2012 Year in Review: Apologetics 315

This year has flown by, and it's time to review what has happened on Apologetics 315 during 2012. Once again this year saw over one million page views and over half a million visits by over a quarter of a million people all over the globe. Thanks for being one of them!

This year I interviewed 44 guests for the Apologetics 315 Interviews podcast. (I listed them here.) I enjoy all the interviews, but some of my favorites this year included Ravi Zacharias, New Testament scholar Daniel B. Wallace, philosopher Richard Swinburne, Navy SEAL Chad Williams, theologian Michael Patton, and philosopher Robin Collins, to name a few.

This year we began a project to transcribe of the over 150 apologetics interviews. This is going well with the help of faithful volunteers and a bit of funding. These transcripts can be found here.

In 2012 we finished our first Read Along Project. It was a chapter by chapter study of Douglas Groothuis' Christian Apologetics textbook. It was a great success, and so we did another Read Along with Apologetics 315 project. This was for Sean McDowell & Jonathan Morrow's excellent book Is God Just a Human Invention? This was the second read-along project. 2013 promises another... stay tuned.

Every Sunday this year we featured an apologetics-oriented quote. It's always interesting to see the discussions that one quote can start!

The second day of every week continues to be Terminology Tuesday. This started out a couple years ago and was meant to be a short, ten-part series. But it became popular, and I believe this is a useful tool to help emphasize the importance of understanding and defining the terms that we use in apologetics.

People continue to leave comments about the Weekly Apologetics Bonus Links. Apparently, this is a favorite day of the week for many people, as Apologetics 315 features the week's best links to great posts and resources.

In case you didn't realize it, all the Bonus Links are all drip-fed through the Ap315 Twitter Feed throughout the week. It's a good thing to follow, because sometimes I feature free books available on Kindle.

If you don't prefer the chatter of Twitter, you can get daily updates on the Facebook Page. If you're not yet a follower on Facebook, please follow. This helps others find apologetics resources who might not be aware of Apologetics 315. I appreciate people spreading the word.

The YouTube Channel continues to gain followers. 15 videos were uploaded this year. There will be more next year, certainly. Some of the most-viewed videos include Tim McGrew's great series on the Gospels and their reliability.

Debates are a regular feature. This year Apologetics 315 featured the following 18 debates' audio and/or video:
• William Lane Craig & Peter S. Williams vs Arif Ahmed & Andrew Copson
• Michael Licona vs Shane Puckett
• Craig Evans vs Bart Ehrman
• Daniel B. Wallace vs Bart Ehrman
• William Lane Craig & Michael Licona vs Sakkie Spangenberg & Hansie Wolmarans
• Richard Dawkins vs Rowan Williams
• William Lane Craig vs Peter Atkins
• William Lane Craig vs Klemens Kappel
• David Robertson vs Mike Lee
• William Lane Craig vs Mike Begon
• Lenny Esposito vs Richard Carrier
• Douglas Jacoby vs Richard Carrier
• William Lane Craig vs Andrew Pyle
• William Lane Craig vs Paul Kurtz
• Hugh Ross vs Lewis Wolpert
• Michael Licona & Dale Martin (dialogue 1 / dialogue 2)
• William Lane Craig vs Kari Enqvist

Another 2012 project was the How to Get Apologetics in Your Church 2 podcast and e-book. This project had contributions from about 20 people who have had successful apologetics groups in their local churches or campuses. Get the ebook free here. Testimonials have come in from people who have begun their own apologetics study groups because of the insights they gained from this series.

The Former Atheist Project is underway, but has been delayed in its release. I am still seeking more contributors to this upcoming project. If you are interested in contributing, please let me know.

This year Apologetics 315 reviewed 47 apologetics books. I want to say a big thank you to my review team for their hard work in reading and reviewing so many great titles. Thanks goes out to J.W. Wartick, Jay L. Wyle, Mary Lou, Latter Day Inkling, Chad Gross, Dave Jenkins, Mark Eckel, Graham Veale, Luke Nix, Holly Ordway, David Rodriguez, Chris Putnam, Brenton Cook, Eugene A. Curry, G. Kyle Essary, Chad Gibbons, Bill McCall, David Field, and Mike A. Robinson.

The Most-Visited Pages of 2012 were:

1. The Ultimate Apologetics MP3 Audio Page
2. The 16 Best Apologetics Podcasts
3. Recommended Apologetics Book Directory
4. An Apologetics Reading Plan for Beginners
5. A Basic Logic Primer
6. 10 Pitfalls of the Foolish Apologist
7. Top 10 Myths About the Resurrection
8. Christian Apologetics Blog Directory
9. Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology Podcast
10. Former Atheist Richard Morgan Interview

Now that list included a lot of posts that have been around for a few years. So here is the list of Top Ten New Posts for 2012:

1. 10 Pitfalls of the Foolish Apologist
2. Top 10 Myths About the Resurrection
3. Former Atheist Richard Morgan Interview
4. Richard Dawkins vs Rowan Williams
5. C.S. Lewis on Reasoning to Atheism
6. Daniel Wallace vs Bart Ehrman
7. Best-Selling Apologetics Books of 2011
8. Apologist Interview: Ravi Zacharias
9. Who Wrote the Gospels by Tim McGrew
10. Navy SEAL Chad Williams Interview

Of course, bloggers couldn't make it without the help of other bloggers. So here's a shout out to a couple of blogging friends that I was pleased to meet up with in Michigan during the summer: Chad Gross of Truthbomb Apologetics and Wintery Knight from Winteryknight.com. (I was also pleased to meet up with Dr. Timothy McGrew, hero and mentor to all apologists!) And a special thanks to the Christian Apologetics Alliance and Apologetics Bloggers Alliance, both a great source of interaction and encouragement. (By the way, I am planning on being in Michigan in July 2013, if anyone wants to meet up.)

This year Apologetics 315 has been pleased to promote the work of Tactical Faith, an organization that gets apologetics out there in a grass-roots kind of way. They call it Grassroots apologetics. If you want to support apologetics events, this is an organization to help.

I continue to head up Reasonable Faith Belfast, now in its third year. We had some great meetings during 2012, including a Skype talk by cold-case detective J. Warner Wallace, a talk by Atheism's New Clothes author David Glass, and a bunch of talks by me on a variety of topics.

I was interviewed a few times this year. One was on EIE Radio, and the other by Tim McGrew about the vision of Apologetics 315.

Apologetics 315 promoted numerous apologetics conferences in the US and in the UK. I was happy to be able to attend the Unbelievable? Conference in London and meet Ken Samples and Hugh Ross. I also contributed to the Online Apologetics Conference 2012 hosted by Athanatos Ministries.

This year Apologetics 315 received its 501(c)(3) tax-deductible status. This has been a tremendous help, and thank you to those who have donated or become supporters. Find out more about that here, as it's not too late to make end-of-year donations.

Please pray for 2013 to be another good year. God bless, and thanks for reading!

—Brian Auten