James White Comments on the D'Souza vs Barker Debate

On the 04-16-09 webcast of the Dividing Line, Dr. James White commented on the debate between Dinesh D'Souza and Dan Barker. I've posted on it before but I feel the need to talk about it again because seeing it through Dr. White's viewpoint I got to think about it differently. I still don't think that D'Souza did badly in the debate, but White's criticisms are also valid. At first I thought D'Souza's plan of attack - to argue against Barker without defending the Bible but to win on Barker's terms using only philosophy, science, and history. I see now how he failed to be most effective because Barker attacked the Bible. Dr. White is preparing for his upcoming debate against Dan Barker so of course he is thinking about the larger issue: How do you defend the faith against people who don't believe. A lot of Christians take the viewpoint that you can't use the Bible to witness or as an affective defense of the Bible if the people you are dialouging with refuse to acknowlege the Bibe as the Word of God. Dr. White takes a different view: defend the Bible, explain the Bible, stand on the Bible. I would further argue that this is the methods the Apostles used themselves. I have two examples: in Acts 2:14-41 - Peter's first sermon - all Peter used to prove his point was the Old Testament scriptures and he appealed to their own experiences. Remember Jesus had been crucified some 40 days prior and many, if not all, of his hearers had eyewitness knowledge of everything Peter was preaching. My other example is Acts 17 when Paul was in Athens on Mars Hill. What did Paul use? He used some philosophy and with the bulk of arguments based on scripture. The audience was different - people who likely had no idea what the Old Testament said. This shows me that we have tailor or preaching and teaching to our audiences. Dr. James White's comments are well-worth review. Here is the web cast: Dividing line 04-16-09.

Here is the full debate between D'Souza and Barker.
What had happen' was.....: D'Souza vs Barker: Christianity Vs Atheism