Him with all of our hearts. But He also wants us to love Him with our minds (Mt. 22:37). Christians don't get Brownie points for being stupid! We're supposed to know what we believe and why we believe it. And for good reason — emotion alone is not enough to protect Christian students at college or make them bold witnesses for those they meet. If they arrive at college with nothing more than good sentimental feelings about Christ, they are easy prey for anti-Christian professors and a campus environment intent on undermining their faith.

Our mission at CrossExamined.org is to equip high school and college students to know why Christianity is true, how to defend it, and how to refute those who try to corrupt them.

Please browse the CrossExamined site to see how we are doing that and how you can help. Thanks!

-- Dr. Frank Turek, CrossExamined.org Founder & President

R.C. Metcalf to Debate Dan Barker at Tufts in Boston

Dr. R.C. Metcalf is scheduled to debate Dan Barker at Tufts University on the topic of the Resurrection. The debate is being sponsored by the Tufts Freethought Society. Last year's debate was between Dr. Daniel Dennett, author of Breaking the Spell, and Dinesh D'Souza, author of What's So Great About Christianity, on the topic of the existence of God. This debate can be viewed here via YouTube clips organized on Richard Dawkins' website.

Dan Barker is the president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, the largest atheist organization in America devoted to separation of church and state issues. Mr. Barker was once an evangelical pastor and is an accomplished songwriter. He is the author of Losing Faith in Faith. Dan's bio is available here.

Dr. R.C. Metcalf's bio is available at ThinkAgain.us.

Seminar: The Science of the Resurrection of Jesus

Dr. R.C. Metcalf will present a 2 hour interactive seminar on the science of the resurrection of Jesus Christ at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, CO. The event is scheduled for May 10, 2008 from 7:00 to 9:00 pm at the World Prayer Center on the New Life campus.

Check here again for further information...

Christians Urged to Meet Atheists in the Public Square

R.C. Metcalf and Dinesh D'Souza at NRB 2008

The following article is from The Christian Post, October 11, 2007. The original article can be viewed offsite by clicking on the title.

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Christians shouldn't always turn the other cheek and ignore the attacks of secular thought, says one prominent conservative writer. They need to step out and meet the atheist critique.

Thu, Oct. 11, 2007 Posted: 13:55:15 PM EST

Lillian Kwon, Christian Post Reporter -- Christians shouldn't always turn the other cheek and ignore the attacks of secular thought, says one prominent conservative writer. They need to step out and meet the atheist critique.

"We don't want the public square to be dominated by the atheists," said New York Times bestselling author Dinesh D'Souza.

D'Souza believes Christians have left the public square unoccupied, limiting their expression of religiosity to church on Sunday, their families, and the Christian subculture.

As a consequence, atheists have entered the public square – what Christians thought would have been "neutral space," as D'Souza put it. And they want to drive the Christians out, remove Christian symbolism from coins, the pledge and public buildings.

"Ultimately, they want to discredit Christianity as something that is incompatible with modern life and modern thought," said the noted author in an interview with The Christian Post.

D'Souza is calling Christians back to the public square.

"There is a time to turn the other cheek but there is also a time to drive the money changers out of the temple," he said. "By that I mean there is nothing in Scripture that says Christians should ignore or embrace attacks on their face. But with the right tone, using not only Scripture but reason and science and experience, I think Christians should step out into the world and meet the atheist critique."

D'Souza is due to release What's So Great About Christianity next week. It's his first book, among many, dealing with Christianity in America. He originally set out to approach the topic in a modest and more secular way, he said, but found himself in the midst of a number of atheist books hitting stores and greatly widening the attack on religion and, more specifically, Christianity.

The atheistic arguments – that Christianity goes against reason and science and is based on blind faith – are resonating with people, D'Souza noticed, and hitting bestseller lists.

"I do think that we are seeing a more self-confident and perhaps even militant atheism," he noted. "Atheists are kind of on the war path, out to attack religion, demean it, drive it out of the public square, and remove all religious symbolism from American society. So something odd is going on here."

One such atheist is Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, who is urging atheists to come out of the closet and declare themselves publicly with his Out Campaign. Like other "new atheists," Dawkins publicly rejects the existence of God and wants to drive out religion.

Part of the reason society is seeing an emboldened atheism is that a lot of these outspoken atheists were hoping religion would disappear as society became more modern and developed, according to D'Souza.

"Religion was seen as more of an ancient form of belief that would go away as science progressed and as we all became more successful, educated and affluent," said D'Souza.

"But this has not happened,” he continued. “And, in fact, religion is booming in countries around the world," including the most modernized ones such as India and China.

"So the atheist in a way is getting a little more desperate," D'Souza believes.

Living in a culture that is to a considerable degree secular, D'Souza would like to see in churches across the country apologetics come to center stage not to displace what the churches have been doing but to supplement it in a very important way, he said.

"[Christians] are going to meet arguments that cannot be settled simply by 'the Bible says this, the Bible says that' because the other person will promptly reply that they don't accept the authority of the Bible," D'Souza noted.

