Mission and Apologetics

This book is based on a series of lectures which the author delivered during the fall of 2003 as a guest professor at the prestigious Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea. Aware that the Korean Church has now taken over the lion's share of the recruitment and world-wide deployment of trans-cultural missionaries, the author seeks to equip students spiritually for the encounter with adherents of non-Christian belief systems and of anti-Christian movements. Avoiding mere alarmism, the intention is to give positive guidelines for persuasively presenting the biblical truth. Today the Gospel's claim that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life, apart from whom salvation cannot be attained, is contested not only externally by rival religions and quasi-religious ideologies; it is challenged within Christendom itself by those who deny the objectivity of biblical revelation and advocate an inter-faith dialogue aiming at a mere friendly sharing of spiritual experiences. Giving in to such a mentality severs the very roots of the Christian missionary vocation, as we see, alas, within a large segment of Western Christians today. Since the days of the Apostles and Church Fathers, evangelistic witness to and apologetic defence of the truth have always constituted two inseparable prongs of missionary outreach. The publication of these lectures is guided by the hope that the book may open many minds to the urgent relevance of this insight.