He suggests Christians become "bilingual" in which they are educated in both the biblical language and a secular language the world can recognize – a language anchored in history and reason and experience.

In his upcoming book release, due out Oct. 16, D'Souza dispels common myths about faith, many of which are argued by atheists.

Myth #1: Atheism is growing and more people are choosing it over church

Pews might be empty in some urban parts of America, but the world is witnessing a huge explosion of Christianity, says D'Souza who notes Christianity as the fastest-growing religion in the world and that the number of unbelievers is actually shrinking. In America, about half of the population goes to church and an overwhelming majority believes in God. But there are also "powerful currents of secularism" in this country that counter that, the author acknowledged.

Myth #2: Religion has caused history's wars, murders, and violence

The number of people killed in religious wars such as the Crusades or the Spanish Inquisition is infinitesimal compared to those killed during modern atheist regimes, the author notes. "We have to keep a sense of proportion," he says.

Dawkins had argued in an earlier debate that atheists never commit atrocities in the name of atheism while religious people do so in the name of their faith.

D'Souza disagrees. "Somebody should send Dawkins a copy of 'The Communist Manifesto' [because] the truth of the matter is that these secular ideologies of the 20th century were explicitly opposed to religion."

"Communism was explicitly atheistic. It committed attacks against the church, imprisoned priests, shut down prayer meetings ... in the name of creating atheist utopia freed from the shackles of traditional religion and traditional morality," said the conservative author.

Myth #3: There is no such thing as a human soul

Atheists use science to argue that there is no soul, as there is no physical evidence of one. "If the atheist universe were true, there would be no free will in it," says D'Souza. The world of science, of atoms and molecules, is one in which there is no free choice because the actions of the atoms and molecules determine the outcome, he argues. Atheists believe the only things that exist are the material things that can be seen under the microscope and smelled and touched to which there is empirical evidence, he adds.

"There are dimensions of reality that cannot be captured in purely material terms. When has science ever located a thought or a feeling or a choice?"

Myth #4: Where is God when bad things happen?

D'Souza turns this question around and asks where is atheism when bad things happen? At the tragic event of the Virginia Tech shooting in April, there were nonstop memorial services and everyone began to speak a very religious language of healing and spirituality, he noted. "Atheism has absolutely nothing to offer us at moments of life that matter the most – birth, marriage, death, suffering."

What's So Great About Christianity is a defense of Christianity, D'Souza explained, "but it's a defense that meets the critics of Christianity by taking them seriously."

RC Metcalf to Debate Steven Mahone in Colorado

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO (March 15, 2008, 17:28:00) – Dr. R.C. Metcalf, author of Colliding with Christ: The Science of the Resurrection (2008), will debate Steven Mahone, past president of the Freethinkers of Colorado Springs on Friday, April 4, 2008 from 7:00 to 9:00 pm. The debate was rescheduled from February 28, 2008, due to illness.
The debate will take place at Springs Community Church, which is located on the SW corner of Woodmen and Lexington. The church address is 7290 Lexington Drive, Colorado Springs, CO 80918. Interim pastor, Larry Burtoft, will moderate the debate.

The debaters will address the question, “Is There Hope Beyond the Grave?” This topic takes on an extra measure of significance due to the recent death of the church’s beloved founding pastor, Steven Robert Brooks, who succumbed to ALS on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 at the age of 56.

Steven Mahone will argue that while Pastor Steve’s legacy on Earth will help him live on in the hearts and minds of his congregation, family and friends for many years to come, the grave represents our final resting place. While agreeing with Mr. Mahone regarding the legacy we leave behind, Dr. Metcalf will argue for the reality of life beyond the grave.

Mr. Mahone currently sits on the board of directors for Colorado Citizens for Science, a non-partisan group that advances science education in the state. He has debated numerous theists including Jonathan Wells, Kent Hovind and Dr. David Noebel of Summit Ministries in Manitou Springs, CO. He was a guest debater on Focus on the Family, where he challenged Dr. Fazale (Fuz) Rana of Reasons to Believe. He has authored several articles published in the Colorado Springs Gazette and the Colorado Springs Independent. He lives in Colorado Springs with his wife and two children.

Dr. Metcalf authored the Science & Religion best-seller Letter to a Christian Nation: Counter Point, released in 2007. In his newest book, Colliding with Christ, R.C. Metcalf adds to the textual and historical evidence in favor of the physical resurrection of Jesus by presenting a thought-provoking new model that explains the events of the first Easter scientifically, but at a lay level. A member of American Mensa, the Evangelical Philosophical Association and the American Scientific Affiliation, Dr. Metcalf holds an M.S. in Science Education, a Doctorate in the health professions, and has partially completed a Master’s Degree in Theology. He has held research positions at both the U.S. Food & Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health.

For more information visit:
http://thinkagain.us
http://www.rcmetcalf.com
http://www.springscommunitychurch.org